The Minnesota Timberwolves have looked like a club primed to make a run at the playoffs this season at times. The youthful Wolves have some fantastic individual offensive weapons, led by Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, and D’Angelo Russell (currently sidelined with an ankle injury), and their defense has come together in a way few expected prior to the season.
However, on nights like Wednesday against the Jazz, Minnesota is too easily affected by defensive pressure from opponents, resulting in a 136-104 loss that dropped the team to 11-14 on the season. Towns had 22 points, seven rebounds, and five assists on 7-of-11 shooting against the Jazz, a terrific stat line that also shows one of Minnesota’s difficulties. Towns is a willing passer when teams send double teams at him, but the Wolves need him to take more than 11 shots in a game, especially if Russell isn’t on the court.
After the loss, second-year standout Anthony Edwards stated the message he attempted to get over to Towns at halftime, which was to stop waiting for teams to deploy the double and attack a mismatch like Bojan Bogdanovic as soon as possible.
“I told KAT the best way to beat it, you gotta go quick. I told him at halftime, you waitin on the double. You tellin them yeah come double me. Now you the best player on the floor, they takin you out of the game. Then when the double you, they not rotatin, they stayin with me and making everybody else beat you. So I just told him, like, you gotta go quick. I told him this, you watch Joel Embiid, you have to double Joel Embiid — there’s nobody in the league that can guard him — so he goes quick. You can’t double him cause he catches and goes quick. So I told KAT, you catch the ball and you holdin it like you waitin for the double. Tellin them come double me instead of just catching and going. They can’t guard you. It’s disrespectful for them to put No. 44 on you. That’s disrespectful. He know. He know he gotta kill all of them. He’s the best player on the floor every night.”
It’s not a new suggestion for Towns, who has often been told by teammates and coaches that he should be more assertive and attempt to dominate, but it’s also the most persuasive way to make that case — the Jimmy Butler technique, if you will. Edwards isn’t questioning KAT’s manhood or will to win; he’s merely attempting to energize him by telling him, “You’re the greatest player on the court, go dominate.” Edwards is correct in saying that placing Bogdanovic on Towns isn’t a realistic defensive approach for a team, and it’s up to KAT to exploit that mismatch until the opposing team alters their scheme, rather than allowing it work. With that message now coming from a place of positivity, hopefully for Minnesota it will be received as such and lead to an even better version of Towns, which would be rather scary for the rest of the league.
