What I’m Watching For: Nuggets v. Timberwolves

The second round of the NBA Playoffs starts this weekend in the Western Conference with the Denver Nuggets squaring off against the Minnesota Timberwolves. This figures to be a fun series, with the NBA’s best player Nikola Jokic and ascendant star Anthony Edwards headlining.

By the numbers, the Wolves and Nuggets are pretty evenly matched this year. The Nuggets went 57-25 with a +5.3 point differential for the season compared to the Wolves 56-26 record with a +6.5 point differential. Minnesota is the stronger team defensively, as their 108.4 defensive rating was best in the league per NBA.com, compared to the Nuggets’ 112.3 defensive rating (8th). The Pups were more middling offensively, though, especially when compared to the Nuggets—Minnesota’s 114.6 offensive rating ranked just 17th overall, while the Nuggets’ 117.8 offensive rating was good for 5th.

In the head-to-head matchups, the teams went 2-2 against one another, but it’s hard to read too much into that record as a few stars missed games, including Karl-Anthony Towns (3 games), Rudy Gobert (1 game), and Jamal Murray (1 game).

The relative parity this year contrasts a bit with last year’s playoffs, however, as the Nuggets completed a Gentleman’s Sweep (4-1) of the Timberwolves in the first round, with the Wolves managing to pull out their one win at home in overtime. While the comparatively young T-Wolves squad did put up a good showing despite missing key contributors Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, the series was never really competitive as the Timberwolves struggled to pull through in late-game situations, where the Nuggets have thrived for years.

With more experience under their belts, a healthy roster, and a much stronger defensive identity in year two following the trade for Rudy Gobert, it’s reasonable to expect the Timberwolves to put up a much stronger fight this time around.

The Nuggets are the reigning NBA Champs, so it’s not surprising they are (and should be) heavy favorites to take the series. They’re negative -205 to win the series on FanDuel right now, making them roughly a 2-to-1 favorite. Whether Minnesota can pull out the series win will depend on a number of things, but I’m dialed in on a few of them. I’ll dive into them below.

How Is Ant’s Pick & Roll Decision-Making?

Anthony Edwards absolutely roasted the Phoenix Suns for four games in the first round, averaging an efficient 31 points (on 51.2% from the field and 43.8% from three), 8 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 2 steals and 0.8 blocks per game. He also trash-talked Kevin Durant mercilessly and drew lofty comparisons to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant from some real NBA luminaries.

Ant’s success in the series came as a result of elite outside shooting and fantastic decision-making when running pick and rolls.

It’s not that interesting to focus on the shooting. Edwards shot 35.7% from three this season and has shot 35.3% for his career; if he’s draining 43%+ of his threes, he’s going to be a huge problem. We’ll see if that continues—he’s getting mostly good looks, but I’m wary of the numbers coming back down a bit.

But how Ant has handled the pick and roll more generally feels different. It’s been a staple of Minnesota’s half court offense, especially in the playoffs, but he seems to be making superb reads quicker than he has in the past.

Take a look at these clips from the Wolves-Nuggets game on April 10. In a high-leverage game that had huge impact on seeding, Edwards was a bit hesitant coming off picks. On both plays below, Edwards doesn’t attack the screen with urgency, so the Nuggets never really have to compromise to address his attack.

In this first clip, Edwards does a hesitation dribble that lets the trailer defender Kentavious Caldwell-Pope recover. Jokic also doesn’t have to step up, which lets him stay straddle between cutting off Edwards and preventing an easy pass to Rudy Gobert as he dives.

Here’s a second clip.

You can see in this clip that Wolves intentionally bring Jamal Murray up into the action since he’s a weaker defender than Christian Braun. Because Edwards doesn’t attack the screen forcefully, Murray can just sit back in the driving lane. Edwards again has a slight hesitation before pulling up for a contested three—though it’s a makable shot for him, ideally you’d like to see him get downhill. Murray is too small to prevent Edwards from driving, and even a little bit of space would be enough for Edwards to hit either Mike Conley coming off the weak side flare screen or Gobert if Jokic rotates to cut off the Edwards drive.

On a few occasions, the Nuggets decided to double Edwards off the pick and roll. It’s a common strategy that teams across the league have been trying with ball-dominant guards, as it forces the ball away from the best creators on the opposing team. Edwards has seen this in some games, but it’s not utilized against him as often as with players like Luka Doncic or Jalen Brunson.

Edwards struggled with the double twice here. In the first instance, he didn’t get off the ball soon enough—it should go to Gobert, who should then pass out of it (in fairness to Edwards, Gobert gives up on the screen early, so that action probably wasn’t going anywhere). It’s fine, though, because Minnesota is able to reset. On the second screen, Jokic again moves to trap Edwards. To his credit, Edwards gets on Jokic’s hip, but given where he is on the floor, he’s left with the choice to make a really tough pass to Gobert or Jaden McDaniels in the corner, or to launch a three fading behind the backboard (which he did, and missed).

I want to make clear that these clips aren’t a major issue or anything close to it. Most pick and roll ball-handlers, other than true stars with serious passing chops, can run into these kinds of issues. In each of the clips, the defense was sound, and they even mixed up their approach from time to time. No matter how good he is, Edwards isn’t going to win these actions all the time. But these are the kinds of actions that Edwards needs to win consistently for the T-Wolves offense to be productive enough against elite teams in the half court.

That said, what’s really amazing is how much better Edwards has been at handling these situations in the playoffs this year. Against Phoenix, he was much more consistent about attacking pick and roll defenses aggressively and getting the ball out early when double-teams occurred.

For example, here’s a clip of Edwards dribbling straight past Royce O’Neale when he tries to switch a pick and roll.

What I like about this clip is that Ant attacks O’Neale immediately as soon as he realizes that O’Neale is giving up the middle lane. While Edwards is dribbling into the help defense (Kevin Durant, Eric Gordon, and the remains of Josh Okogie, who got completely wiped out of the play on the screen), his decisive attack puts a lot of pressure on Phoenix. Durant either has to stick to Towns, an elite three point shooter, or try to stop Edwards’ drive. Eric Gordon at the top of the screen similarly has to choose between sticking with Nickeil Alexander-Walker or stepping up to the drive. That puts Edwards at a decided advantage with multiple options, even if he ultimately is good enough to just take an easy lay-in.

This next clip shows Edwards getting off a double-team as soon as it comes. While it’s not off a pick and roll, Edwards does a good job recognizing that the defense is already compromised and will be forced into a tough rotation if he swings the ball.

The result is a clean look from Jaden McDaniels for three.

He also did a good job getting off doubles after a pick and roll. Here’s one where the quick pass out of the double-team leads to an easy shot for Kyle Anderson (nevermind that Anderson misses the bunny):

Edwards, of course, didn’t transform completely in the Suns series. He still has a tendency to hesitate a bit at the top of a pick and roll. That can work against slower defenders, like in the clip below where his hesitation freezes Jusuf Nurkic.

Still, he’ll want to attack these situations directly and with more urgency against the Nuggets, who handle pick and roll defense much better than the Suns. That will help force the Nuggets into difficult compromise situations to open up looks for Edwards or his teammates.

Will KAT Bully Smaller Guys On the Glass?

The Nuggets have tried to play just about everyone on Anthony Edwards for stretches. In their last game, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, and Michael Porter Jr. all spent time trying to defend Ant.

In an ideal world, Denver would prefer to park KCP on Edwards for the whole game. He’s a solid perimeter defender, and if he can at least contain Edwards a bit, Denver can let Aaron Gordon focus on Towns. But there’s a good chance that Edwards has become too much for KCP to handle for huge stretches given his strength and height advantage. Edwards roasted everyone the Suns tried to throw at him, including running straight through bigger players like Royce O’Neale, Kevin Durant, and Josh Okogie. If that happens, the Nuggets may need to shift their bigger bodies to Edwards just to hold up better at the point of attack. Even if it doesn’t, the Wolves will look for ways to get guys like Michael Porter Jr. and Jokic on Edwards to take advantage of his lateral quickness.

When the bigger guys are on the perimeter guarding Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns needs to capitalize big on his extreme height advantage over Denver’s guards and perimeter players that might be switched on to him. Towns should be able to easily shoot over smaller defenders like KCP, Murray, and Braun if they end up on him, but he can also use these mismatches to generate rebounds. Whenever Gordon is off of him, Towns should be looking to take advantage of his size.

The Wolves dominated the Suns in the first round partly off the strength of their rebounding. They averaged 48.2 rebounds per 100 possessions (14.3 offensive rebounds and 33.9 defensive rebounds). That was a dramatic improvement over their season-long averages, particularly on the offensive glass; the Timberwolves averaged 44.3 total rebounds per 100 possessions for the season (11th overall), with 34.7 defensive rebounds and 9.5 offensive rebounds per 100 possessions.

Towns’ size advantage should give the Wolves opportunities to win on the offensive glass in particular, if he wants it. Towns can be inclined to drift around the perimeter to hunt threes, but when he has smaller defenders on him, he should be looking to take advantage. Other than Nikola Jokic, who will frequently be occupied trying to keep Rudy Gobert off the glass, Denver doesn’t have anyone who can out-rebound KAT consistently—especially if Gordon or MPJ is on Edwards.

Offensive rebounds aren’t the core of KAT’s game, but he’s more than capable. Getting second chances will be especially important for a T-Wolves team that sometimes struggles in the half court.

I’m not hoping to see Towns to play like Shaq and try to post up smaller players. That would clog things up too much offensively for the Wolves, especially when Gobert is on the floor. It also risks Towns getting into foul trouble quickly given he’s not a natural post player and can be prone to bowling through defenders too clumsily. But if he can follow drives to the basket and look to crash readily on the glass, he could really generate a lot of extra opportunities for the Wolves.

Can Denver Punish Minnesota For Putting Gobert On Gordon?

A fair number of teams—including the Lakers last series—have concluded that stopping Nikola Jokic is basically impossible, no matter how good the individual defender you throw at him is. Instead, teams that have a good rim protector have often opted to try having another big-ish player guard Jokic while their best help defender (usually a center) matches up man-to-man with Aaron Gordon. The theory is pretty simple and sensible: you can’t stop Jokic one-on-one, so have a quality help defender ready to pounce and risk Aaron Gordon beating you from the perimeter. Gordon shooting isn’t that risky as he shot just 29% from three this year, and he’s a 32.3% shooter from three for his career.

I’m so excited to see how Denver attacks this matchup. If Denver can figure out how to consistently take advantage of Gobert sagging off Gordon to play help defense, it’s going to be difficult for Minnesota to slow Denver’s offense down enough to win.

I’m sure that Denver coach Mike Malone and his staff have cooked up dozens of ways to attack the Gobert-Gordon match up, but I want to tick through a few that I think are potentially interesting.

Perhaps the most obvious option is simply getting Gordon involved in the pick and roll to force Gobert into the action and away from the basket. There are basically four options here: Gordon as the screener for Jokic; Gordon as the screener for another shooter (not Jokic); Jokic as the screener for Gordon; or another shooter (not Jokic) as the screener for Gordon. All of these actions force Gobert into the mix and away from the basket.

• If Gordon screens for Jokic, it’s likely going to be a big-on-big screen since it’s hard to imagine the Wolves trying to stick anyone smaller than Karl-Anthony Towns/Naz Reid/Kyle Anderson on Jokic regularly. Bigs aren’t used to fighting over screens, so Gobert is probably going to have to play at the level of the screen or hedge even higher to prevent Jokic from shooting or getting crystal-clear passing lanes. Jokic doesn’t have blow-by speed, so that’s probably the right call—but the Wolves have to hope that Jokic can’t find an open shooter or cutter out of the action early.

• If Gordon screens for another shooter (think Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, or even Reggie Jackson), Gobert would still be drawn into the action and away from the basket. Gobert likes to play drop coverage on screens, where he falls back to defend against the drive and roll—but with a good shooter, that drop often has to be slower. That can make time for Jokic to find space on the weak side and get deep position against a weaker defender, with Gobert out of place to provide adequate help.

• Gordon can also act as the primary ball-handler in a screen with Jokic or another shooter, but there’s a good chance that both defenders would still with the screener (Jokic or the shooter) rather than try to follow Gordon over the screen. Obviously, Gordon could shoot from there since he’d be wide open. He could also try to get downhill quickly and put pressure on the paint, but that’s not really his game. I don’t expect the Nuggets to rely Gordon as the ball-handler (and I can’t think of times they’ve used it regularly) because it puts Gordon in positions he isn’t really used to.

Another option is getting Gordon to set off-ball screens for a better shooter like Michael Porter Jr. or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. With Gobert looking to help on Jokic, Gordon can sit in the weak side corner and opportunistically look to set back-picks or flare-picks for Denver’s stronger shooters. Here’s a really crude example (sorry my artwork sucks):

Denver can also let Jokic go to work on the opposite side of the paint from Gordon, especially further down the block. Jokic is really comfortable one-on-one in this area, and he’s going up against a below average defender in Towns here (because Gobert is on Gordon). For Minnesota, this is a tough look to deal with. Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley can’t help out easily or they will leave quality shooters. Gobert has a lot of ground to cover between Gordon and helping Towns. And if he moves too far toward Jokic, Gordon will be able to operate from the dunker’s spot, where he has a variety of moves to finish and can comfortably cut into the middle of the paint. Again, here’s another crude drawing to show how difficult Gobert’s responsibility gets—the shaded area is basically what he has to cover even if Gordon opts not to extend to the three point line:

The last thing I’ll address is that Gordon can just shoot it better, too. Denver might just let him shoot! Though his shooting was down a bit this year, in 2021-22 and 2022-23, Gordon shot 33.5% and 34.7% from three point range. He also shot 39% from three in the playoffs last season, and Gordon’s shooting was a big part of what let Denver win the Western Conference and the title last season. If Gordon can shoot closer to 35% from three (which is certainly possible), Minnesota’s strategy of helping on Jokic is going to be much less effective.

I had to cut myself off rather than dream up new things that Denver hasn’t shown much yet. But needless to say, this is going to be interesting—I’m super excited to see how the series will go.

Who’s Gonna Win?

Just in case folks are curious, I’m picking Denver to pull the series out in six games. Their offense is exceptionally versatile and their long playoff experience will probably come into play at some point. With that said, Minnesota is absolutely capable of pulling out the series. I suspect the T-Wolves to figure out the best ways to slow down Denver’s offense (to the extent that’s even possible), and their size and length should give them as good of a chance as anyone to win. If Anthony Edwards can reprise his pick and roll efficiency and three point shooting and Karl-Anthony Towns makes his presence known on the boards (Minnesota would benefit from Jaden McDaniels doing the same), the Pups could generate enough half-court scoring to win the series—but they’ll need to be more consistent than they’ve been in the past to do so.

KAT Is Hurt, But Don’t Sleep on the Wolves

Just going to do a quick post this week as we got some big news this week that significantly impacts the NBA playoff race. Shams reported that All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns has a torn left meniscus. It looks like KAT will have surgery on the knee next week and the team will re-evaluate his knee in four weeks, but he will likely miss more time than that given meniscus surgeries can take 4-8 weeks to recover (plus rehab). That’s a problem since the first round of the NBA Playoffs will start on April 20, about six weeks from now.

Obviously this is a huge bummer for the Pups and their fans who have been riding high all season. The T-Wolves currently sit second in the Western Conference after losing last night in OT to the Cavaliers, but they’re only a half-game back of the first place OKC Thunder (with whom they’ve traded back and forth for first place in recent weeks).

Towns’ injury has a lot of people concerned, and while it’s never a good thing to lose one of your best players, I actually think the Wolves are well positioned to weather the storm.

First off, Minnesota’s strong start through the first three quarters of the season has put them in a great position. It’s exceptionally unlikely that they can fall any further than fourth in the Western Conference, so they’re going to have home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs barring an epic collapse.

Although they have only a slim half-game lead over the third-place Nuggets, the Wolves have a much healthier two game lead on the fourth place Clippers and a huge 5.5 game lead on the fifth place Pelicans. Eight of the Timberwolves’ 18 remaining games are against teams with records under .500, so Minnesota should be able to at least tread water. If they can win even half of their remaining games, the Wolves would effectively lock up a top-4 seed unless the Pelicans can go on a miraculous run of 15-4 or better (and win eventual tiebreakers).

Setting the standings and future schedule aside, the Wolves have built their success this season on the defensive end of the floor. They are by far the NBA’s best defensive team this season, sporting a defensive rating for the season of 108.1—fully two points better than the second place Boston Celtics at 110.3. [For those who prefer traditional stats, things look just as good: the Wolves give up just 106.6 points per game, lowest in the NBA and about 2.7 points per game better than the second place Knicks.] That’s a meaningful improvement over last year, where the Wolves were 10th in the NBA in defensive rating, and a sea-change from where the Wolves typically resided before adding Rudy Gobert in 2022 (in the seven seasons Towns’ was in Minnesota before Gobert arrived, the Wolves finished higher than 20th in defensive rating just once).

Other metrics similarly confirm the Wolves status as an elite defensive team. Led by Rudy Gobert and strong defensive wings Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards (when he wants to), the T-Wolves are holding opponents to shooting just 44.6% from the field (best in NBA) and 34.9% from three (third best). They only struggle defending the free throw line, where they give up a middle-of-the-pack 78.3% free throw percentage—just kidding, I’m only making sure you’re paying attention. On top of that, the Wolves are amongst the league’s top 5 teams in blocks per 100 possessions, top 5 in defensive rebounding rate, and top 10 in steals per 100 possessions per Basketball Reference. Except for steals, all of those numbers are significantly up from last year.

Towns, for all his talents, isn’t a huge contributor to the Timberwolves defensive explosion this year, so losing him isn’t likely to harm them much on defense. Towns has never had a reputation as a quality defensive player. That reputation may be slightly overstated, but it’s not wrong either. Although he does a solid job on the defensive glass, you’ll struggle to find other defensive metrics where Towns excels. Despite his 7-foot size, he’s 75th in the NBA in block percentage per Basketball Reference and he ranks 150th in steal percentage. According to PBP Stats, the Timberwolves give up 5.8 more points per 100 possessions on defense with Towns on the floor. [Cleaning the Glass puts a similar metric at 3.8 points worse per 100 possessions.]. Meanwhile, Dunks and Threes rates Towns’ estimated defensive plus/minus at 0.0 (slightly above average) and Basketball Reference gives up a defensive box plus/minus of 1.0 (not terrible, but not noteworthy). At the end of the day, we shouldn’t expect losing Towns to really cost Minnesota on the defensive end beyond losing front court depth.

Losing Towns is a much bigger deal offensively.

According to Cleaning the Glass, the Wolves score 7.9 more points per 100 possessions with Towns on the floor and their overall effective field goal percentage jumps by 3.8%, huge benefits that are hard to replace. Yet Minnesota has one of the best “KAT replacements” in the NBA already on its roster in Naz Reid. Reid isn’t the same level of offensive talent as KAT, but he’s a pretty close facsimile, and even with Reid filling in the Pups will still have to make some adjustments. But they can cover Towns’ absence through the regular season and potentially even for the early part of the playoffs.

Comparing Towns and Reid based on rate stats, it’s easy to see the similarities. Guess who is who?

Per Basketball Reference

Player A is Towns and Player B is Reid, and their numbers are awfully close.

Towns is a slightly better shooter than Reid and definitely has more of a penchant for getting to the line and knocking down free throws. He’s also a bit better as a rebounder and distributor. Otherwise, Reid puts up pretty similar numbers to Towns, and he does so while carrying a relatively high usage rate of 22.3% (especially high for a backup big man). Pushing Reid’s minutes and usage upward can help the Wolves make up for a lot of what Towns does.

Reid’s ability to play the same role as Towns on offensive is apparent watching the Wolves, too—and it showed up repeatedly in the Cavs game last night.

Perhaps most importantly, Reid runs the pick and pop to perfection, which helps Minnesota to generate a healthy 1.23 points per possession when he operates as the screener per NBA.com (they generated an outstanding 1.45 points per possession with Towns).

Reid sets a pick for TJ Warren on the wing then reverses to set an on-ball screen for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and pops out for an open three. Minnesota doesn’t have a true scorer on the floor (with due respect to Warren, who just joined the team), but using Reid as the screener forces the defense into a series of really tough decisions. They can’t easily cheat off of Warren, who is a capable scorer despite his faults and running toward a potential screen action with Rudy Gobert. And faced with the Alexander-Walker/Reid screen, Georges Niang opts to pick up the driver which leaves Reid with a wide open three. Even if Darius Garland cheats back, that’s still leaving a small guard to contest a 6’10” shooter in Reid.

Here the Wolves run a simple screen action, but they’ve pulled several help defenders outside with Ant Edwards replacing TJ Warren on the weak side. Jordan McLaughlin pushes downhill aggressively, forcing the screen defender Jarrett Allen to step up or risk getting blown by without a good help option to save him (Walker-Alexander is in the corner holding the playside help). Reid knocks down another triple.

They can also run similar concepts with Edwards, who is far and away Minnesota’s biggest offensive threat.

Ant misses Reid popping out on this play, but you can see that running on-ball pick and pops with Edwards and Reid is a hard thing for defenses to deal with. Ant drives so forcefully that all five defenders are watching him, including Damion Jones who is supposed to be guarding Reid. Jones sprints back and loses all sight of Reid who is sitting wide open, ready to shoot, without a defender in the frame.

The Wolves can even run pin-downs for Reid, like they have frequently in the past with Towns.

That is a big time play. It’s overtime against a top-3 seed in the East. Reid still has the confidence and talent to drill a huge three off a pin-down action centered around Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson (not exactly the biggest offensive threats in the world).

Reid isn’t quite the midrange that Towns is, but he can still find ways to be effective by getting deeper into the paint to take advantage of his size.

Reid’s being guarded by Isaac Okoro (a good wing defender), but he has a significant size advantage. Rather than settling for a midrange jumper, Reid drives to his strong-hand to take advantage of a half-hearted closeout and gets deep into the paint, going through Okra’s chest for the bucket. It should’ve been an and-1. That’s a big time bucket to put the Wolves up by one in the last minute of the fourth quarter.

Reid will also take advantage of slower bigs off the drive too, especially if they are closing out late to stop a three:

Jarrett Allen gets caught here closing out high on Reid (he was understandably watching for the Edwards cut to the basket). Reid sees it and immediately gets Allen moving laterally, where he’s at a disadvantage, which Reid presses by spinning back for a layup at the rim.

Reid also does a great job of getting out into transition, which isn’t something the Wolves often get from Towns. He’s got enough of a handle to push the ball himself and most importantly he’s willing to do so. According to NBA.com, Minnesota generates a strong 1.26 points per 100 possessions with Reid in transition, too (KAT doesn’t do it enough to even make NBA.com’s stat page).

I love this play. Reid recognizes Sam Merrill and Caris Lavert are the only defenders back and uses his speed and handle to run the floor. He’s got McLaughlin in the corner (who he maybe should’ve hit), but it doesn’t matter because he attacks the rim and gets fouled. It’s not sexy, but it’s the type of instant transition game that can help an offense get easy points.

Here’s another transition win of a different sort.

Reid again initiates the transition, but this time he gives the ball up to Alexander-Walker in the corner. When Alexander-Walker drives, Reid continues into the paint on a secondary break and puts Sam Merrill in the basket, drawing a foul. This is fundamental basketball, but it’s only made possible by Reid’s willingness (and skill) to initiate the fast break himself.

With Reid substituting for Towns temporarily, the Wolves can stay afloat in the regular season and perhaps even make it through the first round of the playoffs. Given Minnesota hasn’t won a playoff series since 2004, that would be a success. But at the end of the day, the Wolves probably can’t advance far into the playoffs without Karl-Anthony Towns. He’s a core piece of the puzzle for them and a ceiling-raiser. Towns is also better and more versatile than Reid offensively—in fact, he is one of the best (if not the best) big-man shooters and carries a substantial offensive load for a Wolves team that has at times struggled on that end of the floor.

The Wolves can run most of the same offense with Reid that they’ve run with Towns in the past, and they can use Reid’s better transition ability to try to get easy buckets. They also should get a defensive boost, too, as displayed by Reid’s stellar block on a Darius Garland jumper to force last night’s game into OT:

By slotting Reid into KAT’s offensive role, the Wolves can cover Towns’ absence if they find a way to fill Reid’s old role with Anderson and others. That’s a less scary task, and one that the coaching staff should be able to navigate over the next 18 games. It may even have the added benefits: letting Ant fully become the offensive engine (he’s already well on his way) and encouraging Mike Conley to look for offensive more aggressively.

All told, even with KAT’s absence, I’m bullish on the Wolves finding their way to a top-3 or -4 seed in the West and being in position to win a playoff series. They’ll need KAT back, but they can survive while he heals up.