'Building through the bumps': Can Wolves find their offensive footing?

Minnesota ranks 28th in the NBA in offensive rating over the last 10 games.

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards drives to the basket past Golden State Warriors forward Trayce Jackson-Davis (32) and looks to pass the ball in the second half at Target Center in Minneapolis on Dec. 21, 2024. / Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Timberwolves missed their first 11 shots of the second quarter Saturday night against the Golden State Warriors. Five of the attempts were layups or dunks, and the scoreless drought spanned the first 6 minutes, 22 seconds of the quarter. The Wolves also turned it over thrice during that stretch, which finally ended when Jaden McDaniels hit a 3.

Minnesota shot just 6 for 22 in the quarter overall, the same mark as in the first frame in which the team mustered just 15 points. That made it just a 27% mark from the field for the entire first half, and the Wolves entered the break down by 13.

"We got to put the ball in the basket," Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said after Saturday's game, which eventually became a 113-103 Wolves loss to the Warriors. "That's why we were down tonight. We weren't down because of our defense. We weren't down because we had a bunch of breakdowns. We just couldn't make a shot."

In the first half anyway. The script completely flipped in the third quarter when the Wolves made 11 for their first 13 attempts from the field, the last of which — a 3-pointer from Naz Reid — erased the 13-point deficit entirely and gave Minnesota its first lead of the night with 4 minutes, 24 seconds still to play in the quarter. Five of those 11 makes were from within five feet of the rim, and the Wolves shot 71% in the frame overall as they found themselves right back in it.

The issue is that Saturday's game felt like a microcosm of the Wolves offense this season. They've had stretches — like in the third quarter — where they've looked like world beaters. Shots are falling, they're finding each other near the rim and they're continually making the right play. But the stretches like the beginning of the second quarter are similarly familiar. Those periods of time where they've looked inept, dribbling to nowhere, turning it over, even missing easy open shots.

Context, of course, is important. The Wolves are still just 27 games into a season that featured massive roster changes just before training camp when Karl-Anthony Towns was traded to the New York Knicks for Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle. Reid said this season has felt similar to when the Wolves first brought in Rudy Gobert a couple years ago.

It took time then for everyone to adjust. Once that happened, the results were exceptional. Reid sees parallels.

"We didn't have a preseason together, you know what I'm saying, so it's kind of still some stuff up in the air, but it's things that obviously we can build off of," Reid said. "... It's a lot more basketball to be played. Like I said, we're still learning each other, still learning how to move off of each other and things of that nature."

There are signs the Wolves have figured out some things defensively. Minnesota is 6-4 in its last 10 games and boasts the NBA's best defensive rating over that stretch, allowing just 101.3 points per 100 possessions. But they've still lacked any sort of rhythm offensively. Over that 10-game period, Minnesota is 28th in the league in offensive rating at 105.5.

It's also been 11 games since the Wolves have scored 110 or more points. They haven't usurped that number since a 117-111 loss to the Houston Rockets in an NBA Cup group-play game on Nov. 26, and it took overtime to get there then.

Anthony Edwards made headlines the other night when he said the Wolves lacked an offensive identity. Edwards said the team knows that he and Randle will take a lot of shots — Edwards averages a team-best 25.6 points per game while Randle averages the next most at 20.1 per night — but that there's not consistency in the team's offensive approach.

Edwards wasn't incorrect. Even he and Randle have been up and down, and Edwards is taking on double teams every night, which have frequently been more successful in slowing him down. The bench has been up and down, too. There just hasn't been an individual or a lineup the Wolves have been able to rely on for consistent offense night in and night out.

"We're trying to find some things we can repeat right now, but it's difficult sometimes when they're putting two guys on (Edwards) all the time," Finch said. "And certainly he's a guy that we need to get shots and looks in a cleaner space."

How can that be accomplished? DiVincenzo noted that Edwards and Randle do a good job of getting downhill, and the rest of the team needs to focus on giving themselves up for one another, however that might look on any given night.

"Just moving around, less standing around, more of giving yourself up cutting," DiVincenzo said. "Sometimes setting a random screen somewhere off the ball, just to get the defense moving to give these guys more space so they're not sitting in boxes and elbows so they can get downhill."

It would be hard to argue the Wolves have gotten much closer to finding their identity on offense, particularly over the last 10 games. But there have been little steps in the right direction. Even Saturday night, the Wolves corrected course in the second half. They ultimately assisted on 27 of their 36 made shots and shot 42% from the field. They played with more pace and scored 17 points in transition, which is well above their lackluster season average of 13.5 per game.

Finch felt like the offensive rhythm was better Saturday night. It's on the Wolves to get it all the way there.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

"Obviously everybody knows what this team did last year, but this team is not last year's team," DiVincenzo said. "And I think we collectively in here have let that go, and we're building to something great. That we feel that we have something great here. It's all about sticking together and building through the bumps."