The regular season is in its last hours. Most of the lineups that will dictate May basketball have already more or less materialized. So, for this week, I decided to adopt a format from one of my favorite sports podcasts (shoutout Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux) and do a more detailed breakdown of a recent game with two contending teams. Often, it’s the minor things that can break open a series — consider every Utah playoff loss from 2020-2022 — and that’s what I will focus on here.
First, some context. Unlike some of the most consequential games that will still be played around the league, Minnesota at Phoenix wasn’t between teams directly competing for the same playoff slot. But both Minnesota and Phoenix are still vying for a position in narrow standings battles.
Minnesota, 53-23 coming in, has been fighting for the Western Conference’s top spot with Denver and Oklahoma City for most of the season. After the Nuggets dropped their game Thursday night against the Clippers, the Timberwolves retook the number one seed by half a game. The Timberwolves’ ascent back to the top of the conference has also come without all-star Karl Anthony-Towns, who was diagnosed with a torn meniscus in early March.
Phoenix, previously 45-31, has lately been fighting to stay out of the play-in tournament with Dallas, New Orleans, and Sacramento. They came in half a game up on the Pelicans at the six seed. Excluding Damion Lee, the Suns are completely healthy, which has been a rarity. The Beal-Durant-Booker trio has produced a solid +6.4 net rating when they all share the court, with strong offensive results, but has struggled with availability issues.
The game itself wasn’t very close. Phoenix led from the tip and maintained a double-digit advantage for the entirety of the second half, cruising to a 97-87 final tally. Rather than a typical Phoenix win, though, this was a defensive struggle. Minnesota was held to an atrocious 85.9 offensive rating — that’s in the first percentile this year — and the Suns themselves only managed a rating of 97 (seventh percentile). Neither team consistently scored with their preferred actions, and neither team was particularly amazing in transition, either. I’d credit both the offensive and defensive personnel of Minnesota for these grisly results.
Minnesota has the best defense in the league. You could see why on Friday night. I was most impressed with how Minnesota handled Durant. Any time Durant caught the ball inside the three-point line, Minnesota immediately doubled from the top and seamlessly rotated behind the double to stifle any advantage. Durant quickly responded to doubles with passes back out to the perimeter, and Phoenix didn’t waste time trying to find an open shooter. But Minnesota had the communication, speed, and length to prevent any holes from being exposed, and sometimes even forced turnovers in passing lanes as Phoenix swung the ball around. The statistical results on Durant himself weren’t brilliant — he finished the game as Phoenix’s best scorer — but he attempted only one shot at the rim, lived on difficult off-the-dribble midrange jumpers, and attempted just 14 shots in total.
Devin Booker was similarly forced out of easy scoring opportunities. Minnesota’s screen navigation (Nickeil Alexander-Walker was particularly effective here) after high Nurkic ball screens forced Booker off any three-pointer pullups, pressured him away from easy mid range shots further downhill, and generally forced passes to the rolling Nurkic. Nurkic was able to play the slight advantage in these situations into successful one-on-one post ups against Gobert, but that isn’t a matchup any center can live off sustainably.
One of the rare instances where Minnesota gave up a wide open shot in the halfcourt came when Phoenix tried a three-man screening action, with Beal on the ball and Nurkic and Booker setting picks. Minnesota doubled Beal coming off the first screen, but Beal managed to lob a pass over Gobert to an unmarked and rolling Nurkic, leaving Edwards to rotate off of Durant in the corner to prevent a Nurkic dunk. The initial action’s location on the opposite side of the court meant no one could then rotate back to Durant, who made the wide open three after a Nurkic pass. Why did I highlight this play? It was one of the only times Phoenix went to a three man action! Vogel isn’t the most offensively slanted coach, and Phoenix’s stars are most comfortable in more vanilla sets. But against a defense like Minnesota, especially in the playoffs, it’s a wrinkle they will need.
As much as Phoenix struggled to find good looks offensively, Minnesota was still noticeably worse. A common pattern of the Timberwolves offense was some series of perimeter screens that transposed into an isolation drive once the ball handler felt they had a good angle. Problematically, Phoenix had no problem clogging the paint when Gobert was on the court. So, even if the Minnesota ball handler did beat their man off the dribble, most of these drives either ended in heavily contested layups or were cut off into short midrange shots. The Timberwolves could only manage a poor 33 percent on such short midrange shots and an atrocious 40 percent directly at the rim (that’s another first percentile number). Their 32 percent three-point shooting did not help their spacing issues.
The Timberwolves best offense came from a combination of off ball motion and lapses in awareness from Phoenix defenders. Booker was back cut by Edwards and McDaniels twice for dunks and lost Conley on a simple movement to the wing for an open three.
However, against a mediocre defensive team, Minnesota didn’t establish any sustainable way of creating good shots for themselves. I don’t trust that to change in the few weeks before they face prepared opposition. Their season long net rating still points to a team of championship caliber, but it would take spectacular shot making from Edwards to propel this Minnesota offense through two or three playoff rounds without an effective Karl Anthony-Towns — or a historic defensive run from Gobert, McDaniels, Anderson, and Alexander-Walker. Time will tell.
Leave a Reply