Defense shines, offense struggles in Minnesota Timberwolves’ loss to OKC Thunder

Defense shines, offense struggles in Minnesota Timberwolves’ loss to OKC Thunder

Hello and welcome into another episode of Locked on wolves today in the show we’ll talk about what happened to the Wolves against the thunder on Saturday night another disappointing offensive performance and yet another dominant defensive performance we’ll talk about both ends of the floor on Saturday we’ll also look ahead to wolves Hornets

Tonight Monday night from Target Center it’s all coming on the show Welcome in you are locked on wolves you are locked on Timberwolves your daily Minnesota Timberwolves podcast part of the lock on podcast Network your team every Day hello and welcome to the lockon Wolves podcast part of the lock on podcast Network your team every day my name is Ben Beacon I’m the host of lockon wolves today’s episode is brought to you by our friends at LinkedIn LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to to talk

To faster post your job for free at linkedin.com lockon NBA that’s linkedin.com lockon NBA to post your job for free terms and conditions apply happy Monday everybody happy Timberwolves game day hopefully you had a fantastic weekend today on the show it’s a bit of a hybrid postgame pod and

A preview those of course did not play Sunday so I want to talk a little bit about Saturday’s game against the Thunder you know was such an important opponent a entertaining game um so I want to I break that down a little kind of a mini postgame pod and we’ll also

Piggyback that with a look ahead to the Hornets game tonight we haven’t seen Charlotte for I don’t know six weeks or so beginning in December so um that’s what we’ll do here on the show today we’ll peek ahead at the week as well and that’s all upcoming a big thank you here

First of all though for making lockdown wolves your first listen every day of course lockdown wolves is free and available everywhere including YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms you can also watch the show on the lockon sports Minnesota app on both

Roku and Amazon Fire TV uh and of course you can download that app on um either one of those Services Roku or Amazon Fire TV it’s more great local sports coverage 247 and it’s absolutely free you can also follow on X lockon wolves and also B Beacon with two B’s Two e

Cken all right so Saturday it was a showdown with the Thunder the Wolves came in on a I guess what was it a four game winning streak I believe before Saturday’s game and um um had split the season series to that point with OKC winning at home in a close game you know

Several weeks ago a couple months ago I guess was like end of November so nearly two months ago and then losing um rather handily in a u an offensive battle in OKC just after Christmas this was the opposite of that this was a defensive I’ll call it a defensive slugfest I mean

Each of these teams are extremely good defensively right the wolves are by far the League’s best team defensively the Thunder are a top 10 defense um but the the difference here in this particular matchup um is that the Thunder are also a top five offense and so there’s an

Argument to be made and OKC’s got a better Point differential better net rating coming into this game so while the Wolves were two games ahead of the thunder in the standings You could argue OKC has been better to this point in the season with a straight face

Easily also SGA is the best player on the floor in a match up between these two teams now you know just kind of looking at this kind of the macro view of this would be Minnesota’s roster is certainly deeper and you could say you know players two through four on the

Wolves are probably better than players two through four on OKC although both Chad HR and Jaylen Williams are both fantastic um you know each team is very very good so all that to say these teams are it’s so funny to to to to compare these teams because they both are

Similar but in very different ways if that that doesn’t really make sense the result is basically the same right they’re both really strong defensive teams the Thunder have a much a much more efficient offense than Minnesota but of course the ceiling of Minnesota’s offense is also otherworldly because of

The talents specifically of antson cap but also in theory the way these pieces all work together the Ws offense has no excuse to be as bad as it has been but they arrive at at kind of being a really good defense in very different ways I mean

OKC turns teams over more than any other defense in the league they’re number one in defensive turnover rate which of course is a disastrous matchup against Minnesota who has the actually now after this game against OKC the worst turnover rate of any offense in the league so it’s literally the League’s best defense

In terms of turnover rate OKC turns over opponents according to basketball reference um and I guess I I should have pulled the CLE in the glass numbers because those take out garbage time but according to basketball reference OKC has a 13.6% turnover rate now this is this is post Saturday’s game which is

Number one in the league although I think it was one before that game The Wolves had been 29th for a long time in terms of offensive turnover eight and now they’re 30th they turn the ball over 14% of the time on offense which is is crazy for a team that has the best

Record in the conference and also maddening when you look at the rest of the offensive numbers as we’ve talked about much on the show The Wolves are you know top 10 in effective field goal percentage as an offense they’re top 10 in offensive free throw rate they’re third and three-point percentage uh they

Just don’t shoot enough threes and they turn it over too much that’s been the story of the entire season but it’s a terrible matchup against OKC because they turn teams over more than any other defense they also are a horrendous defensive rebounding team it’s actually shades of the Wolves defense they don’t

Do it in the exact same way they don’t Blitz pick and rules in the same way that the Wolves did two years ago but the Wolves team uh pre Rudy goar that lost in the first round to Memphis two years ago was really really good at turning opposing offenses over and

Terrible on the glass and they committed a ton of fouls that’s almost the identical profile to this year’s Thunder team when you look at defensive four factors the one advantage they have over that wolves team is they’re a little bit better in terms of interior defense they

Have Chad hren and he blocks a lot of shots so that helps uh they’re actually number one in Block shots per game which is not the cleanest way to measure Rim protection but you know just looking at the numbers on basketball reference they’re number one in BL shots per game

They’re third in opponent effective field goal percentage which means that they’re the seventh best defense in the league despite their warts despite the issues fing and despite the defensive rebounding issues it’s so similar to the wolv from two years ago now this year the wolves have the League’s best

Defense because they’re just kind of good across the board defensively right they’re top 10 still in opponent free throw rate which is impressive because it feels like at times they really struggle with that they’re by far number one in opponent affective field goal percentage they’re up to second to

Defensive rebound rate uh which you know they dominate the Thunder and the glass every time they play we’ll talk about that so that helps um and they’re kind of middle of the pack in terms of forcing turnovers so yeah the Wolves still have the League’s best defense and

They turned in a great performance against OKC and that’s what makes this game so much more maddening is ok OKC shot less than 40% from the field another another sub 40% shooting performance by an opponent against this Tim rolls defense OKC was 39.5% from from the field they were

33.3% from three they made only eight three-pointers in this game Minnesota made 14 so Minnesota had an 18-point advantage outside the arc and they still managed to lose this game by five now free throws are part of it we’ll talk a little bit about that but the wolves defensive

Performance was fantastic they fouled a little bit too much but otherwise they they came into it with a plan of like hey let’s try and make these other guys beat us and remember that game they lost to the Thunder before giddy hit a bunch of Threes like that’s not going to happen

All the time sure enough Josh giddy was 0 of four Outside The Arc in this game uh other role players were not effective either Krick Willi kenri Williams only played 10 minutes he was over of two outside the ark um and lud Dort was three of seven which is fine

But like again you want L Dort attempting seven threes per game like you would rather have that than say SJ getting to the line again right I know lud D’s over 40% from three but still you’d rather him you know you’d rather his volume of Threes be up than Shay’s

Volume of of free throw attempts now Shay’s gonna get to the line regardless he had you know he’s averaging nine free throw attempts per game and he’s 89% from the line and yes he got to the line 13 times in this game all that to say the Wolves executed their defensive game

Plan nearly perfectly they just fouled a little bit too much and they were still in POS in position to win this game but it didn’t come down to the defense it came down to their their complete inability to string together offensive performances or offensive possessions without committing turnovers Minnesota

Had 21 turnovers in this game to OKC’s eight OKC only turned it over eight times the Thunder got up 81 shots in this game The Wolves only attempted 75 shots nobody on the Timberwolves attempted more than 13 shots from the field in this game the Thunder had two

Guys attempt more than 13 shots Jaylen Williams and shil just Alexander Minnesota also only had and Nas was the one by the way that attempted 13 none of the Wolves big three if you will Rudy cat and ant none of them attempted more than 10 shots in this

Game I mean both Anton and towns got to the line a bunch they he’s got got 10 free throw attempts in this game but that is a function of OKC doing a really good job defensively themselves and yeah they filed a lot but they didn’t fou as

Much as Minnesota and they also did what they do best they forced turnovers like crazy it’s such a scary matchup for Minnesota for those reasons I do want to talk about what the Wolves did well and then also dig a bit more in on the turnover stuff and I will do studs and

Duds here quickly before we get to previewing wolves Hornets we’ll do all of that here next today’s episode of lockdown wolves is brought To Us by our title tile sponsors over at LinkedIn at the start of the new year every small business owner is asking themselves the exact

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You 24/7 cover the top sports stories of the day with the local Experts of lockdown plus our national shows covering every league go to lockdown sports today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel all right um so the overall flow of this game of

Course the Wolves had a had a rough first quarter uh sloppy offense tons of OKC points off turnovers and again the Wolves half court defense was really good in this game the trans transition defense was um I mean some of the wol turnovers they had a fair amount of just

Dead ball turnovers they had a couple of travels um a couple sloppy Euro steps that you know I watched back and I think they were actually travels although you know you don’t often see those called so I think that got a little bit frustrating to the Wolves because

Eurosteps I don’t know guys get sloppy with eurosteps all the time and suddenly in this game every Euro Step was a travel even even if it was it’s just the the the principle of the matter right there were some a couple of questionable you know Rudy got an offensive foul on a

Screen that was also a turnover and that was a bad call like there’s some of those mixed in um but there were also you know an dribbling the ball off his foot again a couple of sloppy passes to Nowhere uh like those sorts of possessions add up and OKC got some

Transition points off of that and in general um they just scored a lot of points off W’s turnovers even if they weren’t live ball turnovers those extra possessions that the Thunder got they scored on those U Jade McDaniels was great offensively early the stars were quiet and so it was important Nas Reed

Was big again in the first half as he was uh was that Thursday night’s game when Nas was huge early in the game when Minnesota’s offense was struggling and a was very quiet in the first half in that win over Memphis on Thursday similar story there um also a side note something

Perhaps we’ll get back to later but the Wolves some of these turnovers um we’re getting back to what I I think what the Wolves did a little too much of last season which was force force trying to force feed the ball to Rudy some of these lobs that like

Especially against a team with a guy like Chet Homen and even though they’re much smaller than the wolves and maybe that was part of the game plan is like hey these guys don’t have size but the Thunder’s defense is really good and they still have length and they have

Athleticism and they have Youth and they have uh incredible awareness for how young this team is and there were so many turnovers and I meant to tally him I should have but turnovers on just forced lobs to Rudy like hey let’s get goar the ball let’s it wasn’t quite like

When DLo was trying to force the ball to him last year which you know eventually he just stopped trying which was a big part of the problem but um The Wolves tried a little bit too hard at times to get the ball into goar and of course he ends up finishing the

Game with only six shot attempts seven points for Rudy in this game um and five of those seven points came at the free throw line it was just I thought an issue the Wolves did have a six-point lead Midway through the second quarter but SGA was great at the end of the

Second quarter when he got back on the floor after a rest and OKC gotten the bonus early in the second quarter by halftime shil just Alexander had 10 free throw attempts in the first half alone now he finished the game with only 13 so you know I know ant complained after the

Game about not being able to touch SGA well SGA only had 13 more free throw attempts than ant in this game uh the difference is he made his free throw attempts uh Sho just Alexander was 12 of 13 from the line an was six of 10 I know

The last Miss was intentional but so six of nine before that and again 10 of sga’s 13 free throw attempts were in the first half of this game uh the Wolves played really well in the third quarter especially defensively that’s when they really kind of ratcheted up the defense they were up

Nine in the fourth quarter with just over six minutes to play but then a threw the ball out of bounds about six and a half minutes left after a timeout the Thunder scored the Thunder had actually um you know we talk about the Wolves offense being so stagnant at

Times and inefficient and turning the ball over a bunch which the turnovers have been a bigger issue than than you know a lack of ball movement here lately uh the Thunder went three minutes without a made field goal in the middle of the fourth quarter and the Wolves

Were still up by a couple points with just over two minutes to play then SJ hits a step back three just over a minute to play that put the Thunder up for good that put them up by two at the time and overall the Wolves only scored

10 points in the final nine minutes of this game and again it’s more turnovers than anything else they missed a couple of open shots there were but but it was again turnovers like there was a bad ant one in the final minute ant actually I think had two in the final couple

Minutes which has been a recurring theme and you know that’s the one thing you point to with this game and obviously you also have I talked about the thunder you the Wolves forcing guys like Josh giddy to shoot threes in this game uh you know sitting here right now what’s

Giddy’s three-point percentage he’s 34 and a half% from three like you’d rather have giddy making threes than giddy Distributing giddy running offense and getting SGA looks um you’d rather make Josh giddy shoot from the perimeter you’d rather make Jaylen Williams uh you know be as inefficient as he was in this

Game he’s obviously a good three-point shooter but he only attempted two threes I mean Jaylen Williams is six of 18 shooting took him 18 shots to get his 20 points so again the Wolves plan was good on defense on the flip side Mike connley was one of nine outside the arc one of

11 overall in this game never shot a free throw probably the worst Conley game of the year uh we just haven’t seen much of that he ended up only playing 29 minutes Jordan mlin had stints in both halves was actually quite productive I thought Jordan mcgoffin was fantastic and maybe

We start to see you know I’m not at all advocating like after one game for an even split minutes or anything crazy like that because Conley’s been fantastic this year I said something on Twitter the other day like uh he’s basically been the same player as he was

In his All-Star season just lower volume in terms of scoring but maybe now that we’re hitting late January getting close to the all-star break steal some minutes here and there for Mike especially with a softer spot in the schedule let Conley play a play fewer minutes save him for

Tougher games for you know uh Western Conference matchups like this one against the Thunder they play OKC again here in a week week from today actually um you know save him for the playoffs Etc get mcclin some runs see if he’s a viable option as your backup point guard

In the playoffs maybe get Shake Milton some run and find out whether or not you need to make a significant move I I know that people are now clamoring like oh the Wolves definitely need to make a move the wolves are still first in the west halfway through the season like I’m

Not saying they shouldn’t make a move and and we’ll talk more about this here in the coming days and weeks but uh they’ve still got a really good roster Jord MC goin’s a legit good player um you know within his role and you know shake Milton has been in the past like

Can you find a way to steal sub minut here against this upcoming schedule of Charlotte and Brooklyn and some of these other teams um anyway I I digress but the the CLE three-point shooting is also a weird thing like how many of those the Wolves ran a play to get him a

Three when they were down one late in the game and uh he just missed it it was a well-run play a made a good pass Conley just missed the shot it was you know that happens and so you know he makes a couple more of those or they

Turn it over a couple less times or ant makes those free throws and the Wolf still win this game so it’s not like this thing was you know Out Of Reach and it’s not like it was a disaster and the sky is not falling it’s it as I’ve said

Before after losses is like sometimes you lose to good team so the turnover stuff is is obviously the biggest issue that’s that’s the biggest takeaway Bar None um I’ll throw up the stats here real quick uh overall stats from the game if you’re watching on YouTube as I

Mentioned the Wolves I flipped the the three-point percentage or excuse me the field goal percentage on this graphic so so switch those around the rest of the stats are all correct OKC shot 39.5% from the field not Minnesota Minnesota was 41.3% so they held OKC below 40% they held them to eight made

Three-pointers and they were plus 13 on the glass Minnesota was the issues were they allowed six more free throws to OKC and they turned it over 13 more times so I mean you combine the three-pointers and the and the free throws the Wolves were a plus uh plus 18

Outside the arc they were a minus none at the line so combine those they were a plus nine if you combine the actual points derived from the three-pointers and free throws but it’s the turnovers and they did a good job on the glass like not like the Thunder again the

Wolves the Wolves dominated where they should have in terms of size Chad holr was in a little bit of foul trouble he only had five rebounds in this game in fact Josh giddy you know he’s a good rebounder certainly but he had eight rebounds nobody else in the

Thunder had more than five and Minnesota being plus 13 in that category you would have thought that this outcome could have looked a little differently uh points off turnovers as I mentioned OKC generated 21 turnovers from the wolves and 28 points off those turnovers and a

15 to four Edge and fast break points in this game for OKC and that’s where this game was lost for Minnesota I want to do studs and Duds quick I want to look at the Hornets matchup that we’ll see here on Monday night and that’s how we’ll close out the show

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And make your first bet a layup FanDuel an official partner of the NFL all right um studs and Duds from this game fairly easy to uh to to parse this from this one I mean for the Wolves overall like I mean the the Thunderhead SJ with 33 Jaylen Williams with a really

Inefficient 20 in this game the temples didn’t have anybody scor more than 19 and they only have uh yeah nobody scored more than 19 they had four players in double figures uh Nas was probably the best player on the floor for the Wolves overall in this

Game he had 18 points he ended up shooting seven to 13 got a little high volume at the end there as they were searching for some offense which is fine like I thought he was good he also had four blocks in this game he was part of the problem turnover

Rise he had four miscues in this game ant had five nobody else had more than three uh but he wasn’t alone in that department so that alone isn’t going to disqualify him from getting a stud in this game 18 points for Nas seven of 13 shooting so still better than 50% from

The field four of eight outside the arc three rebounds in 26 minutes you’d like that to be a little higher but um you know not a not a massive deal considering the edge the Wolves had in the rebound Department in this game four blocks and again those four turnovers

For Nas he was a plus 17 Off the Bench for the Wolves by the way the bench was really good in this game overall they all had positive plus minus marks uh we saw Kyle Anderson Again Play sub 20 minutes in this game and this is another

Example The Wolves bench is just so much deeper than OKC’s like Cas Wallace had a big day the other day for OKC he had no points to 13 minutes in this game um like nobody had more than five points off their bench so now this is when that

Should matter in the regular season and over the course of the regular season versus in the playoffs when rotations are short anyway um but all that to say the Wolves bench was really good so Nas is a stud in this game I’m also going to go carony towns

And I know he ended up fing out at the end and I know he only made four shots from the field and he only only made one three-pointer but I thought he was good overall and came alive late in the game when the Wolves needed offense third quarter early fourth quarter now of

Course he he didn’t help the offense much at the tail end of the game but that was because everything was running through ant and this is a topic for another day but the Wolves I think need to do a little better job Running Lake game offense through Carl towns and

Playing ant off of that instead of running everything through ant especially while he’s going through these turnover issues I understand that late in a close game especially in the playoffs you might need your best ISO player one of the best ISO players in the league in Anthony Edwards to go

Against a set defense and like that might be your best option right it might be it isn’t always but it might be depending on the opponent Etc situation score Etc but against it’s team that’s just a really good team defense and also has good individual defenders in the Thunder

And not a whole lot of size and you know Chad hren I guess only finished with four fouls but like you had him in foul trouble for a little while carony towns has to be who you’re running your offense through late in the game against an opponent like this he ended up with

19 points and just 10 shots 10 of 10 at the free throw line for cat by the way he’s uh like 89.6% or something from the line now he’s nearly back to 50 4090 you round up and he’s there uh 19 and 11 two assists for this game for cat three

Turnovers which compared to Anon naz’s numbers doesn’t look so bad um really really good game for Carlon towns and maybe not really really good maybe not two really a really good game for Carlon towns uh I don’t have a third stud in this one

I I I don’t well I guess I’ll give one I’ll give it to Jordan mcclaflin he was good eight and three made his first couple of three-point attempts missed one right at the end of the shot clock that he nearly air balled but eight points three assists two steals three of

Seven shooting two of three outside the Arc was a good Jordan mcgoffin game and I’m sure he earned himself some minutes here against Charlotte on Monday night uh Duds I’m just gonna go Mike connley one of 11 shooting one of nine outside the arc four assists but he had three

Turnovers very unmik like in this game uh so so he gets the the only dud in this one all right quickly previewing the Hornets game I spent a little more time in the OKC game than I met to but let’s talk about the Hornets game uh we have not seen Charlotte since

December geez what day was that I don’t know it was like December early early December it was like right before the the really rough difficult patch in the schedule started lamelo ball did not play now lamelo’s been was out of lineup for a long stretch of time uh it was I

Have it right here December 2nd was when they played it Charlotte last was right after Melo got hurt L Melo got hurt um he did just play in four straight games but he did not play against the Sixers on Saturday so he’s questionable right now to play The

Wolves uh now that was the second night of a back toback so I I would imagine he plays on Monday night uh but he’s officially day to-day according to to the Hornets and they haven’t released an injury report yet for Monday so I would imagine he plays Monday night he had

Played in 26 minutes his first game back then 30 and then 31 each of the next two nights so he’ll probably play and play a little over 30 minutes in this game he’s been really good since he came back they lost the first three games they got

Blown out by the way at San Antonio at Miami at the Pelicans but were’re home for the Spurs on Friday night and beat the Spurs by four and this this was after a six-game losing streak from Charlotte and overall Charlotte has lost let make sure I did this math right

11 uh 17 of their last 19 games no 18 of their last 19 games if you include the Phil the lost to Philly on Saturday they’ve lost 18 of their last 20 games um now with the Mellow ball back obviously the offense gets much better for Charlotte or it should get much

Better for the season though a team that everyone expected to have a great offense is only 27th in offensive rating and they’re the second worst defense the defense has been horrendous it’s only outpaced by Indiana who’s just been beyond horrendous defensively Gordon hayward’s still not going to play he’s

Been out since uh right after Christmas he did play the first time these teams matched up um so you know no gr Hayward is also significant he had 17 points and just 11 shots the last time these teams faced off uh he might be back in a week but

He’s not going to play in this game so probably will have Lela ball will not have Gordon Hayward but otherwise a relatively healthy Charlotte team um like I said they’re not good on either end of the floor at the moment they’re just 9 and 31 so they’re you know only

Better than Detroit and San Antonio so far this season uh they actually have the worst net rating in the entire league so far this season um I the key thing against them is like they don’t do anything well offensively they’re actually uh let’s see they’re dead last

In free throw rate on the offensive end they’re 20th and three-point percentage so I guess don’t let them have too many open threes in this game would probably be the biggest thing like that’s the way they’re going to beat you and then obviously they also um their Pace isn’t

Fast so far this year but that’s lamelo Ball’s only played in what 19 games yeah 19 games so a big part of that is the lack of Lamela ball if Lamela Ball’s on the floor they’re going to try and play faster so don’t be fooled by the over

Overall Pace Mark for this season so they don’t get to line a ton they don’t shoot a ton of Threes they make them at a decent clip so that’s the number one thing to look out for they’re also 20th in offensive rebound rate so also be

Careful there um they are middle of the pack in terms of forcing turnovers for the opponent so you know they’re not the Thunder there but they still Force turnovers on about 12% of opponent possessions so the Wolves number one Beyond be you know Above All Above everything else the Wolves need to take

Care of the ball which is I guess number one in terms of keys to the game for in perpetuity for this wolves team because it’s what’s holding them back I mean they would have beaten the thunder without turning the ball over 21 times you take two or three of those away and

They win that game fairly maybe not easily but they win that game no question so the Wolves take care of the ball and they somewhat limit offensive rebound Second Chance opportunities and open threes for Charlotte they should win this game fairly easily and then next up for Minnesota I mean this is a

We talked about this the other day like this stretch in the schedule is uh it’s favorable for the wolves and so they have Monday at at home against Charlotte the last game of this three- game home stand then a 4 aame road trip at Washington at Brooklyn at San Antonio at

The Thunder they’ll be favored in those first three uh the the back-to-back by the way is Washington Brooklyn Wednesday Thursday so not a walk in the park there second night against Brooklyn they’ve got some good players of course we’ll talk about that later in the week uh but

Then at San Antonio Saturday and back in OKC for the final match up against the Thunder Monday which you know it’s that much more important now because if they lose the Thunder will have the tiebreaker if they end up with the same record at the end of the regular season

So big to win that game in OKC on Monday night uh we’ll we’ll talk a little bit about that here later in the week as well all right that’s all we have for it today here on the show a big thank you for making lock dead wolves your first

Listen every single day of course this show is free and available everywhere including YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms wherever you like to listen to podcast you can find lock on wolves you can also watch on the lockdown Sports Minnesota app on both

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The Minnesota Timberwolves fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night as the offense continued to turn the ball over at an extremely high rate. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) breaks down the loss, including the impressive defense the Wolves played against one of the league’s top-five offenses. Plus, individual studs and duds and a preview of the Wolves’ matchup with the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night.

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