Last night I sat in the upper deck at the Target Center with a group of people including a die-hard Celtics fan. He told me something I couldn’t have imagined in preseason when he yelled to the crowd “The C’s can’t stop Gobert!” Gobert played forty one minutes last night going 6-6 as a lob threat and piling in twelve rebounds in a night where KAT was in foul trouble all night. The Timberwolves beat the only undefeated team left in the NBA in overtime 114-109. This comes at the end of the week where the Timberwolves blew out the defending champion Nuggets at the Target Center 110-89 and the Jazz 123-95. This past week Antony Edwards has been on an absolute tear scoring 25, 31, and a magical 38 last night on fifty percent or better shooting every game. Antony Edwards has clearly taken the leap to superstardom as fellow superstar Jayson Tatum was chirping at him all night. Edwards faced that adversity and led the Wolves to their first 4-0 start at home since 2002-2003.
However the true star of the show all year has been the Timberwolves defense as they lead the NBA in defensive rating at 100.5. Last night Boston shot 39% for the whole game and 28% from three. This comes after last Wednesday where they held the Nuggets under ninty points for the first time this season and gave them their only loss. The defense has benefited from Gobert’s 2.4 blocks per game as he is the true defensive anchor the Wolves imagined when they traded for him. Jaden Mcdaniels, KAT, and Edwards have all made huge strides in defense this year too. Kristaps Porzingis was quoted last night after the game saying “Obviously, they’re much better defensively, They’re number one in the league, I think, which is a little bit of a surprise for me. But they are better for sure. They’re better and they showed something that I had not seen before from them.” This defense is why I am so high on the Timberwolves this season and why I think we will win fifty games.
Looking ahead to week three the Timberwolves have one more home test against Zion and the Pelicans before heading on a west coast road trip. On Friday the Timberwolves have their first group stage game of the new in-season tournament on the road against Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs. The last game the Timberwolves play before you”l hear from this blog again is Sunday in San Francisco against Golden State. The Timberwolves will continue to work to get the offense to their defense level as these will all be huge tests for the Timberwolves as they look like a team who could be a dark horse in the Western Conference.
West Coast Hoops 