After the 127-114 loss Monday night to the Denver Nuggets, a reporter asked Chris Finch how long it would be before he would start to worry about the Minnesota Timberwolves’ defense not being their identity.
“I mean, very concerned about it right now, to be honest with you,” Finch responded. “They have been extremely inconsistent defensively.”
We must evaluate Minnesota’s defense after another loss Wednesday night to the Lakers, 116-115, on a last-second defensive breakdown that resulted in Austin Reaves hitting a game-winning floater.
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Through five games, Minnesota’s defensive rating is revealing. It ranks 25th in the NBA at 119.5. It’s 8.7 points worse than last season’s defensive rating of 110.8, which ranked 6th in the league. To make matters worse, 119.5 would have ranked last in the NBA a season ago.
While defensive rating is an important statistic in measuring a team’s defense, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Unfortunately, Minnesota’s other advanced statistics are not kind either. They rank 19th in defensive rebound percentage (66.8%) and 22nd in total rebound percentage (48.6%).
Minnesota ranks 26th in opponents’ field goal percentage, allowing teams to shoot 49.3% from the field. They allow opponents to shoot 63.0% from 10-14 feet, ranking 28th in the league. The Timberwolves yield a 61.4% field goal percentage from the field, which ranks last in the NBA. 25.9% of their opponents’ shots are considered wide open, with no defender within 6 feet of the shooter. An additional 32.4% of opponents’ shots are considered open with no defender within 4 to 6 feet.
Essentially, that all means the Wolves are allowing teams to generate 58.3% of their shot attempts as either open or wide open. From the painted area or mid-range, teams are shooting at excellent percentages. Even when the Wolves force a miss, opposing teams have a 33.2% chance of getting the offensive rebound.
Factor all of that in, and the stats meet the eye test. Five games into the season, Minnesota’s defense is bad. And teams can’t win championships while playing poor defense.
However, there are some signs that the defense will eventually turn it around.
The Wolves are posting a 111.6 defensive rating when Rudy Gobert is on the court, which would rank 10th in the NBA. Gobert has played 159 of Minnesota’s 240 minutes, meaning the Timberwolves are playing defense at an above-average level 66.3% of the time.
That suggests that the issues with Minnesota’s defense are more related to the 33.7% of the time when Gobert is off the floor. During those minutes, the Wolves are posting a 133.3 defensive rating, which, if extrapolated for an entire season, would be the worst team defensive rating ever posted since the league started tracking advanced stats.
That’s mainly due to Naz Reid and Julius Randle’s defense. They have defensive ratings of 123.3 and 124.6, respectively, when they are on the court. Reid’s defensive rating without playing next to Gobert rises to 142.2, and Randle’s balloons up to 142.3.
Here’s the issue with the Timberwolves: Their defense breaks down when Gobert is off the floor. For the Wolves, who are attempting to build a defensive identity around gritty, physical play, the steep drop-off without Gobert is unsustainable. That isn’t to say Gobert solves all of Minnesota’s problems. The offense similarly goes from a 129.4 offensive rating (1st in the league) to a 110.6 (26th).
The Wolves will likely have to find a balance between the two. They will have to embrace the Gobert minutes and find ways to improve the offense. More importantly, when Gobert isn’t on the floor, the defense must be considerably better to alleviate Finch’s concerns about their defensive identity.