The Wolves’ Round 1 Win Highlighted Their Greatest Strength

Anthony Edwards sat next to Julius Randle again in the post-game press conference following the 103-96 Game 5 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. A reporter asked Edwards about his thoughts on advancing to the next round.

“You know what makes it feel even better?” he asked rhetorically. “They (the media experts) said Lakers in five, and the Wolves won in five. I think that makes it feel ten times better. That’s my only answer.”

Experts picked the Lakers to win the series. Vegas set the odds for the Lakers to win at -210, and even many Wolves fans expected a hard-fought series.

However, the Lakers were never really on the same level as the Wolves. They were built for playoff basketball. Their eight-man rotation consists of eight starter-quality players, and the roster’s malleability is crucial for long playoff success.

“I feel like our bench is almost better than our starting five,” Edwards said with a smile. “We got starters on the bench.”

Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Donte DiVincenzo, and Naz Reid were the starters on the bench all season.

“You have 8 starters on this team,” DiVincenzo said in December. “Everybody believes in it, everybody has that mindset, but at the same time, everybody accepts their role.”

The bench knew its role and played big minutes when needed. They closed games over starters when necessary, and provided shooting and changes of pace for Chris Finch. The playoffs arrived, and the team knew Minnesota’s depth and cohesiveness would be the difference maker. That allowed Finch more options to combat the opposing team’s adjustments.

If the Lakers pick on Mike Conley and isolate him on defense, Finch could go to Alexander-Walker. If Jaden McDaniels struggles to make shots, he sends DiVincenzo into the game. When Rudy Gobert gets picked on or is ineffective, Reid steps up.

The Lakers occasionally went small. Minnesota countered by going even smaller, with Julius Randle at the center, McDaniels at the 4, and Alexander-Walker, Anthony Edwards, and DiVincenzo around the perimeter. A lineup that scored 7 points in just 2 minutes this series before the Lakers adjusted.

Minnesota’s flexibility allowed it to march out seven different five-man rotations that played at least ten minutes together in the series. Six of the seven rotations also worked together, having a positive plus-minus, highlighted by the floating group of Randle, Reid, McDaniels, Edwards, and DiVincenzo, which finished +27 in the series in just 22 minutes.

Meanwhile, the Lakers only had four five-man lineups that played at least ten minutes together, and all four of them finished with a negative net plus/minus. The starting and closing lineups finished -38 combined. That shows LA’s lack of flexibility and is just one example of how the Wolves could use their depth to their advantage.

Minnesota’s depth will allow it to advance in the playoffs. The postseason is the time of adjustments. Opponents can slow down a star player throughout a series. They can crack a perfect game plan, but flexibility is hard to counter. The Wolves can play small and traditional. They can play fast and slow, they have youth and experience. Minnesota can also be defensively focused or an offensive force.

Hope for a long playoff run starts with the Wolves’ flexibility and chemistry. They have a superstar in Edwards, an excellent No. 2 in Randle, and six other starter-quality players that will give Finch the counterpunches to almost any haymaker or jab an opposing team could throw at them.

“I just think our trust in coach extremely high,” Randle continued. “He wants to win, everyone in the locker room 1-15 wants to win as well, that’s all it’s about right now.”

Four wins are down. The Wolves will need twelve more to reach their ultimate goal. Timberwolves fans can now sit back and take a breath as the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets play out the remainder of their series. They are a rested, deep team that suddenly feels like a playoff threat.