Minnesota Timberwolves fall flat in season-opening loss to Los Angeles Lakers

Minnesota Timberwolves fall flat in season-opening loss to Los Angeles Lakers

hello and welcome in to another episode of Locked on wolves today on the show it’s the postgame podcast the Timberwolves season started on Tuesday night in Los Angeles and I don’t know that anyone told them we’ll talk about what happened in the Wolves opening night lost to the Lakers it’s all out coming welcome in you are locked on wolves you are locked on Timberwolves your daily Minnesota Timberwolves podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hello and welcome in to another episode of Locked on wolves my name is Ben Beacon I am the host of lock on wolves today’s episode is brought To Us by Game Time download the game time app create an account and use the code lockdown NBA for $20 off your first purchase happy Wednesday everybody happy hump day and uh unfortunately not that happy of a Wednesday the Wolves fell in their season opener against Lakers on Tuesday night a uh a pretty disappointing performance as far as opening nights go the Wolves completely looked um I don’t know I a little bit disinterested for the first quarter and a half maybe almost the First full half of this game the first half of the game in its entirety um not what I expected to see at crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night so we’ll break down what happened we’ll break down um some of the positives but like what are the on the scale of like not concerned to Super concerned where should we be after one night we’ll talk about that on the show today uh we’ll do individual studs and Duds we’ll break break the whole thing down key takeaways this is after all the first postgame podcast of the regular season so lots to get to today a big thank you off the top for making lockdown wolves your first list in every single day of course this show is free and available everywhere including YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms you can also watch on the lockon sports Minnesota app on both Roku and a and Amazon Fire TV all right first off um let’s actually the very first thing apologize for my voice uh fall youth baseball game uh I guess yelling a little bit too much before the first postgame pod of the season so uh apologies for that um hopefully we’ll be we’ll be in better shape tomorrow uh but anyway so the Wolves came into this game like I mean I I predicted on on the crossover episode lockdown Lakers on Tuesday I actually did pick the Lakers to win this game I thought we might get a little bit of a it’s not like a a true it’s not a finals hangover it’s not a Super Bowl hangover it’s a Conference Finals hangover but that’s kind of what this felt like for the wolves and it’s classic like hey we didn’t really play together much in the preseason you know R only played in one game um you know nobody played in the last preseason game basically as far as the starters go and it they just didn’t look ready and I and I I don’t mean to like suggest they were unprepared and like blame the coaches or anything like that it’s one game let’s not be over dramatic about it but clearly the Lakers came ready to play hard for their new coach and to uh you know really Rak havoc and the Wolves didn’t um they got down pretty quickly and actually had a brief surge at the end of the first quarter to take a one-point lead but the second quarter was where the Lakers really ran all over the wolves um and it was a Cascade of issues that led to the Wolves being down 13 at halftime they ate into it a little bit got had some good fortune at the end of the third quarter got to with eight eight points as close as four points early in the fourth and then the Lakers stretched it out to three possessions it really kind of kept the Wolves at arms length the rest of the way I said this on X on on my on my post on Twitter following the game one way to look at this is the Wolves couldn’t have played a whole lot worse overall and Anthony Davis we’ll talk about him was crazy good in this game and yet they were still within you know eight points with like four minutes to play like this was still they were within Arms Reach uh so I guess that’s a silver lining to look at but let’s start with like where the issues began early in the game the biggest problem and I’ve already alluded to this it was simply lack of effort and it came through in basically every facet of the game the number one problem was was um rebounding defensive rebounding tracking down 50/50 balls and for the game The Wolves actually ended up a plus one in the glass don’t let that fool you if you watch the first half of this game they were at one point being tripled up on the offensive glass um it was it was an absolute Massacre on the glass and in the paint early in this game and even for the game as a whole um the Lakers still had three more offensive rebounds than Minnesota but the Wolves had some late in like pseudo garbage time Randle had a tip in over a Davis um there was a couple others where like it was an eight nine 10o game with a couple minutes to play this thing like at one point I think it was like 14 to five or something on the offensive glass in favor of the Lakers and that was what initially led to things getting away from the wolves and you know what is defensive rebounding more than any yes there’s positioning yes there’s technique to boxing out but the number one thing with any kind of rebounding it’s effort and 50-50 balls and loose balls in general are it’s effort um Minnesota tried some stuff they tried playing his own for a little while early in the game that didn’t work that also contributed to the issues and and credit the Lakers for the activity that they had on the glass but that was a major problem for Minnesota rebounding early and and this is like maybe something we’ll cover on tomorrow’s show I don’t want to get too deep into it today but um the Carl like Nas Reed playing the five is always concerning from Rebound in perspective and and there’s a lot of things that can be good about that and certainly having Nas at the five offensively is great Dynamic player yes but he’s never been a very good rebounder for a center even for a power forward he’s he’s a slightly below average rebounder overall and then you add him and Randle like I know pound-for-pound Randle is a good rebounder but Nas and Randle together in the front Court as just good rebounders um that’s not enough against a team that you know when Jackson Hayes is out there and you know LeBron’s out there and there’s there’s a level of activity for the Lakers it just didn’t work for Minnesota so bigger picture that is something to to keep keep an eye and again the the box score is going to show the Wolves won the total rebound battle by one but that does not tell the story of what happened in this game the the Lakers took the Wolves to the Woodshed early and built a a double digit lead primarily because of an overall lack of activity and frankly effort from the wolves and it started with rebounding the other thing was transition defense and actually related topic I might as well cover with it is is how sloppy the offense was which led to turnovers and then the poor transition defense allowing two points off of turnovers for the Lakers um Los Angeles in this game had 19 points off of 16 Minnesota turnovers the Wolves had six points off of seven Laker turnovers the Wolves had nine more turnovers and the Lakers actually also scored more points per Point per turnover opportunity right so la had a 13-point Advantage excuse me yeah 13-point advantage in points off turnovers and the Wolves turned it over nine more times in La so sloppy offense which we’ll get into in a moment led to turnovers and then the Wolves compounded the issue by playe transition defense like it was 2021 like it was you know the Wolves of two years ago actually 2020 yeah 2122 the Wolves of two three years ago that’s what it looked like the transition defense was basically not existent for Minnesota and that just compounded the problem with the sloppy offense transition defense again lack of effort they just weren’t getting back and then on top of it not communicating there were so many examples and actually I would I would some of the offensive rebound cases were this too like where the wol actually would scramble get a good contest at X Out to the corner but somebody would be off in the rotation and you know there was one possession in particular where like you know three guys put a body on someone but they had two guys in the strong side corner what had been the strong side corner where the shot came from that were trying to contest the shot and X Out to the guy on the wing and nobody picks up the guy in the opposite slot on the opposite wing and he comes in for the offensive rebound that happened there was one specific possession but it happened multiple times where basically that happened where they’re just wasn’t communication on like who’s putting a body on who who’s boxing who out whose assignment is this and the Lakers to their credit were swarming to the ball and and I would also another thing that you could say about almost any fast of this game just bad technique bad uh bad defensive communication bad boxing out or no boxing out um and like I said a minute ago lazy defense led to Lazy offense or actually no other way around lazy offense led to lazy defense for Minnesota lazy offense lack of ball movement led to the Lakers being able to jump passing lanes and and deflect balls and the Wolves just turning the ball over the Lakers getting easy buckets the other way in transition and that’s what this that’s how this thing became uh at one point a 19point lead for the Lakers and it sat in that like 13 to 16 17 18 point range for quite a long time and uh the Wolves never led by more than a bucket in this game it was it was first quarter uh so all those problems together comp compounded to make this thing that much worse I want to focus on the offense a little bit next and then a couple other overall takeaways random notes before I get into some of the individual studs and Duds we’ll do all that here next today’s episode of lock out wolves is brought To Us by our friends at FanDuel fans you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel America’s number one sports book when you get a hunt in the middle of a game could be an NFL game uh of course a good Monday night game here tomorrow night or excuse me Thursday night game tomorrow night um or in the middle of an NBA game now The Season’s in underway you can check out the latest stats view live play-by-play and so much more on the same page where you place your bets it’s a ton of fun if you miss win totals as well you could still I’m sure bet those over at FanDuel uh the Wolves total was down to 51 and a half before the season um I’m sure there’s adjusted win totals you could check out there again live betting for both NBA and NFL is a ton of fun over at fandu of course they’ve also got NHL uh the World Series MLB playoffs is ongoing still so go check that out there too you can get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet again 200 bucks in bonus bets guaranteed all you have to do is place your first $5 bet that’s at FanDuel fanduel.com all right a big thank you once again for making lock that wolves your first listen every every day a reminder that uh your favorite podcast lockdown wolves now has a newsletter introducing the lockdown wolves daily newsletter it’s a One-Stop shop for Ultimate Team and League coverage delivered right to your inbox sign up for free right now at lockon daily.com that’s lockon daily.com start your day with the all new free locked on wolves newsletter all right so we talked about the lack of activity the the lack of effort again like put in it very candidly lack of effort uh lazy offense leading to some lazy transition defense I mentioned the confusion lack of you know communication who’s got who what are we doing here on the glass um the Lakers mixed in a zone at one point that really threw off the wolves and that contributed to some of the rebounding issues when the Wolves tried to Zone conversely early in the game it did not work the Lakers picked it apart and it was like a four possession experiment I believe the Lakers scored on every possession and had multiple offensive rebounds during that span and Finch never went back to it which which made sense um a couple of additional notes rotation wise I thought this was interesting the first substitutions in the game for the Wolves R nazri and Dante Devan chenzo so the back court was D chedo an ant um no Nick Alexander Walker in the first pattern of Subs now he got in before the end of the first quarter but um if he was gonna effectively be the backup point guard we saw a lot of divon chenzo backup point guard in this game and I thought overall it was okay um but I thought that was notable and then by the end of the first quarter we did see nikel Alexander Walker in the game it basically was an eight-man rotation except for the Joe Engles Cameo at the end of the second quarter when the Wolves got had gotten down by 19 and they just said all right let’s put Engles out there and he he played pretty well um he uh almost airball he just grazed iron on his only shot attempt it was from three um but immediately they went on a short run and then toward the end of his stint they struggled a little bit and he ended up being just a plus one for seven minutes but it was basically an eight-man rotation plus seven minutes for Eng Les which is interesting because Jaden McDaniels was in massive foul trouble in this game picked up three quick ones ended up with five fouls they took him out like seven minutes to play in the game and he never came back in only played 16 minutes in this game which is of course a recurring theme for Jaden McDaniels uh foul trouble is but anyway rotation wise that’s something to keep an eye on um and Mike Conley only played 20 minutes he did not play well so uh we saw a lot of um and we’ll talk about him more in studs and Duds we saw a lot of uh divon chenzo Alexander Walker and ant like two of those three on the floor together in the backourt for for long stretches in this game um but the rotation like no Rob Dillingham which based on what we saw in the in the preseason not a surprise but no Rob Dillingham no TJ Shannon no Josh Min out which was a little surprising given the activity level being a problem um like to me I I get it like if m not’s not going to be part of the regular rotation it is opening night you’re trying to get the win whatever but if if the if the problem is effort level and the problem is rebounding which it was both of those things there’s two guys on on the bench that don’t have a problem with that and that’s Josh Mina and Luca Garza now I’m not saying they’re going to like he’s not papovich right like Chris VCH isn’t papovich far far from it um he’s not gonna pull Rudy goar in favor of Luca gar he’s not gonna do that but Josh minet I think there’s a legitimate case for him seeing rotation minutes especially with the McDaniels foul trouble like just throw him out there what’s the worst that’s going to happen they already weren’t playing hard what’s monik G to do miss a shot turn the ball over fine at least he was going to play hard he was going to get rebounds he was going to get weak side blocks he was going to you know move the ball offensively like with the way mine I played in the preseason this this would have been a game that I actually think like maybe the first time he gets his minutes it’s one of those papovich like situations where you call timeout you just pull a guy and say hey I put somebody in that’s going to play hard that’s not an every night thing and maybe Finch didn’t want to play that card an opening night I’m sure it was that but like if they come out flat flat against Sacramento like say they’re down a couple buckets at the end of the first quarter on Thursday night put Josh minet in the game see what happens send a message to these guys and in in a in a very like that’s not the Chris Finch way like the send a message like he’s not a called football coach so I don’t mean to like insinuate that he would be but that’s an NBA coach way of doing it it’s saying look if we’re not GNA do the other stuff the ancillary stuff not even ancillary the the bare minimum right like the effort diving on the you know getting 50-50 balls Etc I’ll put a guy in who will and he would have like my has credibility built up because of the preseason so it’s not like he’s been in the G league and like all of a sudden he shows up and and you put him in the game because you’re mad at the starters or whatever he played well enough in the preseason and apparently in training camp like why not give the guy a shot so we could see that Thursday in Sacramento I’m just speculating if they come out flat or something goes completely aai on Thursday night that would be a real possibility we have to talk about how good Anthony Davis was in this game I normally don’t spend much time talking about the opposing team like individual players in postgame pods if new to the show I also don’t normally have a voice that sounds like this so uh just again want to put that reminder out there but Anthony Davis was phenomenal in this game he was the best player on the floor by a wide margin it it was not close I mean he had 36 points twice as many as anybody else in the Lakers hachimura had 18 points LeBron had 16 uh ant had 27 I’ll talk about him in a minute for the wolves and goar had 13 uh rain at 16 but like Davis had 36 on 11 at 23 he had some tough shots in this game he was 13 of 15 at the free throw line and I did not feel like I like I feel like those free throws were were deserved uh like I mean he was playing hard he was getting fouled like for the most part I actually thought the officient was pretty good um like he was he was nuts in this game Anthony Davis was 16 rebounds four assists three blocks for for Davis only one turnover um I mean this was by the way the most ridiculous thing that happened was the Lakers fans chaining MVP not all of them wasn’t like a full throated Full Arena MVP chant but like free throw l in the fourth quarter we’ll call it 20% of the fans chaned MVP loud enough that the commentators had to mention it on air uh I eagle and uh Candace sparker and uh stamin Gundy like but he was really good like physical everywhere tip you know tipin he knocked down a three in this game had a couple of dunks uh blocked one of his at least one of his three blocks I think maybe two of them were against Rudy um very one of the better Anthony Davis games I’ve seen and I know he’s fully capable of this it’s it’s can’t how often will he do it this year and you know he stayed relatively healthy last year how will that be the case again this year but he was really dominant in this game and we’ll talk about more about Julius Randle here in a moment actually let’s talk about Julius Randle now as long as we’re talking about ad Julius Rand only had 16 points in this game on just 10 shots five of 10 shooting nine rebounds four assists two turnovers for Randall early in the game he looked a little bit tentative uh passed on some open three-point opportunities pump faked out of an open one to try and get past LeBron into the rim and ended up I think he turned the ball over um eventually his first shot actually was a three-pointer and then the Lakers were kind of Daring him to shoot him and he ended up one to three outside the arc had an offensive foul at one point which I thought was kind of Bor like borderline it was LeBron taking a charge um like it was clunky and that’s to be expected the the ball movement was subpar for Minnesota and and that led to I think certainly the the the ball being sticky of course with no turnovers which then led to or Sor sorry with no ball movement of course the ball was sticky but then that led to turnovers because the ball would stop in one spot and there wouldn’t be additional movement they didn’t get into enough actions total in this game there was some confusion there was even like an out of out of a timeout there was some confusion on the play call um at one point and that lent itself to some of these turnover issues and I like I don’t it wasn’t randle’s fault it was actually just as much or more an eightth as anybody else but there just wasn’t any flow to the offense and there were a couple nice moments with Randall but for the most part he just looked like he was a square peg in a round hole and it’s game one of 82 the second time he’s ever put on a wolves Jersey in a game he only played in one preseason game so we’re far from fire alarm territory like it’s not even it’s it’s barely registering as a concern at this point um but at the same time some of the same things we’ve talked about in the show as like my my initial concerns with this trade I think it’s fair to point out that some of them were realized in this game the spacing wasn’t as good it was a bit of a my turn your turn um the I I don’t know that there was a pecking order issue because like Edward shot the ball 25 times the next two guys combined Randall had 10 shots and D chenzo attempted 11 only attempted 21 combined and shot 25 so will there be even too much of an imbalance with no carony towns I it’s too early to tell right it’s the smallest of sample sizes but some of the things that I was a little concerned about clearly came through in just game one um so like I think it’s fair to point that out it’ll be very interesting to see that there just seems to be a little bit more structure and I know Chris Fitch has never been about structure in the offense and after multiple years of of mediocre to poor offensive performances from his teams there needs to be a little more structure and especially when you don’t have the luxury of having a true three LEL store scorer of Carl towns you have Randall who’s just not as efficient and he’s more effective Opera in the middle of the floor and like there is going to have to be a little bit more intentionality behind um behind how the Wolves approach the offense I I that that to me is one of the themes early in the season is will there be will there be more intentionality behind how the Timberwolves uh approach off feds this year okay let’s go ahead and get into individual players individual studs and Duds we’ll talk a bit more about the offense on tomorrow’s show and uh break it down a bit more as we head into wolves Kings on Thursday night but next we’ll do individual studs and Duds today’s episode of lock that wolves is brought To Us by our friends at game time game time has a new feature called Game Time picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play Live even easier G game time picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don’t have to waste time searching through 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for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again create an account and redeem the code locked on NBA that’s l c k d o n NBA for $20 off download game time today what time is it game time all right let’s talk individual studs and Duds here from wolves Lakers studs from Minnesota um because I I’m like I don’t there really isn’t one if if I be completely honest like I actually think n Alexander Walker was probably the best player on the floor for Minnesota um he did miss a three when it was like a what like six seveno game maybe early fourth quarter that would have just been a huge shot but he was three or four outside the arc he made his other three three-point attempts 14 points on seven shots for nikel five of seven shooting three or four outside the arc five boards and a block um and really good for Alexander Walker like he he was great early in the playoffs last year we talked about this in his season preview week week and a half ago which shot the ball really poorly as the playoffs were on and was like right around 30% from outside the arc when it was all said and done in the playoffs and also didn’t shoot the ball well in the preseason this year so like it went from nikelle breaking out against Phoenix in the playoffs to shutting down Jamal Murray and having that clip of him just picking up Murray at half court and just dominating him defensively at some at one point in that Denver series to just like a backslide the rest of the playoffs and then with a lackluster preseason like this had to feel felt good for niiki Alexander Walker so 28 minutes off the bench for him uh more than Nas less than dvon chenzo Deon chenzo played 32 minutes off the bench but um a good performance overall for Nelle and really positive to see by the way he played Super aggressive defense 28 minutes was in in guys jerseys the whole time zero personal fouls for Niki Alexander Walker and sometimes that’s an indicator of somebody not trying on defense not the case with theil n was all over the place contrast that to jadeen McDaniel’s 16 minutes five personal fouls war on jayen here in a second because it’s I got to do more studs I’m gonna give one to Anthony Edwards it it was actually overall a decent Anthony Edwards performance um not not as best not his worst very much somewhere in between 27 points on 25 shots 10 of 25 overall shooting five of 13 outside the arc so he was five of 12 on twos and five of 13 on threes two of three at the free throw line the six rebounds were good he did a lot of that early in the game I thought he was fairly active on the boards and and to his credit when the Wolves were flat and down by 19 in the second quarter an hit a tough end one and you know did the let’s go wake up wake up wake up was the only wake up at his teammates which was the appropriate moment for him to do that he’s got the cache now to be able to do that he’s got to be the leader and I thought it was appropriate I thought it kind of sort of worked um and I he was aggressive on the glass when nobody else was except for maybe Rudy six board three assists for a he did have four turnovers um overall looking at his shot chart uh we talked about the five of 13 outside the arc he only attempted four non-pa twos which I say only that’s maybe two more than I would like him to take um but if you look at that like 10 10 foot out to the arc range he was two of six from that range actually three of seven it looks like he took one oh yeah he had that fade away that was just inside the arc three of seven in that range too many shots from there he was like what three of five at The Rim or within three or four feet the shot charts okay a couple more of those need to be closer to the rim he’s got to put more pressure on the defense and more pressure on the officials to let him get to uh to to get him to the free throw line so generally a decent game for ant he didn’t get a whole lot of help and I thought he played well overall um that’s it I’m not doing any more than two studs I just can’t in this game Duds we got to talk jayen McDaniels it’s tough because I thought offensively he looked comfortable I know he missed all three of his threes but he was three of five on twos hit a couple of nice shots off the dribble um looked like he was looking for his shot which was good to see but he had six points in five fouls in 16 minutes and the six points came on eight shots because he missed all three of his threes the bigger issue is the foul trouble it really limited what the Wolves were able to do so he’s definitely a dud in this game now I’m G give one to Nas I know he ended up with 12 points this to me was one of the worst games I’ve seen N Play in a long time and and late he kind of booed those numbers a bit late in this game uh but first half Nas man he was a major problem when it came to rebounding like um a major culprit the only guys with less rebounds than Nas in this game Joe and gills who played seven minutes uh divon chenzo who’s a guard did play a lot of minutes but a guard Jade McDaniels who only played 16 minutes now only had four rebounds in 26 minutes and he was out there for a chunk of time with Julius Randle effectively playing Center and missing assignments on the glass like it just wasn’t any good NAS performance I love Nas I hope he bounces back Thursday but he was a major uh I’ll call him a culprit when it came to the Wolves kind of falling in that hole in the second quarter overall like the plus minus stuff is is very uh distracting and and misleading when it comes to individual games Conley was actually a minus 22 he’s my third dud and normally I would I very rarely would go two studs and three Duds wolves deserve three Duds in this game and it’s not because Conley was a minus 22 but in this case I think it’s indicative how poorly he played 20 minutes Mike Conley had five points had seven shots missed all five his three-point attempts turned it over three times and only had two assists like you’d be hard pressed to find a worse Mike Conley game we could go back through his game log last year and I bet there’s less than three games like this um where he had more shots than points no three-pointers made remember he was like 43% from three third third or fourth in the league in percentage last year and more turnovers than assists really a poor mik Conley performance all right so studs went with ant and Nelle Duds went with Conley Nas Reed and jadeen McDaniels in this game we talked about Julius Randall already uh goar had a pretty typical goar game like Anthony Davis obviously outplayed him I thought Rudy was pretty decent in this game little out of possession position a couple of times defensively but uh he’s not the only one um talked about Engles Divan chenzo not a great game as by D chenzo standards you know 10 points and 11 shots two of eight outside the arc uh uh three assists one turnover two steals he was fine um he’s going to shoot the ball better than that he’s like a he’s obviously better than a 25% three-point shooter so not Ultra concern there either uh but the Wolves will have to play better than this Thursday I think Sacramento is going to be a better team than the Lakers this year they’ll both kind of be in that play and mix uh but Sacramento is always a tough matchup for Minnesota they play so fast the Wolves struggled in transition against the Lakers Sacramento is a tough place to play um I have a feeling they’ll be all right and all I’ll I’ll give kind of something of a prediction on Thursday’s show I I said this actually a few weeks ago I did the show with locked on Kings with Matt George and I said I think on the show hey I kind of think they might lose to LA and then have a a Revenge game of sorts on Thursday you know after they lose on national TV Tuesday night um or I I actually kind of thought it would go one of two ways right they’d either win on national TV Tuesday and fall flat against Sacramento Thursday or would flip and they would have a bad opening night game the Lakers would be amped up for JJ reick and the bronny thing um bronnie and LeBron playing together and then the Wolves would lose Tuesday but come back and play well Thursday so we’ll see um we’ll talk more about that match up of course on Thursday we’ll break down a little bit more some of the offensive stuff that I I referenced earlier in the show on Thursday’s show um all right a reminder we’re daily Monday through Friday so we’ll of course be back Thursday tomorrow previewing wolves Kings doing all the things I just said we’ll be back Friday with the postgame pod following the late game against the Kings on Thursday night a reminder that again there is now a newsletter for lockdown wolves introducing the lockdown Wolves day daily newsletter it’s one stop for Ultimate Team and League coverage delivered right to your inbox there’s some national articles in there as well as all of my content sign up for free right now at lock on.com that’s lock on.com start your day with the allnew free lockon wolves newsletter all right a reminder of this show is free and available everywhere you get Podcast you can also watch on YouTube and also on the lockdown Sports Minnesota app on Roku and Amazon Fire TV you can also follow an X at lock D wolves and also at B Beacon with two B’s Two e CK of course the lockdown wolves podcast is part of the lockdown podcast Network remember the lockdown network is your local experts on all the biggest stories once again I’m Ben Beacon this is the lockdown wolves podcast and we’ll catch you next time

The Minnesota Timberwolves came out flat in their season opener, falling to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers. The offense was stagnant, the defense was sluggish, and the result was exactly what the Wolves deserved. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) breaks down exactly what happened, from an uneven Julius Randle debut to Anthony Edwards dragging along the Wolves’ offense and more Jaden McDaniels foul trouble.

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