Minnesota Timberwolves come up clutch again, down the Sacramento Kings in well-rounded win

Minnesota Timberwolves come up clutch again, down the Sacramento Kings in well-rounded win

Hello and welcome into another episode of lockdown wolves this is the postgame podcast from wolves Kings on Saturday night another impressive tier Wolves win beating a shire playoff team by 12 on the road we’ll talk about the offense without carony Towns how great that was the big moments that ants had that Jade

McDaniels had that Rudy goar had and also the Wolves late game uh stingy defense that turned into explosive offense down the stretch we’ll break it all down 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 to the lockdown wolves podcast part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every day my name is Ben Beacon I’m the host of locked on wolves happy Monday happy Christmas day everybody hopefully you are having a fantastic holiday a great weekend and some time away from

Work some time to relax and tons of great NBA action on today of course the Wolves don’t play again till Tuesday night today is the postgame podcast we’re talking all things wolves Kings from Saturday uh you know kind of catching up on everything that happened the Wolves held the Kings to 98 points

One by 12 another impressive Road win against the team that had beaten them just a few weeks prior and the wolves are now 22- six alone a top the west and tied for the NBA’s best record still with the Boston Celtics I want to break down that game Saturday of course no

Carl towns so a lot about the Wolves offense and some role players stepping up um you know more usage available on the offensive end with no carony towns and you know Jaden McDaniels among others played fantastic and also the defense down the stretch in this game

For Minnesota to do what they did after the kings came all the way back from a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter I want to talk about those last few possessions of the game as well so plenty to get to here on the show of course as I said this is the postgame

Podcast we’ll do all that we’ll finish it off with individual studs and Duds uh first of all though a big thank you for making lockdown wolves your first listen every day of course this show is free and available everywhere wherever you listen to podcast that includes YouTube

As well as all of your favorite audio platforms you can also watch on the lockdown Sports Minnesota app on both Roku and Amazon firetv um you can get the show there you can also follow on X at lockon te wolves and also at B Beacon with two B’s Two e

Cken all right um so man where to start with this one I mean first of all this is a team the Kings matchup we talked about this in the Minnesota basketball party last Wednesday the Kings matchup scares me and Jack Borman of course who does our postcast and and is on the

Wednesday basketball parties Ed and chief at kupus he and I were both talking about how this was a difficult matchup for Minnesota namely due to the PACE that the Kings play with the fact they have skill inside with sabonis and also Dean Fox is such a tough cover and

This was on the heels of well actually when we talked about this Wednesday it was right before Tyrese Maxi gave the Wolves all those problems on Wednesday and Dean Fox and Tyrese Maxi certainly have some Sim similarities um you know smaller scoring guards who play with just you know are

Essentially a fast break every time down the floor just by themselves and you know the Wolves don’t always uh you know they they defend more with length than they do with quickness and Mike connley isn’t the Memphis Mike Conley in terms while he’s still a very good Defender

His you know lateral quickness isn’t quite the same as it was you know eight years ago and um while Jaden McDaniels generally does a great job staying in front of guards it’s you know he struggled with maxi less Wednesday because who doesn’t right when these guys are at their best there’s a reason

Why true top level perimeter Defenders are at a premium because it’s really tough to stop the Tyrese Maxes and the Yan foxes of the World when they get going and that’s one of the you know the main reasons why this matchup made me nervous coming in um and also like

Obviously the way that the Wolves played against the Kings a few weeks ago which I I should say really more the way the Kings played against the wolves in that inseason tournament game it was more about how lights out the kings were from Beyond The Arc and how good Daren Fox

Was than it was about anything the Wolves did drastically wrong in that game right uh but you know me or excuse me Sacramento is a team that plays at an extreme Pace they’re uh 10th in the league in Pace uh they’re third and three-point attempt rate and 15th in

Percentage and those things make me nervous because the Wolves even though they do a good job at suppressing opponent three point attempts which we’ll talk about on Tuesday’s show want to go a little bit more in depth on that um teams that should a high volume of Threes there’s more variance in their

Performance they play a ton of possessions there’s more variance in those teams performances and then you add in the speed of somebody like Daren Fox the fact that sabonis is someone who can get opposing teams into foul trouble the kings are pretty middle of the pack

In terms of offensive free throw rate uh but the wolves have been fouling a little bit more lately of course the Sixers game just happened on Wednesday so this matchup was a bit um you know it’s not my favorite match you know as as somebody who follows the

Timberwolves so that made me a little bit nervous coming in as it turns out oh and then also you had no carony towns and the Wolf front line is just simply thinner uh and so I had some concerns as it turns out the Wolves had plenty of

Offense in this game and they drove the Kings crazy with um on the other end of the floor so we’ll start with the offense Minnesota had a ton of paint points early they had um I want to say 20 of their 28 points the first quarter in the paint I don’t

Have that right in front of me but I believe that that’s it was um and it was just the Wolves had such a great plan for the Kings playing aggressively in pick and roll coverage um the kings were pretty much playing everything at the level and occasionally even hedging even

Harder and and almost almost you know playing a high wall type blitzing coverage in pick and roll and this was like Anthony Edwards I Mike Conley always handles that type of pressure really well but last year and and obviously prior in Anthony Edwards career he didn’t always handle that ball

Pressure extremely well in pick and roll game he would kind of panic would either try and force something himself or you know throw a crazy pass to the opposite corner whatever like turn the ball over and he just did a really good job of finding the open guy whether it was you

Know waiting that extra beat that half beat to get the defender sucked all the way out give himself enough of a window to fire a pass into Rudy it was often Rudy that was rolling um or if if it was a pass you know a pass to an assist

Right the pass to somebody else that can get an assist because two are playing the ball and the Kings actually I don’t think covered that badly like they still guys tagging the roller they had guys stepping up to try and get to goar and then goar was making the right play

Right um he only had one assist in this game but there were multiple instances where whatever whoever whatever big it was Rudy or Nas typically or Kyle Anderson whoever was setting the screen could then turn and hit somebody else um you know with with a uh with a pass that

Hopefully would lead to a bucket the Wolves by the way had 31 assists on 44 made field goals in this game which is an incredible ratio it was really good the other night too in their win on uh on Thursday over the Lakers that their assist to made basket ratio assist

Percentage I guess if you will um was really impressive in that game too so the Wolves passing in general was really on point in this game and credit Mike connley credit Anthony Edwards uh ant had 10 assists connley had nine uh by the way also having I didn’t talk about

The starting lineup yet but Carlton Town’s not playing so the obvious you know conventional wisdom would be oh Nas would be in the starting lineup he’s going to pick up a lot of those minutes uh well you know maybe if cat was out for an extended period of time but in in

What could just be a one game absence or hopefully a much a really shortterm absence plug-and playay with slow-mo makes a ton of sense because um Kyle Anderson is a he’s just a really good passer and a team that the Wolves figured was going to play aggressively

To put Kyle Anderson out there and and and he’s a more well Nas can make strong passes and and make the flashy pass from now from time to time and for a big he you know he can pass he’s he’s nibble right he’s got that skill set Kyle

Anderson is a much more solid heady passer and I would say more consistent passer in general I know he’s had some turnover issues this year overall but he made sense to me to plug into the starting lineup and then that way you’re not asking you know if you put Nas in

The starting lineup Nas is going to try and replicate what cat does offensively from a scoring perspective Kyle Anderson can simply pick up the slack from a passing a distribution standpoint and he’s probably even a better passer than Carl Town certainly he’s looking to pass

More than cat is and that’s not a knock on cat that’s just the type of player Kyle Anderson is he essentially plays point forward for this team you know frequently and then all you’re doing from there is asking Jade McDaniels to pick up some of that scoring slack and

Ask ant to be even a little bit more High usage which he has no problem doing so sure enough you end up with ant with 34 points you have goar with 21 and Jade McDaniels launches 16 shots in this game nine three-pointers and finishes with 20 points and was really really solid on

Both ends of the floor better than solid really um so Kyle Anderson picks up the passing and the size elements of it um of the of cat’s absence and then you’re just asking Jade McDaniels to do more offensively McDaniels actually ended up playing more minutes in this game than

Anyone else he had a game high 41 minutes um which we we’ll talk more about McDaniels later but in terms of the starting lineup and the way the Wolves attacked offensively to start the game that was kind of the game plan is like hey the Kings going to be

Aggressive let’s put somebody who’s slow and can counteract that pace and not literally for that reason but that’s kind of maybe an unintended benefit or maybe was intended in addition to the the passing chops that slimo brings to the game he gets the ball in a short

Roll and he can just kick it to the to the corner or dump it down to Rudy or maybe Kyle Anderson operates in pick and roll like any of those options are available and the wolves in general whether it was ant whether it was Conley whether it was slowmo those guys all

Passed really well at a pick and roll game McDaniels picked up a lot of the scoring slack and the Wolves just kind of built on what they were doing throughout the game offensively they’re up eight at the end of the first quarter they’re up 12 at halftime third quarter

The Kings put up a fight the wolv are actually a minus one in the third which which is you the opposite of what we’re typical or we typically see out of the wolves in the third quarter and um it was it wasn’t until the fourth when Minnesota really surged forward even

More and made this a 20 plus point lead I want to talk about late fourth quarter the Wolves built that lead then they relinquished it I want to talk about you know the end of the fourth we’ll talk key takeaways before we get into individual studs and Duds that’s what we’ll do next

Year all right a big thank you once again for making lockdown wolves your first listen every day uh also a reminder that locked on now has the locked on uh the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel on YouTube lockon sports today is here for you 247 covering the top

Sports stories of the day with the local Experts of lockdown plus our national shows covering every league go to locked on sports today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel all right um so late fourth quarter the Timberwolves are they actually built a lead of 22 Midway

Through the fourth um and it the lead had kind of hovered around 20 for a while and and it got up to I think 19 at one point in the third quarter it was back down to what was it it was uh I think 13 Going to the fourth quarter but

The Wolves again they pushed it all the way up to 22 with what about seven minutes left I’m going to get the exact uh yeah they’re up 22 with 7 21 left in the game so just over seven minutes and then from there all of a sudden the

Kings gone a really quick adal run which most of it was Harrison Barnes they go in an 80 run no I’m sorry an 11 no a 130 run uh the Wolves kind of get a couple buckets in there and then all of a sudden it gets back down to a five-point

Game with exactly two minutes to play after Trey LS gets a dunk or a layup I guess now it’s a five-point game with two minutes left of course the golden one Center is Rocky and like this is it’s down to actual crunch time now after the Wolves we just up 22 like

Literally took just over five minutes for the Kings to to to shave what 17 points from 22 down to five yeah 17 points off the Wolves lead and then the Wolves come down McDaniels has a tough shot so now it’s back to seven but then on the ensuing possession defensively um

The Kings get an offensive rebound which the Wolves did a good enough job on the glass in this game they end up a plus two overall but the Kings get an offensive Rebound with about a minute and a half left Tre lyes in the left

Corner tries to find I forget who it was on the right side and uh ant just like it was a bad pass by Tre lyes but ant did you know did the free safety thing where he just he looked up his eyes followed you know the eyes of the guy with the

Ball he jumps out grabs the pass and gets down the court and gets a Duncan transition then on the other end now it’s a nine-point game with just over a minute to play McDaniels or Darren Fox gets McDaniels in space McDaniels does what hardly anybody could do last last

Year remember de Fox was pretty clearly the best clutch player of the League last season by the way side note one of the reasons I thought the Kings would regress a bit this year is they were so good in close late situations and Daren Fox was ridiculously good this team was

Also really healthy like for all those reasons I I thought maybe we’d see some aggression from the Kings so far I think they’re pretty on paac to hit their over under or their win total um so I could be wrong there but anyway at least in this game there was some regression

Because deared Fox had to take on Jaden McDaniels McDaniels gets him or Fox gets into the paint McDaniels actually blocks uh you know Darren Fox is so good at getting to his spots right he’s so quick mcdel just beat him to the spot blocked his shot Kyle Anderson grabs it pushes

It up to um I think to ant yeah pushes it up to Ant and then ant just takes it all the way down Euros gets the and one puts the Wolves up 11 with a minute to play or actually by 12 with a minute to

Play and that was it that was all she wrote they traded a couple three-pointers Cony hit a dagger with 30 seconds left but that sequence was kind of the embodiment of the Wolves season in a sense right it was um McDaniels hitting a shot great team defense an

Getting a fast break dunk more great individual defense from J McDaniels and then slow-mo and ant running the break getting a bucket and it hasn’t always been pretty it often is hasn’t always been pretty and especially some of these games that the Wolves I don’t want to

Say dominate but they’re in control of for most of it and then they allow the opponent back in and then they end up winning um it it was a different sort of of comfort I guess than what we saw in the Lakers game Thursday but at times

It still kind of felt like the Wolves were like ah we have this one in the bag we can turn it on whenever we need to which is of course a little bit dangerous but it’s also I said this a lot or I said this a bunch on Friday’s

Show the the postgame pod from the win over the Lakers it happens with good teams right and this was a good team playing a good team and the Wolves still kind of let their foot off the gas a little bit there in the fourth quarter and and I should also say this I

Actually thought the offense operated fine there were a couple of ant possessions where he did the thing where he just kind of pounds The Rock and then launches a three he was three of 12 Outside The Arc in this game that’s my only kind of quibble With The Wolves

Offense I actually thought the process was good in the fourth quarter even while the kings were making their run the Wolves mostly got good shots they just missed them um Conley had a three-point shot Rim Out Ant had a pull-up jumper from in two-point range

Uh like a right side of the floor that rimmed out um Alexander Walker I think missed a yeah you know layup that just kind of rimmed out uh McDaniels missed a three-pointer that wasn’t a bad shot like the it wasn’t all just ant isos it wasn’t sloppy you know rushed stuff in

Transition it wasn’t you miss a bunch of Miss layups it was one miss layup but like these were all shots that just kind of rimmed out um and the process was good the passing was good I didn’t really have a problem with how the Wolves played in the fourth quarter

Except for a couple of those ant possessions which really it was more well the Wolves were building that lead like it was when they were up by 20-ish points he had a couple of those and then very late in the game he had a couple of those but throughout that like what was

It kings run and they cut 17 points off the lead in five minutes actually thought the offensive process wasn’t bad for the wolves and it was just miss shots and that happens and the kings are a good team they turned it on offensively and then when it really

Mattered down the stretch in clutch time final two minutes the Wolves turned it on defensively and that was all she wrote and they held a Sacramento offense that is fantastic even after this game this is still the 13th best offense in the league they were the League’s uh

Were they the best offense last year they were they were number one offensive rating last year they were even after this game they’re 13th in the League this year they’re 10th in Pace what did I say third in three-point attempt rate 15th in percentage they held this team

To 98 points they held this team to here I’ll throw up the stats real quick if you’re watching on YouTube um they held this team to 98 points they held him to 43 and a half perc shooting from the field and just another um like another notch in the belt if you will

For for the tibber rolles this year in terms of how they played against good offenses this isn’t a top 10 offense currently but I talked about this last week um I think the Sixers are now the only team with a top 10 offense that’s beaten the Wolves the wolves are if I if

I remember correctly now six and one against teams with top 10 offenses in Sacramento when it’s all said and done this year very likely will have a top 10 offense and they were again the number one team in the league last year in terms of offensive efficiency it’s

Effectively the same roster they missed yon Fox for a few games this year they had a couple of injuries but um this is a good offensive team make no mistake the Wolves held them under 44% shooting from the field they held them to 30% or excuse me 24% on three-point attempts

Eight of 33 outside the ark is 24.2% and uh you know they turned him over 11 times they only allowed eight offensive rebounds to Sacramento and uh you know Sacramento is not a huge offensive rebounding team but still uh to be able to limit those opportunities free throw attempts you

Know the Wolves lost in that category as you can see there on your screen um they only Shot 14 free throws to Sacramento’s 21 but in general the Wolves did a really good job and to hold this offense to 98 points on 43 and a half% shooting and

20% uh from outside the ark 24% excuse me from outside the ark is really impressive for Minnesota and uh like down the stretch I I don’t know what else to say about that so some additional additional takeaways um I kind of talked about this already but in

The first segment but the way that the Wolves covered for cat’s absence by ball Movement by Jade McDaniel doing his thing and we’ll talk studs and Duds we’ll talk more about these guys individually but the Wolves offensively um kind of papered over cat’s absence and did a really good job of of coming

Up with enough points to beat a really good offensive team uh paint points I alluded to this earlier the Wolves did a bunch of this early we I haven’t even talked that much about Rudy goar and obviously he’s a big part of all of this um but paint points in this

Game Minnesota was a plus 14 points in the paint 66 points in the paints for the points in the paint for the Wolves you know not a very good defensive team so they should dominate the paint but good to see them do what they’re supposed to do a plus4 in terms of

Points in the paint a plus 23 in Fast Break points of this game 28-5 against a team that is known for playing with Pace against the team by the way the the Kings actually only turned it over 11 times in this game and Minnesota made them pay they had 16

Points off 11 Kings turnovers the Kings only had 10 points off 12 Minnesota turnovers and again the Wolves had plus 23 in Fast Break points a plus 14 points in the paint and that is how you beat a team with an efficient offense on the road like that um also a side note

Related to the end of the game the Timber’s length um just really bothered the Kings up and down the floor throughout this game de I didn’t mention this I should have Jared Foxon uh almost said arvus oh my goodness shows I guess it shows my age arvus sabonis right um

Karen Fox and damis sabonis neither one of them scored in the fourth quarter both had goex in the fourth quarter of this game because of the Wolves defense because the woles length I should say on the perimeter and um also limited Second Chance opportunities was a big thing

Late in the game as well um but that fox and sabonis the King’s two best players to not have any points I think Fox had 27 points coming into the fourth quarter sabonis had 17 um and both of them were efficient for the game it was just the Wolves

Didn’t let them get to their spots late and then when they did they didn’t let him get off a clean look like sabonis was 7 to 12 shooting not a single point in the fourth quarter Fox was 10 of 23 like that’s decently efficient for him he was three

Of 11 on three-pointers so what he was seven of 12 on two-point attempts not a single point in the fourth quarter for dearen Fox um The Wolves did a great job limiting those guys in the fourth and limiting everyone else over the course of the game Keegan Murray was good I

Mean he’s a really good player Kevin herder had two points in 15 minutes was a minus 19 the Wolves dominated him especially early in the game um Harrison Barnes only 12 points in this game and he’s been good for them Trey ly had 10 Off the Bench like nobody else did

Anything like those were the only other guys that were in double figures other than Keegan Murray and then sabonis and fox who each did nothing in the fourth quarter so that was really impressive for Minnesota there down the stretch U using their length to dominate late in this

Game all right I want to talk a little bit more about studs and Duds some of these other stats uh here as we close out the show today and uh that’s that’s what we’ll do here to close it out all right individual studs and Duds from wolves Kings we talked a little bit

About Rudy earlier but I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t talk about him enough Rudy was phenomenal this was probably a top three Rudy Timberwolves game certainly this season and there were only a couple last year that even would make that list of even top 10 Rudy games in a wolf’s

Uniform he was fantastic in this game and sabonis yeah sabonis had a couple of highlights he had a nice hook shot a couple of dunks the one where he hit Rudy in the face and easily could have been called for an offensive foul but it was a nice dunk nonetheless um all right

That’s nice he had 17 on 12 shots well guess what Rudy had 21 on 13 shots which is better uh he was also he had 17 boards deonas sabonis had 10 boards Rudy had six offensive rebounds sabonis had one offensive rebound Rudy had two blocks damus sabonis had zero blocks in

This game Rudy had one turnover damus sabonis had three turnovers Rudy was a plus 27 de sabonis was a minus 17 the Wolves won by 12 um gobert dominated sabonis in this game he just did uh I don’t care that sa bonus hit a hook shot I don’t

Care he had a couple of dunks Rudy was the better player Rudy was fantastic um like I what I’ve said this so many times I’m just like at a loss for words like you pick almost any possession in fact the possession that sabonis got the

Dunk on I actually had it was like 3 minutes left maybe in the third quarter I think I looked at the time because I was like I want to talk about this possession later because until that point it was such a good wolves defensive possession I think Shake Milt

Was on the floor for it but the Wolves were covering for each other they were exing out on the perimeter denied multiple drives and and potential shot attempts from the Kings and then it finished with a sabonis dunk but everything else was right and how many

Times in this game did Rudy simply deny the shot from ever occurring in the first place or block a shot at The Rim or alter a shot at The Rim um Rudy was so so good and just provided that security blanket backline defense like he typically does for Minnesota 21 on 13

Shot attempts 17 rebounds six offensive rebounds one assist one of two at the line a couple of blocks only one turnover for Rudy goar in this game uh Anthony Edwards 3410 and five 13 of 27 shooting if he just didn’t launch so many threes like over the course of

The game contested I don’t know why he shot 12 threes which like in general and I if you’re a regular listener you know I talk about this all the time shooting more threes is almost always better it just was weird that he did it so much in

This game because he did everything else so well 10 10 assists he did turn over five times and he was sloppy the other night with his passing but um you know 34 on 27 shots 10 assists five boards you know you take a few Miss threes and

Some turnovers along with that like I thought ant was really good in this game five of five at the line uh probably could have gone to line of a couple more times which is usually the case with Anthony Edwards but I thought he played well in this game um and was good

Defensively I thought he was it was mostly I haven’t talked about Alexander Walker but it was n Alexander Walker and then mostly Jaden McDaniels that shut down fox in the fourth quarter but a was good overall uh my third stud is Jade McDaniels 20 points on eight of 16

Shooting three of nine from outside the arc five rebounds four steals one assist one block zero turnovers in 41 minutes a game high 41 minutes for Jaden McDaniels I talked about this already but he picked up that offensive slack that you’re missing with no Caron towns he was phenomenal defensively and I like

Aunt talked with us after the game like he’s got to be first team all defense he’s so so so so good uh Mike Brown Kings coach shouted him out after the game um which by the way I’ll get to this in a second Mike Rod had another comment I wanted to talk

About um McDaniels was great he was awesome in this game um not much more you can say about him uh dud wise I don’t really have any Duds for this game like everybody played pretty well n kill Alexander Walker didn’t do anything offensively he had not a single stat

Other than shooting one of four like no rebounds no assists no steals no blocks no turnovers pretty non-descript game but some really strong defense for n so um not a whole lot to say there there really aren’t any Duds rotation wise the Wolves actually played 10 guys in this

Game McDaniels got a uh excuse me Jord mcam play a couple of minutes Troy Brown Jr played three minutes I think it was only in the first half and then Shake actually got rotation minutes in both halves so Chris Finch is clearly now that this team’s getting healthy and

With no Carl 3 tals obviously there were a few more minutes in general even if you know guys were shifting positions slightly you know uh shifting down the Spectrum in terms of their their positions uh you know technically um that’s why you know there a few more minutes available but still

Playing 10 guys trying to keep guys fresh Chris Finch wants to play Jordan mcgoffin and sure enough in those two minutes he had two assists no turnovers didn’t register any other stats uh Troy Brown played three first half minutes Shake played 14 minutes overall scored five points knocked down a corner three

Um Nas Reed was okay you know six points only played 19 minutes which is a little bit weird in a game with no Carlon towns but again Kyle Anderson was good played 29 minutes started had 10 five and five for Kyle Anderson and the Wolves just didn’t need

Nas to do as much in this game weirdly enough which I expected and I said this I think on Friday expected him to need to do more to play Fast to uh play more minutes to do what Nas does against a I thought would be a really high-scoring

Game but as it turns out the Wolves defense was so good Sacramento only managed 98 points um so it’s a good thing they didn’t necessarily need more offense from nas Reed but across the board all 10 guys that played played well I think the rotation stuff was

Pretty interesting um as well so we’ll keep an eye on that moving forward you know it’s still your typical top seven uh you know minus towns in this game so you know top top eight became top seven and then those last couple of rotation spots kind of sliding back and forth

Between shake and Troy Brown and now you’ve got mofin in the mix um and I think I think the right play is trying to get them all run you know every now and again each of them could see a DN PCD but you don’t want to Stack those

Right you don’t want brown or mlin or Milton to see two three of those in a row you want to find him some minutes here and there and keep him fresh and I think Fitch has done a really good job of doing that while this team is still

Just picking up W’s uh nearly every time out um peaking ahead so well actually real quick real quick I want to throw the stats back up if you’re watching on YouTube I talked about the field goal percentage the wolves made a couple more threes in the same number of attempts as

Sacramento Sacramento was 24% from Deep the Wolves were 30 uh Minnesota was a minus one in the turnover category but again plus three in rebounds plus 12 in terms of points in the paint and a plus 23 in Fast Break points in this game uh minus four at the free throw

Line but again if you win you know they they were a plus six in terms of points outside the arc they were a minus four at the line so if you win that differential you’re going to be in a good place especially if you stack those

Points of the paint and uh fast break points as well so really strong in those categories for Minnesota Mike Brown this is a tease ahead to to Tuesday show Mike Brown talked postgame The Kings Head Coach about how impressed he was with the Wolves defense and how difficult it

Was for Sacramento to get off shots and he said like even if you’re shooting open threes they speed you up just enough I’m paraphrasing of course they speed you up enough because you’re worried about their length and and even though they’re very rarely gonna block actually block a three-point attempt you

Know that they’re there and that they’re long and that they’re going to you know they’re going to hurry you I’ve talked about this before on the show this year the wolves are doing a really good job at limiting Corner three-point attempts limiting three-point attempts in general limiting Rim attempts and when their

Opponents do shoot at The Rim they don’t shoot it well at The Rim the Wolves shot profile is extremely strong and this was a really good example of a game where the Wolves took a good offensive team and said hey you’re not going to score

As much as us in the paint and you’re not going to score as well as us from outside the arc and we’re going to win this game and that’s exactly what happened the Wolves defensive shot profile is so strong it doesn’t matter really who they play against unless it’s

Apparently Joel embiid the one blind spot the wolves have and I know that technically they’re doing okay in terms of limiting free throw attempts but they’re so good everywhere else that I would argue that they’re defending without fouling is stilling area that if they improved even a little bit in this

Would be like potentially historically great defense like we’re only a third of the way through the season not even I don’t think quite or maybe actually might be exactly a third of the way somewhere like something like that um I think we are exactly a third of the way pretty close

Um like there’s still a chance for this defense to get better and it’s defending without fouling like again in this game they allowed 21 freee throw attempts they only got 14 themselves like that’s fine if you win points of the pain and win the three-point battle uh but that

Is an area they could improve other than that this defense is so good and I want to talk basically what that Mike Brown quote was alluding to I want to break that down a bit more on on Tuesday’s show I want to get into the Wolves defensive shot profile it’s been a

Couple of weeks since we’ve really dug into that and really kind of play that out a bit further so that’ll be Tuesday’s show we’re still doing five shows this week um just like we always do you know even though we’re in the midst of the holidays we’ll do five

Shows I don’t think we’ll have a basketball party Wednesday so we’ll be short there but uh we should have postcast and everything all week long the Wolves nexts take on the Thunder tomorrow night Tuesday night at Oklahoma City um and we’ll also I’ll briefly preview that match up we’ll talk about

The last time the Wolves took out the Thunder a few weeks ago here that’ll be you know the end of the show on Tuesday so we’ll spend most of the show talking about the defense digging into the numbers and then we’ll get into the Wolves Thunder matchup so that’ll be

Tuesday show of course Wednesday will be the postgame pod from Tuesday and then we’ll get into the rest of the week from there so um that’s all we have for you today a big thank you once again for watching a big thank you for listening to lockdown wolves for making us 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 you can also watch on the lockon sports Minnesota app on Roku and Amazon Fire TV and you can follow an X at lockon T

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Podcast and we’ll catch you next time

The Minnesota Timberwolves stepped up across the board in the absence of Karl-Anthony Towns, holding the potent Sacramento Kings under 100 points and staving off a furious late rally. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) breaks down the most impressive aspects of the win, from the efficient early offense to the shutdown defense down the stretch. Plus, thoughts on fantastic games from Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert.

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