Optimism and Concern: Both sides of the Minnesota Timberwolves without Karl-Anthony Towns

Optimism and Concern: Both sides of the Minnesota Timberwolves without Karl-Anthony Towns

Hello and welcome into another episode of lockdown wolves today on the show my concerns surrounding Carlon Town’s absence are largely based on offensive efficiency and versatility however there are some reasons for optimism and that’s mostly to do with some of the Wolves lineup data without Carlon towns to this

Point in the season we’ll break down the whole thing next year welcome in you are a 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 beac and I’m the host of lock on wolves today’s episode is brought to you by prize picks the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to prize.com

Lockon NBA and use the code all lowercase lockon NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 happy Thursday everybody the Timberwolves have a couple of days off here which means we get to take a half step back and really over like take take a take a larger view of

The Wolves sanss Carlton towns we haven’t had much of a time to take a breath since the news that he’d be out for some time of course he had the miniscus surgery on Monday be reevaluated in four weeks which is right at the tail end of the regular season

And the wolves have had tons of games since then so I want to look at some of my concerns and also some reasons for potential optimism as we enter this season of The Wolves season without Carlton towns that’s what we’ll focus Today’s Show on a big thank you off the

Top here for making lockdown wolves your first listen every day of course this show is free and available everywhere that includes YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms you can also watch the show on the lockdown Sports Minnesota app on both Roku and

Amazon on Fire TV and you can follow on X at lockon T wolves and also at B Beacon that’s with 2bs two e CK and a reminder about the postcast of course we cover the team every day but we also give you instant episodes after every single game you could check out

The lockon Wolves postcast you can hear the audio right here on lock on wolves uh on the podcast feed so couple episodes ago would have been the postcast from Tuesday night’s Clippers game I actually hosted that one I’ve hosted a handful this year typically it’s Luke Inman hosting with uh our good

Buddy Jack Borman the editor-in-chief of K suus occasionally Tyler meta from K suus so um you know Luke and Jack usually a bit of a rotating cast of characters at times we stream that live after the games on lockdown Sports Minnesota on on YouTube and again the

Audio will be right here on the lockdown wolves audio feed you get rapid reaction to all the biggest moments following each game with the lockdown wolves postcast all right so let’s jump into this this um wolves sans’s cat discussion and um there’s a lot of different ways we could

Take this we talked about it actually a little bit on the Minnesota basketball party on Wednesday which again also on the lockdown Sports Minnesota YouTube channel and also in the audio feed here if you’re listening on audio two EP actually no the episode before this one in your feed is the basketball party

Show from Wednesday uh a few of us on the panel discussing concerns about have without having Carl 3 TOs and my main concern on the show that I discussed that I won’t spend a ton of time here today was related to cats versatility and without alony towns the timberl

Offense becomes more limited it’s just it’s just a fact that towns is the most efficient offensive player in the wolves and has the best combination of Versatility and efficiency on the Wolves yes Anthony Edwards has the higher ceiling and can do more things as a better ISO player but Carlon towns is

Truly efficient from everywhere on the floor right he’s great at The Rim he can score on drives he can spot up from three um he can handle the ball he he loves uh getting downhill from the perimeter he loves playing off dribble hand offs in an isolation he can post up

He can do all those things and he does them all efficiently and without Carl 30 towns Chris fit’s Playbook becomes thinner it’s going to be a lot of a steady diet of of pick and roll a lot of spread pick and roll get Rudy you know use Rudy’s gravity to pull the defense

Toward the rim ant then you know defenses have to make a choice right are we sticking with ant are we sticking with Rudy and then you got spot up Shooters around the perimeter which is part of the challenge because you take out the best shooter on on the team who

Also is Carl th towns and now you’re left with this starting lineup that we saw you know the last couple times out or I guess not Sunday because he was out but Kyle Anderson in the starting lineup and Jade McDaniels with a complete lack of confidence oh of of 11 over the past

Two games and is now shooting under 35% what is he at uh 34.4% for the season so well below League average at this point and if he’s going to be you know last year at 40% three point shooter but a lot of this hinges on him and Kyle

Anderson knocking down open shots and they have not done that this year especially not Kyle Anderson who’s over 40% last year from three and he’s 21% from three this year so that complicates things not only do you take away your most versatile offensive player but you also take

Away your best shooter and and now it’s ant and it’s Rudy and the only spot up shooter that can make you pay in the regular starting lineup at this point is Mike Conley which is why we’re going to see a little more ni Walker which is why

Nas Reed there’s a shot that Nas joins the starting lineup at some point I know Chris fit would rather use him in a six man scoring Roll Off the Bench but you got to start either Alexander Walker or Nas Reed so you have at least two potent Shooters on the

Floor with Anon Rudy at basically all times and it allows you to bring one of them off the bed still so my hunch is and we talked about this a little bit they out the basketball party and also the postcast with Jack the other night if you bump Jade McDaniels up to four

And you start to kill Alexander Walker and Anthony Edwards in the back court with Mike Conley it’s not ideal you’re not playing as big as you’d like to it means you’re relying on jadeen McDaniels to grab a few rebounds here and there which he’s also struggled to do with any real frequency and

Inconsistency uh but it allows you to get another shooter on the floor and then Kyle erson could still essentially run your second unit yeah you can still play Jordan mcclaflin who’s actually been a really good three-point shooter this year um I mean he’s actually by percentage the Wolves best three-point

Shooter just a hair ahead of Mike Conley at this point so that you could still play Kyle Anderson Jordan mlet Off the Bench you could still you know keep NS on the floor with some of the bench unit or or I guess in this scenario you would

Be keep n would be coming off the bench still because Nick Alexander Walker would be in the starting lineup so um and we can talk more about the lineup data here in a minute but the the the limits that it places on Chris fit’s Playbook the ability it just it just

Caps the ability to do too much with the Playbook uh with the with the absence of Carl 30 towns and it puts a lot more pressure on these guys who aren’t shooting the ball as well as they did last year and now you’re looking at Mike connley Alexander Walker who shot the

Lights out the other night but overall this year hadn’t been as good as last year although he’s been fine like he’s a little over League average at this point uh it’s those guys right like those guys Jade McDaniels has to make open threes but otherwise you’re looking at Conley

And Alexander Walker’s your only plus Shooters unless you want to include Jordan mcglauflin there Edwards is a good three-point shooter but he’s a volume shooter right he’s he’s hovering between 36 and 37% all year and he’s dangerous and he can shoot it from anywhere it’s it’s a little bit more

Like d’angel Russell is a three-point shooter right where he’s going to get him up and he can shoot from you know wherever he wants he can shoot from the logo if he wants to he can get a shot off in any situation and he can get hot

At any point but he’s also more of a volume threo shooter than a knockdown catch and shoot guy like say Mike connley or carlt Dy towns um I want to talk about the efficiency challenges and then I I so I’ve already talked about the versatility challenges let’s talk about efficiency challenges

Which is related and then we could get into some encouraging factors um just to introduce the the idea of the efficiency challenges um the T wolves offense I’ve already mentioned in passing C the towns as their most efficient offensive player there really isn’t any debate about that

And I gave kind of the high the um high level overview on that right he’s just better than anybody else from anywhere on the floor effective field goal percentage wise he’s a hair below Conley and Reed and a a ways below goar because goar um you know he gets a lot of dunks

As it turns out uh true shooting percentage same deal only Rudy go bee of Carlton towns and actually Kat’s got almost a two-point advantage on the next best wolf who’s Mike Conley um cat is you know 42% from three he’s over 50% for the field 55% from two he’s having his

Best free throw shooting season at 87% and free throw ratewise um Carl th towns is is finally like actually I want to spend more time on that because that’s maybe the biggest thing he’s gotten that it was lower earlier this year he’s gotten it up to where it was last year

It’s still not where it was a couple years ago and he was getting to the line um on nearly 40% of his or that’s not the right way to say that free throw rate is number of free throw TS per field goal attempt so for every field

Goal attempt he was nearly averaging uh point4 free throws for every one field goal attempt which is a a a great Mark right it’s not exactly Joel and bees but it’s great that was uh three years ago actually even last year or no sorry yeah three years ago no two years ago 2122

His last all serar season before this one last year that dipped and this year it’s even lower the free throw rate is but it’s getting higher still that is a major component for the Wolves offense that has been lacking in the four games that Carlon towns has missed since the

Announcement of the injury so I want to dig into that a bit more and how the Wolves could combat that then I want to look at lineup data that suggests that they should be able to weather the storm on some level without Carlton towns we’ll do all that here next

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Mentioned free throw rate and while cat’s free throw rate is not where it has been in recent years compared to other guys on the Wolves it’s still really important right the only guys with Higher free throw rates individually on the wolves are Anthony Edwards who’s just slightly higher Kyle

Anderson believed or not because his volume of shots is so low and among rotation guys Rudy goar I’m not going to count Min not or Luca Garza but Rudy goar is has a much higher free throw right because teams are trying to wrap him up when he’s around the rim

Obviously and then it’s only Kylie and Anthony Edwards with Higher free throw rates than Carl towns and nobody else is even close by the way cat’s over A3 so more than three free throw attempts per one field goal attempt nobody else is above a02 Nas is the next closest at

0171 okay so the only guys getting to line for the wolves are Kat Anon Rudy and Kyle Anderson you know just based on his volume of shots he gets filed a fair amount um so that’s a bit of a problem in and of itself and the Wolves as an offense

Their offensive free throw rate though is still sixth in the league in terms of how often they’re getting to the line or actually it’s fifth in the league um so they’re top five in free throw rate and it’s been one of the reasons the offense has been uh at least competitive at

Times this year still middle of the pack still kind of languishing in the 15 to 20 range in terms of their league rating all season their offensive rating is um and they don’t you know there’s a lot of things they don’t do well right they

Turn it over a bunch they don’t grab a ton of offensive rebounds although they did against the Clippers excuse me um yeah the Clippers on Tuesday uh but if you just look at the games they’ve played since Carlon towns went out okay so going back to the Pacers game now

It’s also the start of the road trip so going back to last uh last Thursday it would have been at Indiana and if you look at so I like looking at cleaning the glass if you look at the the recent um essentially the game log for the team and the four

Factors on cleaning the glass they they shade all the boxes to show you like uh percentile of of um of each each category for the game right so like for instance last game the Timberwolves against the Clippers their points per 100 possessions was 134.5 points per 100 possessions is how

They played offensively essentially their offensive rating for the game against the Clippers that would be 93rd percent out right that’s a really good offensive game the game prior against the Lakers 109.5 points per 100 possessions 29th percent out okay so you get the picture so if it’s the closer it is to 100th

Percentile the more orange the box is the closer it is to zero the more blue boxes and you look at the last four games and three of the four free throw rate boxes for their offense are blue blue 12th percentile 7th percentile 24th percentile the Cleveland game is essentially neutral 54th

Percentile so an easier way to say that or I guess what that’s telling us is over the last four games their free throw rate as a team has been extremely low if you look at the four games before that it’s all orange real orange and in

Fact you you take like a 10 game sample before that and um eight of the 10 games are orange there’s only two that are blue this is a really crude way of looking at this but I think you get what I’m saying Caron Town say a massive impact

On the turell’s offense on the tur’s offense’s ability to draw fouls and a lot of it is cat individually drawing fouls but it’s also I used this word earlier about Rudy but it’s the gravity that cat creates wherever he is on the floor that then allows Anthony Edwards to get a mismatch

Or to avoid a double team to then make it easier for him to draw a foul or whatever that looks like right it just makes it greases the wheels of the offense they’re headed in the wrong direction free throw rate wise and and Cat’s absence is a big reason for that

Side note the other end of the floor they’re also headed in the wrong direction they were top 10 for a long stretch this season in terms of avoiding fouls on defense and they’ve plummeted now according to basketball reference their 20th in defensive free throw rate and again same thing on clean in the

Glass like you look at their last uh you know four games they’re in the blue the last four games they’ve been committing a ton of fouls or or and really um allowing opponents to shoot a ton of free throws against them I worry a little bit about the Rudy factor and

What happened I’ve said this a couple times before on various shows but uh the conscious or perhaps subconscious bias of officials against Rudy and the Timberwolves could only increase after what Rudy’s allegations last Friday and we’ve seen seen that over the last now the Lakers get to the

Line a ton period the Clippers do as well so you know maybe maybe it’s more the opponent than anything else and I’m I’m willing to accept that as what’s likely happening but it’s something to monitor it’s been a problem over the last four games and of course the wolves

Have gone two and two over the last four games so free throws are one concern but one of the ways they could combat that and this is where I start to to to turn things back to the positive side and we’ll get to the lineup data here in a

Minute is that the tibal have been a better transition team or or they’re more they’re more likely to run without Carlton towns of the floor and for the season they’re second to last in the NBA in transition frequency they’re 29th they run in transition according to cleaning the glass on just 12.8% of

Possessions only Chicago runs less frequently than Minnesota however the Timberwolves are number one in efficiency in transition they score 134.0 points per 100 transition plays number one so second to lasted frequency number one in efficiency and they’re more likely to run without Carlon towns on the floor now the one thing that

Concerns me there is cat does draw a lot of files and he’s the best shooter on the team and he can get Trail threes in transition and he can get followed in transition but he’s often not he’s usually not one of the first guys down

The floor right so he can get hit a trail three uh in almost what turns into a secondary break type situation and I guess those are probably still logged as transition shots in this case um but we’re talking Anthony Edwards in transition we’re talking you know Mike

Connley getting on the floor he doesn’t shoot a whole lot of pullup threes in transition but the ability to do that pushing to Corner threes for Nas for Niki Alexander Walker Nas getting out in transition himself lobs to Rudy in transition and those are all in play now

And and and uh Chris Fitch alluded to this shortly after got hurt I think it was like right after the injury was announced last week and Finch said hey we’re going to run more and and and I’m not saying the Personnel is better to run more without Carlon towns but their

Half court Personnel is worse right and when’s the when’s the most efficient and effective time to score it’s in transition when the def when you’re not playing against the set defense and you’re more likely to get a foul and you’re more likely to get an open three so even though you’re you’re missing

Your most efficient player if you then use the Personnel you have and push into advantageous situations like a fast break and it’s not the same Personnel it’s the 2122 wolves that ran all the time that were so high in Pace and high you know High played a high variance

High turnover game on defense with uh know Jared Vader belt and Patrick Beverly and deel Russell and Malik Beasley this isn’t that Personnel but Anthony Edwards can run right n Alexander Walker can run Jordan mlin likes to push Pace like they’ve got guys who are comfortable doing this

And if in order to this was already a frankly poor halfcourt offensive team even with Carlon towns it’s not going to get better without him and I said this on the basketball party on Wednesday so how do you claw back some of those opportunities some of those scoring opportunities and make them more

Efficient opportunities it’s scoring in transition which again I’ll repeat this they’re the best transition offense in the entire league this year in terms of points per Play points per 100 plays that they just don’t do it enough and and and clean the glass also breaks down when run they’re dead last and

Running off of live rebounds off of off of defensive rebounds but they actually are top 10 in uh well no they’re middle of the pack in frequency in running off of steals but they’re still top 10 in in points per play of course in both because they’re number one overall so

When they run off of steals which they do a little more frequently they’re effective and when they run off rebounds which they never do they only run basically 20% of the time which by the way they’re easily dead last in running of defensive rebounds they only do it on

20.8% of plays Chicago’s 22.5% that’s almost two points higher two two percentage points higher in terms of frequency for the Bulls so the Wolves just aren’t running they did it a little bit against the Clippers and they needed to and and it’s something they just are

Going to have to do a little bit more of um as they get you know in the playoffs it’s a bit like in the playoffs you’re playing more of a halfcourt game anyway which does suit the Wolves defensively and and I think will work out like I

Think the Wolves will be okay in the the playoffs even without Carlton towns if it needs to be in the first round because their half court defense is so good but right now they need to play around with with scoring more in transition it’s it’s got to be a part of

What they’re doing here moving forward I want to close by looking at some lineup data um and peeking ahead at the schedule we’ll do all that here next today’s episode of lock out wolves is brought To Us by our sponsors at Robin Hood did you know that even if you

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Towns and I mentioned this in passing at some point last week I I believe Zack low had it had um had touched on this like in passing in one of his articles uh last week I think it was his 10 things article right after the cat

Injury before we knew the full scope of it uh was talking about the wolves and how they’ve actually been fairly successful in possessions without Carlon tal and that’s true with cat off the floor Anon Rudy on the floor this is and this is this is like we’ll talk about

More than just this scenario but this is the most important scenario in my mind because um you’re not always gonna have the both on the floor Anon Rudy but you are when it matters right you’re are G to start you’re gonna start the game that way you’re certainly going

To end the game that way and that’s going to be your best lineup with Anon Rudy on the floor together the timberl offense right now this includes data through the Clippers game on Tuesday is a plus4 in nearly 1,200 possessions that would be a 998th percentile offense or not offense team

Like unit straight up like not just offense 998th percentile in terms of their net rating a plus 14 defensively they allow just 100.8 points per 100 possessions which is incredible it’s incredible uh I’ll give some context on that for the season so far overall the timberwol have the number one defense

And as a team they’re allowing just 10.7 points per possession now it’s nearly three points better it’s 2.9 points better than the second and third best teams who are tied Boston and Cleveland nearly three points better on defense as a team but as a unit with Anon Rudy together 100.8 points per 100

Possessions it’s just incredible how good that unit has been defensively or any unit with Anon Rudy together offensively they’ve been fine it kind of mirrors the Wolves overall this season 46% out 11 14.8 points per possession which by the way like let’s flip this let’s include Carlon towns and

Look at what that offensive number turns into so 46 percentile Rudy and ant together offensively without carony towns with carony towns that unit goes up to 87 percenti 121 points per possession okay now and the defense is still good it’s 111.3 points per possession defensively with cat with anted Rudy so

A couple ways to look at this number one I I think the biggest thing here is is that cat is instrumental to the Wolves offense and we knew that but these numbers bear that out right they go from 44th percentile offense with Rudy and ant to no cat to 87th percentile if you

Include cat the defense goes down a little from 100th percentile to 87th percentile and that backs up what I think I would have told you before ever looking at the numbers Carlon towns has been good defensively this year uh but some of their units without him have been even better because they’re just

More defensively versatile however their offense has been indisputably worse without Carlon towns on the floor and without him that halfcourt offense that I worried about in the last segment and and implored the Wolves to do more in transition to try and avoid some of these half court offense situation

Sans’s cat um it’s just not as good without Carl town on the floor there’s no question about that in terms of those individual lineups the one that’s most used by the way without ant or excuse me without cap but with ant Rudy is actually a negative a negative 6.6 the most used lineup

That’s Conley Edwards McDaniels Anderson and Gober oh by the way that’s the starting lineup that they used against the Clippers and a loss against Cleveland last week that’s you know last year’s lineup at the end of the season without Carlon towns like after the Conley trade without towns when he when

He was still out so that lineup it’s only 196 possessions uh but it’s you know it’s uh what it’s almost 20% of the possessions that they’ve played Without cat that ant Rudy have played Without cat is a 24th percentile unit as of right now but if you flip out Kyle Anderson

For Nas Reed in 150 possession possessions that unit is a plus 16.7 882 percentile okay so Conley Edwards McDaniels Anderson goar starting lineup from Tuesday and from the Cleveland game 24th percentile minus 6. six overall differential switch out Nas for slow-mo it’s an 82 percentile unit plus 16.7

Overall the offense isn’t very good in either scenario actually which is interesting and goes back to my point earlier about shooting but the defense is so much better this surprised me the defense is so much better with nas on the floor not Kyle Anderson because conventional wisdom and by that I mean I

Don’t know why I said it that way but like the and the assumption is that you know Chris fit wants to have the length the defense of Kyle Anderson out there and and there’s other things here too like it depends on who they’re playing against right so if slow-mo is

Also played against opposing like look at it this way I want to be fair because slow-mo is still a good player I don’t want to turn this into a slow-mo bashing session and and it’s you can find that if you want that information if you want to find a slow-mo bashing session just

Visit Twitter visit X right he’s still a good player consider this the first quarter of the Clippers game when the Wolves got crushed kawhai was on the floor and so was Kyle Anderson for the majority of that quarter Nas played most of his minutes without kawhai on the floor again and

Plays more minutes against backups than KY Anderson like we have to consider that certainly but the nas unit actually has been better defensively than the slow-mo unit but then the whole thing goes back to my point in the first segment of the show today which is the lack of shooting

Is the concern here because neither one of those units even the one with NS Reed has been good offensively it’s a relatively limited sample but we’re still still talking over 150 possessions for each of these units the one sandwich between in terms of frequency used is the one that’s been

The best and it’s 183 possessions so nearly as much as the starting lineup from the from the game the other day and it’s a unit without Mike Conley it’s Anon Alexander Walker in the back court Kyle Anderson at the three Nas Reed at the four and Rudy still on the

Floor that surprised me and it’s basically right now the the bench unit right um and putting slomo at the three which like I’ve kind of talked back and forth on this SLO is better at the four overall but the Wolves may be a better team just put

Simply when Nas and Rudy are on the floor and ants obviously still on the floor so then how are you feeling the rest of the spots and as of right now Alexander Walker on the floor instead of Conley and Kyle Anderson playing the three instead of Jaden McDaniels has

Been a better lineup it’s a plus 35 in 183 possessions in that’s a 998th percentile unit again relatively small sample cat’s played a lot of minutes this year but it’s not a nothing sample and we’re going to see a lot more of it it’s a 90th percentile offense which

Absolutely floored me and and I’m sure that some of the runs in the Clippers game Skuse this a little bit but we’re still talking about a few dozen possessions out of 183 it’s not the majority of the possessions we’re not talking about 15 total possessions so there’s a bit of a body

Of work here the 90th percentile offense 131 points per 100 possessions and a 97th percentile defense 96.2 points per 100 possessions and again that’s ant Alexander Walker Kyle Anderson Nas Reed and Rudy goar so if you thought this was a slowo bashing session um you needed to

List it all the way through the segment because he’s still a a a contributing player to the Wolves should he be starting that’s another question and I I said this early in the show I I would support depending on the up slow-mo coming off the bench and Naz coming off

The bench and starting a smaller lineup with Nicki Alexander Walker just somewhat Reinventing how they’re going to play I don’t think they have to play the same way they did for 50 plus games without Cat last year because it was only moderately successful it’s not like

The offense was it was a bottom 10 offense right so try some different stuff now that Alexander Walker is more confident in his offensive game Mike Conley’s done more this year offensively and more comfortable in in better shape I think overall than he was late last

Year Rudy’s you know it’s it’s just a bit of a different team than it was 12 months ago 11 months or I guess 13 months ago in the middle of cast in injury last year so I I just hope Chris Finch I’m sure he’s thinking about all

These things I’m sure the coaching staff is thinking about all these things but they just need to execute they need to run more they need to pay attention to this lineup data that suggests that Kylie Anderson you know he’s still usable but in the right situation and uh the key thing is just

Anted Rudy minutes as together as much as as much as possible all right it’s all we have for you today might get a little bit more to some lineup stuff Friday I certainly want to preview the matchup that the wolves have with the Jazz we haven’t seen Utah in quite a

While so we’ll talk about what they’ve been up to what that matchup looks like that game is Saturday night but we’ll preview it on Friday and and few lineup things I didn’t quite get to today that we’ll get to on Friday’s show a big thank you for making this show your

First listen every single day of course lock that wolves is free and available everywhere that includes YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms you can also watch on the lockon sports Minnesota channel on both Roku and Amazon Fire TV and you can follow on X at lockon T

Wolves and also at B Beacon with 2bs 2 e cken of course the lockdown wolves podcast is part of the lockdown podcast Network remember the lock network is your local experts on all the biggest stories once again I’m Ben Beacon this is the locked wolves podcast and we’ll catch you next time

The Minnesota Timberwolves have their work cut out for them when it comes to scoring without Karl-Anthony Towns, but there are reasons for optimism beyond some of the (very real) reasons for concern. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) breaks down both sides of the coin, from a potential lack of efficiency without KAT, to the lineup data that suggests they have some combinations that Chris Finch could do more than just keep their offense afloat.

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