The Minnesota Timberwolves are on a Quest To Bully Ball Their Way To An NBA Title
Noon Ballers everywhere use the same simple plan: Use Old Man Strength to relentlessly post up the energetic 20-somethings and vanquish them off the court to restore their peaceful nirvana!
The 2023/24 Minnesota Timberwolves have taken this classic Noon Ball strategy to heart and are bringing it to NBA Courts everywhere!
During an NBA game, every team consistently makes “Bets” - Teams will ultimately have to choose between what they will/will not give up defensively and what advantage they think they can exploit offensively. It is impossible to cover up every offensive option in this league; the skill and athleticism are too high for that. The key is to take in the information, analyze it, pick a path, and live with the bet.
The Bet:
The Timberwolves have made a clear defensive bet: Our second Big is a Massive Advantage vs. your fourth Best Perimeter Player.
They do not believe that you will heavily modify your offense to involve your fourth-best perimeter player.
^^Reid giving a dare you closeout to Johnson in ATL. Passing up on an OPEN shot like this leads to a bad shot and transition op for the Wolves.
If you do happen to put your fourth-best perimeter player in more action than usual, they do not believe that this player will make enough shots to beat them.
^^Gobert daring Aaron Gordon to shoot. The Wolves are willing to live with “dare you” closeouts and the corresponding results.
The true goal of any offense is to crack the defensive shell and create rotations. If you have a process capable of doing this consistently, you will win many more games than you lose.
The beauty of the Wolves' defensive bet is that it fuels their offensive META (Most Effective Tactics Available) to consistently crack the defensive shell, create rotations, and play from an advantage.
Remember that fourth-best perimeter player we spoke about earlier? Well, the Wolves certainly do. They are HUNTING that player to post Karl-Anthony Towns and Naz Reid for buckets or to start defensive rotations.
^^ Towns post-up of undersized ball four-man.
But these two do not stop hunting small ball fours; they go one step further and track even smaller switches!
I can only hope the smaller switch post-ups release a few demons from their high school days when a guard would look off a high/low opportunity only to say at the next deadball:
My bad, big fella, he had you fronted. I had to take that 22-foot ISO step back three… I'll get you next time!
^^ Here is Jamal Murray taking the brunt of all high school bigs’ pain and frustration.
On December 27, 2019, Hall of Fame coach Rick Carlisle said, “A post-up is not a good play anymore. It’s just not a good play.” However, he failed to mention that not all post-ups are created equally - Towns and Reid vs. a Mouse-in-the-House is one of the most devastating plays in basketball right now.
According to Second Spectrum, Reid scores 1.55 points per attempt in post-up situations, while Towns scores 1.58. For those wondering, that’s an excellent play.
No matter what Coach Carlisle said, it’s evident that NBA teams do NOT want to give these two opportunities to beat up their guards continuously, so they are sending help—and lots of it! The Wolves are creating defensive rotations and advantage attacks from mouse-in-the-house post-up opportunities. This might be the most impressive part of their double big zag. It’s got a straightforward process, and everyone is leaning in!
The Lynchpin, Naz Reid:
Three different 3-man line-up combinations will determine if the Wolves can successfully pull off the first double big zag of the modern era: Any Double Big Combo + Anthony Edwards (the franchise’s cornerstone for the next decade).
Line up data and percentile rank via Cleaning The Glass as of 11/08/23 (LINK CTL)
Offensive
Defensive
Is the sample size small? Yes.
However, the eye test confirms the same story as the data. Naz Reid is incredible; it is really awesome! It’s obvious why the Minnesota faithful are starting to shower him with “MVP, MVP” chants at the free-throw line.
This clip perfectly sums up Reid’s importance to the Wolves “Bet” and why his three-man line-up combos have such astronomically high Net Ratings — Does this look like a guy who is trying to “survive” defensively on the opposing team 4th best perimeter player? No way!
Reid smells blood and attacks Watson’s handle like Lu Dort or Dillion Brooks would.
In this one sequence, Reid guards the ball handler in a PnR, provides solid LMH verticality at the rim, secures the defensive rebound, post-ups a mouse-in-the-house, demands help be sent, and creates a mismatched long close-out attack opportunity for a teammate.
But Reid is so much more than just a destroyer of mouse-in-the-house mismatches. He is a different breed of Footers; he possesses accurate guard skills. He is the biggest lynchpin to the Wolves’ double-big experiment working.
Here’s a sample of the many shades of Naz Reid from ONE game -
Spot up threes - Sure, no problem, hand down.. man down!
PnR Ball Handler - Middy floater over another Footer, why not!
Lead the break (under control) and Euro the last man back, light work!
Reid opened the year at +5000 to win the Sixth Man of the Year Award. To put these opening odds in perspective, Donte DiVincenzo, Gabe Vincent, and Kelly Oubre Jr all opened the season with the same odds. This means that Vegas thought those guys were in line to potentially have the same impact on their team from off the bench as Reid, but they were wrong. According to Vegas Insider, Reid is sitting at anywhere from +2800 to +4000.
But according to the odds here at Low Man Help, Reid currently sits at -100000000 to win the 6MOTY.
The only thing truly standing in his way would be if the Wolves decided to play him all 48 minutes per game because he is playing like prime Charles Barkley!
(Disclaimer - I am not offering gambling advice. I do not Gamble on the NBA, but I know that gambling exists..)
The Beneficiary, Anthony Edwards:
One of the most fascinating parts of the Wolves’ double big experiment is the pressure it has taken off Edwards to create the bulk of help → rotation situations for teammates. These mouse-in-the-house post-ups allow him to take wide-open catch-and-shoot threes or attack a closeout from a rotation situation.
These two types of opportunities are as close as you can get to offensive gold in the NBA for any player, let alone a max contract guy like Edwards.
Edwards attacking a long MPJ Closeout from a Towns mouse-in-the-house post-up.
Every “Max” player is a point of gravity on the floor. The most significant advantage to having them is not because they can get buckets; of course, they can. It’s because they will keep getting buckets the same way over and over and over again until you send help. Then, when you send the help and crack the shell, they will consistently make good passing reads, start defensive rotations, and allow teammates to play from an advantage.
Max players make the whole machine run for everyone else. It is Top-Down economics in every sense of the phrase.
Rarely, if ever, do these players get the opportunity to play from an advantage in the half-court. However, Edwards has leaned into the double big zag and is getting wide-open shots. This is truly rare air for any team’s best offensive perimeter player.
Edwards getting a WIDE OPEN C&S 3 from a Reid mouse-in-the-house post-up.
According to Second Spectrum, Edwards has attempted 47 shots from C&S + Drive opportunities, scoring 1.25 Points Per Attempt in these situations. While this isn’t quite the ungodly 1.55 Points Per Attempt that Towns and Reid post-up are producing, it would still rank five points better per 100 possessions than the best NBA offense ever. So, it's not that bad, right?
Is it enough to win an NBA Championship?
There is no question that the Wolves have found their META for playing offense and defense. Knowing your identity has real power; they have that in Spades.
They have created a lynchpin match-up that favors them regarding PROCESS on both ends of the floor. They know when the match-up will be a pressure point in their defense and are betting that opposing teams will NOT feature their 4th best perimeter player.
Conversely, they are entirely aware of how much of an advantage this match-up is for them on the offensive. They consistently search for every opportunity to exploit it, crack the shell, start defensive rotations, and have their best perimeter players play from an advantage.
Process vs. Results - which possession would you rather have 100 times in a game?
Draymond Green famously said there are 82-game players and 16-win players. The 23/24 Wolves might be the first team to fall into this category.
They embody the dilemma of Game Theory Optimal vs. Fully Exploitive Play.
It’s why they can have games where they truly dismantle a juggernaut, like the defending NBA Champion Denver Nuggets, and have ones where they go from +19 in the first half vs the Atlanta Hawks to -33 in the second half. Both games offer a fascinating look at what the season is like, but more importantly, what the playoffs might look like for the Wolves.
What comes next is a season-long quest to fine-tune their approach, create some fun wrinkles (FWIW Chris Finch thrives at this), and prepare for the opportunity come April, May, and maybe June, to test out if "Their Meta” is ultimately, THE META to win the 2023/24 NBA Championship.