The Minnesota Timberwolves have had a somewhat disappointing season. After being pegged by many to put together a playoff-caliber season, the Wolves were unable to start the season on the right foot and have not been able to catch up to their competition.
But since the All-Star break, the Wolves have been a different team, culminating in a huge win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday. The key to the recent success, according to head coach Tom Thibodeau, has been the young team’s improvements on the defensive end.
Following via Jerry Zgoda of the St. Paul Star Tribune:
Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau can see the improvement, particularly defensively, in the statistics: They’re now 13th in the league in points allowed, an improvement Thibodeau calls a “quantum leap.” Their pick-and-roll defense is better. They’ve also won their past seven games by an average of 16.2 points, a differential he calls “significant” but “not where it needs to be” for the entire season.
“When you look at the past couple years and where we are now, it says we’ve made a big jump,” Thibodeau said. “I think you have to get close to winning first, and then the winning happens. Right now, we’re starting to understand that. To me, it’s taking care of the little things. If we take care of all the little things, the big things take care of themselves. We say it all the time: The magic is in the work.
Thibodeau definitely has a point and the Wolves have not been giving up too many of them. The Wolves have had the best defensive rating in the NBA since the All-Star break, giving up only 98.6 points per 100 possessions in those seven games, with a record of 5-2.
The sample is inherently small and their defense will eventually regress. But for a young team like the Wolves, having this stretch of phenomenal play on the defensive end is major, giving them a basis to build a playoff contender on next season if they don’t reach the postseason this year.
