5 October 2023
For a team that stumbled time and time again out of the gates last fall, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch had to be relieved at what he witnessed Thursday in Abu Dhabi — competent basketball.
It was better than competent, frankly. The Timberwolves were downright good in just about every aspect in cruising to a 111-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in their NBA preseason opener in Abu Dhabi.
The two teams will square off again Saturday to conclude the international trip.
Minnesota played with a clear sense of direction and purpose on Thursday. That’s all anyone can ask for when your team takes the floor in a competitive setting for the first team all season. Answering honestly, Finch noted the Timberwolves looked more fluid against Dallas than they had in training camp practices.
“We hadn’t in practice, when you’re going against each other in practice and you know the offense and you know the players and everything,” Finch said. “There’s really very little game planning that has gone on for either team tonight. So we can’t over-value what we saw (Thursday). But I did think we played with great spacing, great purpose on offense. It hadn’t been that way for the first few days. We’d done it in snippets here and there, but nothing sustained. That was really good to see.”
Anthony Edwards missed the game with an ankle tweak suffered in practice Wednesday. The Wolves don’t believe it’s a serious injury. Edwards actually finished practice after injuring the ankle, only to have it stiffen on him overnight.
“Just being super cautionary right now with that,” Finch said. “We hope to have him back and playing on Saturday.”
In his absence, Karl-Anthony Towns came out of the gates with extreme aggression. The Timberwolves’ big man scored 20 points in just 17 minutes of action. Finch lauded Towns’ defense, as well.
The entire offense shined as Minnesota scored 37 points in the first quarter and 66 in the first half before tapering off over the second half, which was mostly played by reserves. Finch said Minnesota spaced the floor well and used its bigger lineups to punish Dallas’ switching defense. Rarely did anyone hold the ball for too long on offense.
On the other end, the Wolves held Dallas to 37 percent shooting, including just 30 percent on three-point attempts.
Naz Reid scored 16 points for Minnesota, while reserve guard Shake Milton added 12 in his first appearance after signing with the team in free agency. Finch credited the team’s strong debut to the fact that everyone entered camp healthy and in good condition. Much of that can be attributed to the large number of players who competed internationally this offseason.
“Our starting unit looked really good. Guys coming in off the bench also contributed,” Finch said. “Certainly has a lot to do with our fitness level being ahead of Dallas right now and we were able to kind of fly around a little bit.”
After last year’s slow start, during which Minnesota looked like a rudderless ship through the first 20-plus games before Towns went down with an injury as the team struggled to adapt to its new big-ball approach, Finch said the Wolves will treat exhibition games very seriously this fall.
“I think we’ve got to find ourselves. We have to figure out an identity, as we talked about. Got to play with a great physicality. We’ve been on (players about that). We told them from the beginning we were going to play these games out here. We weren’t going to rest,” Finch said. “Obviously, as the game goes on, we take guys out, but we wanted their first, second and third shifts to be as normal as possible. That’s a huge point of emphasis. We’re going to continue to do it that way through most of the preseason because after Saturday we only have three games the rest of the whole time. If we don’t get something out of these games, you’re risking putting yourself behind the 8-ball.”
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