How the Timberwolves got their teeth back

It feels like we've been waiting all season for the Minnesota Timberwolves to arrive. The team that bludgeoned the league with one of the best defenses of the pace-and-space era last season - that obliterated the Suns and slayed the defending champion Nuggets in the playoffs - was nowhere to be seen for the first three months of 2024-25.

They got off to a rocky start, which wasn't totally unexpected considering they'd just traded Karl-Anthony Towns, their longest-tenured player and arguably the most important pillar of their identity, for a skilled but stylistically different power forward in Julius Randle. It felt like they'd figure things out in time - their implied talent and point differential have long painted them as a better team than their record suggests. But the malaise persisted for a troublingly long time, and Randle's complicated free agency loomed on the horizon.

One game, Randle would look like he'd figured out how to fit between Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert; the next, he'd look like a square peg wedged awkwardly in a round hole. Most games, Mike Conley appeared fully cooked. The defense wasn't playing with nearly the same connectivity or force as it did the year prior. Edwards spoke of individual agendas and called the team "soft as hell" and said it lacked any identity. Head coach Chris Finch bemoaned the absence of consistency night-to-night.

Then Donte DiVincenzo, the 3-and-D guard Minnesota acquired from New York alongside Randle, suffered a toe injury just as he was getting his season on track. Randle himself went down with a groin strain a couple of weeks later. And that was when the team came upon two diverging roads.

It might be too pat to call those injuries blessings in disguise, and it's not like the Wolves set the world on fire while the Knicks imports were out; they were 11-8 without DiVincenzo, and 5-8 without Randle. But progress was made in several key areas, and that stretch is when it felt like the pieces started to snap into place.

With Naz Reid filling in frictionlessly at the starting four spot (as Naz Reid does), Jaden McDaniels took the extra touches that came his way and spun them into a web of newfound confidence. After an uneven and tentative start to the season, he emerged as a more fluid and sure-footed attacker and in-between scorer. He's averaged 17.9 points, eight rebounds, and three assists on 60.4% true shooting and 19% usage across 21 games since the start of February, up from 10.5, 5.2, and 1.6 on 55.2% true shooting and 14.5% usage before then.

At the same time, Conley started to look ... if not quite like his younger self, then at least like a less creaky version of his old self. Edwards continued to carry the offense while putting together one of the greatest 3-point shooting seasons of all time - a story that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention.

Opportunity was also seized by the team's trio of rookies. Point guard Rob Dillingham showed some smooth on-ball flourishes, wiry guard Jaylen Clark wowed with his defensive playmaking ability, and beefy wing Terrence Shannon Jr. made loud plays at both ends of the floor. Their contributions seemed to galvanize the rest of the team, especially when all three played big roles in the Wolves' signature win of the season: a massive fourth-quarter comeback and overtime win in Oklahoma City three weeks ago.

DiVincenzo returned a game later and immediately put together his best two-way stretch of basketball with Minnesota. He's flying around on defense, shooting 48% from deep on eight attempts per game, and owns the best raw plus-minus in the league (+123) in 10 games since coming back.

Randle looked like a different player when he got healthy, too. It was as if he used his five weeks off to figure out how he could better operate within the flow of Minnesota's offense. He still has some catch-and-hold moments, but his shoot/pass/drive decisions generally are coming way faster, and the ball is sticking way less.

He's also been more dialed in defensively - head on a swivel, busting it back in transition, making max-effort closeouts - for a unit that's finally starting to resemble last year's bear trap. These factors are a big part of the reason the Wolves have won all eight games with Randle back in the lineup.

His first four games back came with Gobert on the shelf, and the smaller Randle-Reid frontcourt - which struggled early in the season - steamrolled opponents. Things have looked even better since Randle and Gobert reunited, with that tandem playing to a plus-45 across 60 minutes in the last four games, including a dominant showing in a 20-point beatdown of the Nuggets last Wednesday.

The Wolves feel like they're hitting their stride at the right time. They're fully healthy at last, looking nastier and more connected than they've been all year. They're one of four teams (the others being OKC, Cleveland, and Boston) to rank in the top 10 on both sides of the ball. At 40-29 and owners of the longest active win streak in the league, they're in a virtual tie for the Western Conference's last guaranteed playoff spot and just 3.5 games back of a top-four seed, with a very soft closing schedule.

None of that means they're going to get back to where they were last spring, or that history will ultimately look favorably on the Towns trade. The West playoffs are shaping up to be a bloodbath. The Lakers and Warriors revived themselves with blockbuster trades. The Grizzlies and Rockets are young, hungry, and extremely deep. The Nuggets haven't had an answer for Minnesota recently, but they still have championship experience and the world's best player.

All those teams will likely be brawling to decide which one gets to take its best swing at the Thunder, who are merely having one of the best regular seasons in NBA history. But there's no reason to think the team that poses the stiffest test can't be the one that recently flummoxed OKC with a pressure zone while erasing a 24-point fourth-quarter deficit.

However that royal rumble shakes out, it's nice to see Minnesota officially throwing its hat in the ring. After keeping us waiting all season, the Wolves are finally showing their teeth.

Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.