Most NBA fans were down on the Minnesota Timberwolves at the start of the year even though they were coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance. The reason was clear: people didn’t love the idea of trading away franchise legend Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, which Minnesota did right before the season started. They worried about Randle’s tendency to be a ball-stopper and wondered how he’d fit next to Anthony Edwards.
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Those fears seemed to be right on the money as the Wolves struggled to get going in the first couple of months, but they’ve long since dissipated as Randle has acclimated to his new surroundings.
Now, the Wolves are as hot as any team in the league, and after a first-round beatdown of the Los Angeles Lakers, are actually favorites to get back to the Western Conference Finals again as they get ready to take on the Golden State Warriors in Round 2.
Colin Cowherd had Minnesota coach Chris Finch on The Herd yesterday, and he admitted to Finch that while he initially didn’t like the Randle fit, he sees the vision now. He then asked Finch when he knew that Randle was going to work.
“We started to figure it out in mid- to late December,” Finch said, before taking the blame himself for not deploying Randle the right way early in the season. “I told him early on we need you to score, score, score. I thought that’s what we were gonna need, and what we really needed was just more of his all-around game: his playmaking and his scoring.”
Finch then pointed to Randle’s return to Madison Square Garden against his old team in January as the point where the Wolves and Randle really clicked. The Knicks had gone into Minnesota and stomped the Wolves by 26 a month earlier, but this time, Randle affected the game in so many ways while hardly even shooting the ball. He finished +20 for the game and the Wolves won by 17.
Julius Randle has proven the doubters wrong
Randle was a monster against the Lakers, where played for four season, in Round 1. He repeatedly used his physicality to punish mismatches, and he took advantage of L.A.’s lack of interior defense while averaging over 22 points a game, nearly four points better than his season average.
He’ll face a tougher test against the Warriors, because instead of being matched up against Rui Hachimura and Jarred Vanderbilt, he’ll often have Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler trying to stop him.
Even if Randle’s scoring is neutralized, Finch now knows that he can do a lot more to help the team win. The Wolves also have a few other key advantages over the Warriors, namely their size around the rim with Rudy Gobert, the fact that Butler and Steph Curry are both dealing with injuries, and the way Anthony Edwards is evolving into a world-destroying superstar.
The Wolves and Warriors will tip off their series at 9:30 p.m. ET tonight on TNT, and both teams have to be excited about seeing how wide open the postseason race has become. Each No. 1 seed is down 0-1 already after Cleveland and OKC lost, and the defending champion Celtics are also in a hole after blowing a 20-point lead to the Knicks.
If Randle keeps playing the way he has been for the past few months and Edwards continues to look like one of the top players in the world, the Wolves have as good a shot as anyone to keep advancing.
