On the finishing line of 2018, the Wolves had a pretty intense week. The 3-3 record doesn’t tell the whole story about the Rose’s “back home game”, the season-high of Wiggins – who scored 30 points attacking consistently the rim in a way we were forgetting – the two wins against two Western Conference’s powerhouses as the Kings and the Thunder, and a blowout loss over the Spurs.

But now it’s time to weighing up last three months with a two parts article divided into two different lists. Let’s get started with the most important points to check from January: 3 things to solve as soon as possible.

RESTORING TRANSITION DEFENSE

From a mid-December poll created on Twitter about the Wolves worst trend, bad defense in transition won the contest.

Minnesota was going through a 1-6 cold streak, and, as matter of fact, their opponents attempted 104 field goals in early offense (between 22-18 seconds in the shot clock) converting 54% of these shots, per NBA/Stats.

The Wolves opponents had the second highest frequency of shots created in the first 6 seconds over this stretch.

That defensive backlash was hurting even more, because since Butler’s trade till the end of November, they were doing a great job with containing transition and defending the 3 point line.

Another huge flaw related to giving up points in transition is the opponents’ 3 point shooting accuracy. In the first half of December, the Wolves allowed 110 made 3’s. These seven opponents shot at 42.1 percent rate. (6.3% better than the league average in this stint).

Surrendering more than a 50% from the corners with this volume allowed is tragic.

It’s not easy to staple a solid full-court defense in the long term, especially when you have young players that are figuring out now how to protect the basket and make the floor narrow for the ball handler. 

Thibs summed it up pretty well:

“I think we’re starting to realize the importance of communicating and sprinting back. I just think it’s gotten better”

What is needed is that Towns keeps getting more aware of his position in drop coverage, below the free throw line, and a rested Covington.

MORE MINUTES WITH TYUS AND D-ROSE

A good indicator of this fit is the defensive rating. Considering all the lineups with more than 30 total minutes logged, the Wolves allowed less than 96 points per 100 possessions with both of them on the court, per NBA/stats

The balance between Rose hedging on the ball and Jones helping on the weak side is real and can also pass the eye test. Tyus works on the off-ball screens/cuts, monitoring and preventing pin downs, inside curls, short rolls, while Derrick is defending on-ball.

Tyus isn’t able to create at Teague’s level from pick and rolls, he can’t go back and forth attacking the rim with that continuity, but he’s way better as a post feeder, he simplifies offense in many ways Teague didn’t.

FASTBREAK POINTS

The Wolves are having a big drop in fastbreak points this month. They’re still effective in transition (1.136 PPP, 5th in the NBA), but the time they’re playing early-offense is shrinking and seems to start later in the game compared with November.

Post-ups, wedge actions, points in the paint are increasing instead. This wouldn’t be necessarily bad if it didn’t affect the healthy full-court offense seen last month.