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MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — After losing three straight times to the Phoenix Suns by a combined 47 points during the regular season, the Minnesota Timberwolves needed to expel some demons and reset the tone for their playoff matchup. In Game 1, they did exactly that, with a dominant performance that resulted in a 120-95 loss for Phoenix.
Nobody should’ve expected the Wolves — a 56-win team despite missing Karl-Anthony Towns for significant time — to just roll over and die, but few were expecting a result like that. Not only did Minnesota remind everyone why they were a top team in the West all season, but it was a symphony of errors on the Suns’ part that led to a one-sided affair that was blown wide open in the third quarter.
We could write a whole short story on what went wrong for Phoenix and what went right for Minnesota in Game 1, but let’s narrow it down to 10 specific problems and sort out which ones are unsustainable and which ones could be legitimate concerns.
This was one of the Suns’ biggest keys to the series coming in, and we already covered how Phoenix did a great job on him during the regular season, but Anthony Edwards busted loose in the second half of Game 1.
Verdict: Since we already dove into this yesterday, we’ll move on to our next topic, but in case you missed it, you can read more about what the Suns have to do better against Ant here.
The Suns were out-rebounded 52-28 in Game 1. That’s not a typo; it’s actually the largest rebounding differential in Timberwolves playoff history.
“We just had to make more toughness plays,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “They’ve kinda out toughed us in the games that we’ve played, so we did that and that showed up in the rebounding, particularly on the offensive glass.”
Phoenix got demolished there, as the Wolves had a 13-3 advantage in offensive rebounds and a 20-6 edge in second-chance points. Adding insult to injury, Rudy Gobert (16), Karl-Anthony Towns (7), Anthony Edwards (9) and Jaden McDaniels (6) all out-rebounded Jusuf Nurkic (4).
This type of stuff is too easy, and it’s a big reason Minnesota was a +18 in points in the paint — another Wolves playoff record.
“They got a bunch of offensive rebounds, second-chance baskets,” Royce O’Neale said. “I think we just gotta do a better collective effort of crashing together, getting rebounds and then just playing as a team, boxing out.”
When asked about the rebounding discrepancy, the Suns gave several different reasons.
“A lot of the offensive rebounds were more about containment and being in rotations,” coach Frank Vogel said. “If we contain the basketball better and we keep them out of the paint, then the glass doesn’t open up as much.”
“I think they were just the aggressors,” Bradley Beal added. “That was probably the biggest difference in the game: their physicality, their aggressiveness on the defensive end, and then even offensively, just attacking the basket, offensive rebounds.”
Kevin Durant, meanwhile, acknowledged the obvious.
“They’re bigger than us, to be honest,” Durant said. “So we gotta box even harder and sometimes we might have to crash a little bit more on offense to get more possessions too.”
Verdict: The Wolves were 25th in offensive rebounds and 18th in second-chance points this season. The Suns were 22nd in opponent offensive rebounds and 19th in opponent second-chance points. Minnesota will continue to try and exploit their size advantage, but expect Phoenix to respond with more physicality and determination on the boards in Game 2.
We can’t go any further without acknowledging how ugly Game 1 was for Devin Booker. Coming off one of the hottest individual playoff runs in NBA history last year, expectations were high for Book in his first postseason with the Big 3.
Unfortunately, he started off with an 18-point performance on 5-of-16 shooting that felt even worse than that. Jaden McDaniels (and Nickeil Alexander-Walker) did an excellent job bothering Booker with their length and magnetic presence any time he had the ball:
Vogel credited the Wolves’ perimeter defenders but believes they have to be more creative about getting Book open.
“The Phoenix Suns are a team, it’s not about one player,” Vogel said. “I’m not worried about him getting going, he’s one of the best scorers in the league. We’ll do a better job of looking at ways to free him up, and we’ll be better in Game 2.”
As for Book himself, he attributed that lack of rhythm to trying to adjust to the playoff physicality — and more specifically, the playoff whistle.
“I was in foul trouble early,” Booker said. “We all just need to adjust to the playoff physicality. They’re being ultra-physical with me, and then I had 3 early fouls and got sent to the bench, so just trying to find a rhythm from there.”
The Suns can’t afford to only have one or two of the Big 3 rolling; they need Devin Booker to hunt for his shots when the opportunities present themselves. His superstar teammate, who led the way with 31 points on 17 shots, didn’t seem concerned.
“I just think he missed some tough ones, some easy ones that he normally makes,” Durant said. “I think he can be more aggressive to shoot more shots in the first half. But for the most part, he’s trying to play the right way, he’s trying to play hard. And he got us going there in third by making a couple shots. So I’m not worried about Book, I think he’s gonna come out here and have a great Game 2.”
Verdict: Sadly, this one may take something drastic to jumpstart. Everyone has seen Booker rise to the occasion in the playoffs, but he’s also had some real stinkers, and this No. 1 Wolves defense seems well-suited to bother him. Book had a 31-point, 12-of-22 shooting night against Minnesota back in November, but since then, he’s shot 3-for-12, 6-for-16 and 5-for-16 in his last three matchups with the Timberwolves.
The physicality clearly bothered Book and the Suns on the glass, but Phoenix also struggled to figure out what warranted a whistle and what didn’t.
Vogel said before the game that the Suns wanted to be the more physical team, but they couldn’t quite straddle the line between physicality and fouling, sending the Wolves to the free-throw line too many times early on.
“I think in the second quarter we fouled way too much and put them to the line, made things easy for them,” Vogel said. “And that slowed down our offense, ‘cause you’re taking the ball outta the next each time.”
Vogel and Beal believe the Suns can play more physical than they did in Game 1, but they have to be better about not fouling, which prevents Phoenix from playing with pace. The Suns were the No. 1 team in the league in points per possession in transition, but they have to get out on the break against an elite defense like this.
“[Fouling] allows their bigs to get set, it allows Rudy to sit up, camp up in the paint, or it allows KAT to get set on his guys instead of us getting in transition, living on the one-shot and making ’em run,” Beal said.
“We’ll figure it out, the refs are letting us play,” Durant added. “That’s the type of game we want.”
Verdict: The Suns were sixth in the league in free-throw attempts and eighth in fewest personal fouls, while the Wolves were eighth in free-throw attempts and 18th in fewest personal fouls. But in their regular season matchups, the Wolves flipped the script a bit, using their size to their advantage to draw more fouls and get to the line more often. Keep an eye on this one.
Grayson Allen’s night was cut short midway through the third quarter when he rolled his ankle. He had 4 points on 0-of-3 shooting, with all of those misfires coming from 3-point range.
Vogel provided some good news after the game, but it’s unclear what Allen’s status will be for Game 2.
“X-rays negative,” Vogel said. “It’s an ankle sprain, and we’ll see how he responds to treatment over the next few days.”
Losing Allen could shift the entire series. Having the NBA leader in 3-point percentage out there provides Phoenix with four shooters to try and attack Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert in pick-and-roll. The Suns sure didn’t show much of that in Game 1 (more on this in a bit), but having to replace Allen’s minutes with more Eric Gordon or Josh Okogie minutes is daunting.
“Beyond important piece for our team,” Beal said of Allen. “What he does on the floor is kind of irreplaceable in some ways, so we definitely wish he’s healthy and he’s back for Game 2. But if not, it’s always next man up, and we have plenty of depth to make it work.”
Verdict: Love Beal’s optimism here, but have to disagree with him on that last point. Losing Allen for even a few games could swing the series, and while the Suns will have no excuses as long as the Big 3 are healthy, the margin for error gets very slim without him. Suddenly they go from an undersized team with a spacing advantage to…just an undersized team with serious question marks. Speaking of which:
Royce O’Neale scored 14 points off the bench, and until garbage time, that’s how many bench points the Suns had total between him, Eric Gordon and Drew Eubanks. Alexander-Walker matched Phoenix’s entire bench production by himself, finishing with 18 points.
Minnesota was obviously the deeper team, but the hope was that an experienced vet like Eric Gordon would step up and knock down a few 3s. Instead, he went 0-for-5 in 21 minutes, and the Wolves won the bench points by a glaring 41-18 margin.
Vogel said they’ll explore every avenue when it comes to bench minutes, but reaffirmed his belief in Gordon.
“Yeah, we’ll consider everything,” Vogel said. “But I like Eric Gordon and I like the threat in any game he can go in. He goes 0-for-5 tonight, but he could go 5-for-5 next game. He’s that type of player.”
The Suns had better hope he immediately reverts to that type of player in Game 2, because they can’t afford another goose egg from a guy who played 21 minutes and was a -18. And that’s without even mentioning Drew Eubanks, who looked unplayable as a -14 in his 9 minutes.
Say what you will about individual-game plus/minus, but it did not lie in Game 1 for either team’s bench guys:
Alexander-Walker got hot and played tremendous defense, while Naz Reid was a legitimate difference-maker with 12 points off the bench.
“They just have so much confidence no matter what role they’re playing in or where we need them,” Finch said. “I loved their aggressiveness, being shot-ready off the ball.”
Will there be a point in this series where Frank Vogel gets to say something similar about anyone coming off the Suns’ bench, other than O’Neale? And with Allen injured and O’Neale the most logical choice to start in his place, can Okogie, Bol Bol or Thaddeus Young get a crack at some of those minutes?
Verdict: This is a top-heavy team, and Minnesota’s bench is good. Hopefully the disparity there won’t be a chasm once the series shifts back to Phoenix (role players play better at home), but this was a major disadvantage for the Suns before Allen went down.
Grayson Allen’s shot attempts and the Suns reaching 30 assists have been barometers for this team all season. It was telling, then, that Allen took three shots and Phoenix only had 16 assists in Game 1.
There were flashes of good ball movement! They were just fleeting, and even when it happened, the Suns still missed shots:
Unfortunately, a good portion of Phoenix’s offensive process devolved into iso-ball while the other four guys stood around.
The Wolves deserve credit for making adjustments. At the point of attack, McDaniels bottled up Booker and Anthony Edwards had a size advantage guarding Bradley Beal. Minnesota hid the smaller Mike Conley on Allen, but the ball didn’t find him much, which meant he couldn’t capitalize on the same bully-ball drives he had against Conley in their last few meetings.
“I think we were more or less matchup hunting tonight, just trying to take advantage of them hiding guys, and I think they actually went bigger and put KAT and Naz on KD, and Ant was guarding me to start the game, it wasn’t [Mike] Conley,” Beal explained. “So they were trying to avoid the small mismatches with Conley as much as possible and just keep size on size with bigger defenders on us three.”
Hunting mismatches against KAT and Gobert on the perimeter is part of the status quo with a Big 3 like this, but finding the balance between doing that and keeping the ball moving will be key against this defense. Even on makes, they didn’t have much of it in Game 1:
“Well, that’s the key word, it’s a balance,” Vogel said. “You want to involve their weaker defenders, not their better defenders, but you also gotta keep your guys in rhythm. So the bigger thing is to get your movement and get your key guys open.”
Booker — who seemed to struggle with when to hunt for his shot and when to look to pass on Saturday — has to find that balance in order to get back to his usual efficiency.
“You don’t want to force the issue, you just want to play in flow,” Booker said. “They did a good job of forcing isolation basketball and living with midrange shots, make or miss. So we can do better with getting everybody involved, get the ball hopping around.”
Durant, however, stayed consistent with what he’s said all season: Iso-ball is efficient for the Big 3, and it’s make-or-miss league.
“I think that is our rhythm is when we find mismatches, we break down the defense and try to create for others, break our man down one-on-one and make the extra pass,” Durant said. “That’s when we get our blender going, when everybody’s touching the ball. So we gotta mix it up obviously and play different styles, but for the most part, we like breaking our man down and trying to create something for ourselves or our teammates.”
Either way, they’ve GOT to make Towns work more than this off the ball, especially if he stays matched up with Durant:
Verdict: It’s easier for Durant to say isos are good offense when he went 11-for-17 and was smoking hot, but one could argue — as many have done with Booker during his high-scoring nights over the last few seasons — that all that iso-ball, even from a player who was feeling it, eventually fades and you’re left with too many guys who are no longer in rhythm. The Big 3 can and should hunt mismatches, but they’ve got to find a better balance than they showed in Game 1, and they’ve got to make this more of a pick-and-roll series, with plenty of double-drag screens to make those two bigs work.
According to Cleaning The Glass, the Suns shot 11-for-25 at the rim on Saturday. That’s 44 percent! Which is terrible!
Phoenix missed more bunnies than Elmer Fudd, and a couple of these might have made things tighter in that third quarter:
“Yeah, part of the struggle offensively is we didn’t finish well around the basket,” Vogel said. “And not just Rudy attacks, but just makable shots.”
Verdict: On the season, the Suns are 12th in rim efficiency, so they shouldn’t be this terrible again. The Wolves are the second-best team in the league in terms of opponent rim efficiency, but the film showed too many examples of Phoenix just missing blatant gimmes.
Phoenix’s center depth has been one of their biggest weaknesses all season, and even in the matchups where Nurkic is playable and not in foul trouble, he has to get a breather at some point. Eubanks looked awful in Game 1, and Vogel resorted to small-ball configurations with KD at the 5.
Those lineups were outscored by 5 points in 8 minutes, but it felt even worse than that.
“Yeah, I mean, I gotta a look at it,” Vogel said. “We’ve had success when we’re down big of just playing a style where we’re shooting a lot of 3s and trying to space out the defense. We missed some open looks, and we actually achieved what we were trying to do defensively in terms of taking the ball out of Ant’s hands, but we have a rotating group out there but we didn’t rotate well. So we have to play better within the lineup we have out there.”
Finch was ready for this potential counter-punch, and as soon as the Wolves saw Phoenix go small, they switched things up with a zone to prey on passing lanes.
“They did a really good job of switching between zone and going to man, we were kind of confused at times,” Beal admitted. “So we have to be better, just making sure we’re more locked in.”
Verdict: On paper, going small should help the Suns exploit Minnesota’s bigs at some point. They just have to be way more effective in doing so and more prepared for the zone, and they can’t get beat up on the glass again either.
The Suns actually pummeled the Wolves in this area during the regular season, but alas! Old habits die hard.
I’ve already written the book on the Suns’ rampant turnover problem, but in Game 1, they coughed it up 15 times for 23 Timberwolves points off turnovers. Minnesota also committed 15 turnovers, but Phoenix only had 19 points off those turnovers.
The Wolves were 29th in the NBA in fast break points, but managed to beat the Suns 13-10 in that category on Saturday. It’s Phoenix that needs to push the tempo, not the other way around, but the Suns make it so easy when they’re committing these types of preventable, live-ball turnovers that lead to easy buckets:
“We’ve gotta recover some of those,” Vogel said. “Some of them are unrecoverable if they’re live-ball turnovers for fast breaks, but we talk all the time about, if we turn it over, what’s our reaction gonna be and how can we get those plays back?”
Verdict: This has been Phoenix’s biggest Achilles heel all season, and the Timberwolves are a top-10 team in forcing turnovers and points off turnovers. It’s the first time we’ve seen this particular problem matter in this matchup, but it was only a matter of time.
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