Happy Gameday, everyone. As we ring in the New Year, we usually focus on resolutions. We find things we can do better, ways we want to grow, and search for the fire to motivate us to do those things. Using that definition, there is no team that needs some resolutions more than the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
Ever since that impressive win against the OKC Thunder, the Wolves have been hugely disappointing. Not only that, the identity that made that win feel so special has disappeared once again.<\/p>\n
Somehow, that\u2019s not even the worst of it. Tonight\u2019s first quarter showed once again how unprepared this team is for its opponents. Against a team that wants nothing more than to force fastbreak opportunities, the Wolves gave up turnovers and breakaways en route to being on the wrong end of a 20-point lead.<\/p>\n
There are few things more annoying to fans than that special level of unwatchability. Within 12 minutes, the game felt completely out of hand. With three minutes left in the first half, Anthony Edwards had 20 points and the rest of the team had 21.<\/p>\n
None of this is sustainable for a team that is rapidly getting lapped by its other Western Conference equivalents. The Wolves sit in 6th, hovering above the Play-In. Conversely, the San Antonio Spurs are the second seed behind their young superstar dynamo, and the Thunder are still on track for nearly 70 wins.<\/p>\n
That lack of drive is especially painful to watch when the guy who would never get into these kinds of funks is now on the other side of the Jumbotron. Nickeil Alexander-Walker seems to have been the glue holding this team\u2019s mentality together.<\/p>\n
It may be time to call it what it is. This team is not just a roster move away; they\u2019re also a massive paradigm shift away.<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s time to put some numbers down to add to the opinions and observations. The Wolves were down 27 at one point and entered to second half down 21. They gave up a baffling 26 points in the paint and 70 points total at halftime.<\/p>\n
Good basketball teams don\u2019t give up games like this. It\u2019s so hard to keep leaning on the last two months of the last two seasons as proof that they will simply just figure it out when the eye test and the numbers say the Wolves are only two things for certain: middling and inconsistent.<\/p>\n
There is a never-ending laundry list of questions to be faced. There\u2019s the question of whether Chris Finch\u2019s voice has stopped impacting his players. There\u2019s the question of whether Julius Randle\u2019s slump is a return to form or an unfortunate setback. There\u2019s the question of who, if anyone, outside of Anthony Edwards, can become a real top-end talent enough to change the outlook for this team.<\/p>\n
Any organization facing even one of those problems is probably not at a championship level, the level at which the Wolves front office claims they are. Most devastatingly, we probably won\u2019t even get answers to any of them. If there\u2019s one thing that has defined this team ever since the Rudy Gobert trade, it is in-season passivity.<\/p>\n
Outside of the Mike Conley\/NAW for D\u2019Angelo Russell swap, the Wolves have not made a meaningful in-season acquisition in the Tim Connelly era. Far from the 2020 deadline reshuffling, which likely saw too many changes, all adjustments are made on the back of continuity.<\/p>\n
And, truly, from the heart, that sucks.<\/p>\n
That approach completely robs us of answers. We will not know if Chris Finch has become ineffective because Minnesota won\u2019t fire him before the offseason (at the absolute earliest). We won\u2019t know who Randle is because his ebb and flow is accompanied by Finch\u2019s unrelenting trust and belief (good) leading to a total lack of accountability (bad).<\/p>\n
The Wolves are clearly in huge need of a retool. Tonight, against a floundering Atlanta Hawks team, laid that bare. They played a lifeless, limp handshake of a game. There was no effort on offense or defense. At no point did this game feel close.<\/p>\n
The fact that those three sentences have been a consistent recap staple this year is about as bad as it gets for a team that is supposedly in a title window with their 24-year-old superstar. Changes won\u2019t come today, or tomorrow, or even by the February trade deadline. They may not even come in the New Year, unlikely and far away as that may seem.<\/p>\n
However, they will need to happen. This is not a product that people can stomach. The taste of playoff success is haunting and takes even being a consistent playoff team, something that would\u2019ve felt like a faraway dream five years ago, and twists it to not be enough.<\/p>\n
Time will tell if that \u201clast two months of the season\u201d thesis reawakens after a long hibernation, as it did before, but in the meantime, we\u2019re left with an obvious conclusion: this team is not up to the task.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s to New Year\u2019s and new teams. Hopefully, most of all, here\u2019s to a locker room willing to force each other to make changes. Resolutions are made easier by having compatriots in the fights you find for yourself.<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s time for teammates to force that fight.<\/p>\n
The Timberwolves head down to South Beach to take on the Miami Heat for their first game of 2026. The Wolves get a seemingly needed extra day off as the game tips off on Saturday at 4:00 PM CT. Fans can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network and NBA TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy Gameday, everyone. As we ring in the New Year, we usually focus on resolutions. We find things…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308,51802],"class_list":{"0":"post-508625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-timberwolves","14":"tag-timberwolves-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115816771575119045","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}