{"id":528109,"date":"2026-01-10T23:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/528109\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T23:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:27:17","slug":"20-stats-to-explain-cavs-146-134-win-vs-timberwolves-the-offense-came-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/528109\/","title":{"rendered":"20 stats to explain Cavs 146-134 win vs. Timberwolves: The offense came alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> outscored the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> 146-134<\/a> in an offensive showcase.<\/p>\n

The stats in the table below are from Cleaning the Glass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Effective Field Goal Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Rebounding Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Turnover Percentage<\/p>\n

Free Throw Rate<\/p>\n

Cavs<\/p>\n

67.9%, 97th percentile<\/p>\n

9.8%, 90th percentile<\/p>\n

25.6%, 34th percentile<\/p>\n

22.8, 59th percentile<\/p>\n

Timberwolves<\/p>\n

66.3%, 95th percentile<\/p>\n

30.8%, 59th percentile<\/p>\n

15.7%, 40th percentile<\/p>\n

18, 33rd percentile<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s dive into the numbers.<\/p>\n

The Cavs registered their second-best offensive rating of the season (142.2<\/a>). They put up a higher offensive rating in their Dec. 1 win over the Indiana Pacers. This, however, was the most impressive given the opponent. The Timberwolves came into this game with the fifth-best defensive rating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both teams shot 50% from three. This helped boost both teams\u2019 offenses, but neither shot a high volume. The Cavs took just 30 threes (21st percentile for frequency<\/a>), and the Timberwolves attempted just 32.<\/p>\n

This was the second time the Cavs shot 50% or better from beyond the arc. The only other time they did was in their Dec. 22 win over the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n

Cleveland went 23-31 (74.2%) on shots at the rim (72nd percentile<\/a>). They also got to the rim often, as 36%<\/a> of their shots came in the restricted area (70th percentile<\/a>). You\u2019re always going to have a good offense when you\u2019re getting into the teeth of the defense as effectively as the Cavs were.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers outscored the Timberwolves 68-58 in the paint. You have a good chance of winning when you control the paint.<\/p>\n

Minnesota had a 134.8 offensive rating (90th percentile). This was the Cavs\u2019 third-worst defensive rating for a game this season. How much of that you want to attribute to Cleveland\u2019s defense is up to you. Minnesota hit a lot of difficult shots in this one. \u201cI think it was great,\u201d Evan Mobley said about the defensive process. \u201cWe trusted the process that it would even out there. They still shot a pretty good percentage, but we shot better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mobley completed all eight of his looks in the restricted area. Cleveland\u2019s bigs handily won the matchup with Minnesota\u2019s front court. Mobley\u2019s aggressiveness is a big reason why.<\/p>\n

Donovan Mitchell went 6-12 on shots outside of the paint. This accounted for 16 of his game-high 28 points. Mitchell had a tough time finishing inside. He went just 3-9 on shots in the paint, which included going 2-6 in the restricted area.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers won the turnover battle 15-9. This was one of the big differences in a game both teams shot the ball so well from three in. Cleveland outscored Minnesota 22-16 on points off turnovers.<\/p>\n

Darius Garland didn\u2019t commit a turnover. He\u2019s committed just four combined turnovers in the last four games he\u2019s played. This has led to an impressive assist-to-turnover ratio of 6.5.<\/p>\n

Darius Garland went 7-7 on midrange shots. Many of these included floaters once he got a big switched onto him. \u201cHe gets it up pretty quick, and he gets it up in the air,\u201d Sam Merrill said about Garland\u2019s floater. \u201cIt took him a little bit to get into that rhythm again to start this season with him coming back, but it looks really good right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cavs are 9-0 when Jarrett Allen takes 10 or more shots. He made a noticeable impact on both ends of the floor and finished with a team-high +22. Allen provided 16 points on 6-10 shooting.<\/p>\n

The Cavs are 9-5 when Sam Merrill starts. This was the first time he started with the core four this season. He started with them twice last season.<\/p>\n

This was the Cavs\u2019 22nd different starting lineup. Saturday\u2019s unit outscored Minnesota by eight. This came after Thursday\u2019s starters lost their minutes by 19.<\/p>\n

Merrill went 5-6 from three. He\u2019s made five or more threes in four consecutive games, which is a team record<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jaylon Tyson had 23 of the team\u2019s 36 bench points. Tyson went 4-4 from three and 9-12 from the field overall. He was the only Cavaliers reserve to score more than five points. Minnesota\u2019s bench outscored Cleveland\u2019s 54-36.<\/p>\n

The Cavs limited the Timberwolves to just 10 second-chance opportunities. Minnesota won the second-chance points battle 15-12.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers registered a 131 half-court offensive rating<\/a> (99th percentile<\/a>). The hot outside shooting boosted this, but it doesn\u2019t explain everything. This was as complete an offensive showing as we\u2019ve seen from them this season. The process was phenomenal.<\/p>\n

Thirty-eight of the Cavs\u2019 55 field-goal makes were assisted.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers had five players score 20 or more points: Mitchell (28), Mobley (24), Tyson (23), Garland (22), and Merrill (20).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers outscored the Minnesota Timberwolves 146-134 in an offensive showcase. The stats in the table below…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,473,305,193,3846,791,633,864,576,126,1178,2286,152,6,8557,62910,1166,70610,2484,2149],"class_list":["post-528109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-darius-garland","tag-defensive-rating","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-evan-mobley","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-jarrett-allen","tag-jaylon-tyson","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-offensive-rating","tag-restricted-area","tag-sam-merrill","tag-th-percentile","tag-the-cavaliers","tag-the-cavs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115873398437184592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528109","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=528109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}