The Minnesota Timberwolves, without Anthony Edwards, grabbed their best win of the season as they stormed into Texas and outclassed Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets late in the game.
The Rockets had the best record in the Western Conference coming into the night and have looked as impressive as anyone this season. That didn't matter Wednesday night as the Wolves overwhelmed them in the fourth quarter, with the roster newcomers stealing the show.
For most of the game, it did not appear to be LaMelo Ball's night. He had scored just eight points, committed six turnovers, and picked up three fouls in the span of 24 seconds in the third quarter, continuing a concerning trend for Ball in that area.
Then, everything changed midway through the fourth quarter. Ball scored or assisted on 15 straight Timberwolves points over a four-minute span to take the Wolves from down by three to up by four. In a spot where Edwards would have usually taken over, Ball ascended into that role to perfection.
The Wolves still need to smooth out many areas of Ball's game. The number of turnovers is completely untenable, the fouling needs to go down, and there are far too many stretches where Ball is taken out of the game by physical defense.
All of that was put aside in the fourth quarter as Ball proved exactly why the Timberwolves traded for him this summer. He controlled every aspect of the Wolves' offense and created wide-open looks for himself and others, allowing the team to dominate late in the game against some of the NBA's best.
Rudy Gobert had another dominant game protecting the paint, but the lone downside was his free-throw shooting. Gobert made only two of his six attempts from there, maintaining his season-long free-throw percentage of 33.3 percent.
Gobert has never been an excellent free-throw shooter, but he has never had a cold streak nearly this bad, as Gobert is a 63.1 percent free-throw shooter in his career. Unfortunately for the Wolves, this is beginning to become a multi-season trade, as last season Gobert had his worst free-throw shooting season since his rookie year at 52.6 percent.
It is another chapter in the ever-growing story of the Gobert paradox . He is far too valuable on the defensive end to take him off the court for any significant length of time, but his offensive game makes him one of the Wolves largest liabilites.
Gobert wasn't the only Wolves player who had issues making their free throws . Minnesota went 10-for-19 from the free-throw line in this game. For the season, the Wolves are now shooting 63.4 percent from the stripe. Not only is that dead last, but it trails the next-worst team, the Milwaukee Bucks, by more than seven percentage points.
Through nine games to begin the season, Jonathan Kuminga has given the Timberwolves everything they could have wanted. He is rebounding high, defending at a high level, knocking down three-point shots, and overall doing all of the little things necessary to win.
Against the Rockets, Kuminga put up 18 points, eight rebounds, and five assists, plus a steal and a block. Eight of those points came in the fourth quarter, including a pair of dagger three-pointers from the left corner in front of the Wolves' bench that sealed the win.
In total, Kuminga knocked down four three-pointers in the game, a career high. For the season, Kuminga is now at 46.3 percent from beyond the arc on 4.5 attempts per game. If Kuminga can continue to knock down shots from deep at anywhere near that rate, that would greatly help the Wolves' offensive spacing around both Gobert and Joan Beringer.
Following Monday's game versus the Bucks, Chris Finch had a ton of praise for Kuminga, saying, "He just continues to play the perfect role... He's doing everything that we need him to do, and a lot of it in a timely manner, so we'd be lost without him right now for sure"
The Wolves' win in and of itself is valuable enough, but they now also lead the season series 1-0 against the Rockets. The reason that is important is that the first tiebreaker for playoff seeding is head-to-head record.
The Rockets project to be one of the teams that finishes with a similar record to the Wolves. If the two teams end up tied, this game could become even more valuable, as it may decide which team gets the better seed for the Playoffs.
The Wolves still have three more matchups with the Rockets on the schedule, so the tiebreaker is far from secured. There are also still 73 games left on the Wolves' schedule and far bigger priorities to worry about over the next five months.
Still, every game against another top-tier Western Conference team gains added importance, making this win all the sweeter for the team in blue down in Texas.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nba/timberwolves/onsi as 2 Big & 2 Small Takeaways From Timberwolves' Win vs. Rockets .
