Can Timberwolves Fix Their Season-Long Turnover, Rebounding and Execution Problems?

On today’s show, Dane is joined by Chris Hine from the Star Tribune to discuss the Minnesota Timberwolves’ recent losses on the road to the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.

Dane and Chris dive into some of the season-long problems that particularly plagued the Wolves against the Celtics and Heat this week — turnovers, defensive rebounding, execution in high leverage situations. Additionally, they discuss the recent play of Naz Reid and Jaylen Nowell, two players who have not only been thrust into bigger roles over the last month as injuries have begun to pile up, but are set to become unrestricted free agents following the 2022-23 NBA season.

Topics touched on in today’s episode include:

— What is behind the Wolves’ persistent rebounding and turnover issues? Is it a result of personnel, scheme, lineups or some combination of all three? What is the most plausible path forward to remedying that problem?

— We’re beginning to see more and more of the Naz Reid and Rudy Gobert pairing on the floor together. What are our early takeaways from that duo? Does Reid make sense to play as a 4 moving forward as a way of getting him more minutes when the team returns to full strength? Does he make more sense next to Gobert or Karl-Anthony Towns?

— Playing crunch time games teams that have been there before, like the Dallas Mavericks, as well as Boston and Miami.

— Has Nowell begun pressing in a contract year? What has gone wrong for him in recent games compared to the way he played earlier in the season when he was a legitimate weapon off the bench?

(If you can’t access the Spotify player above, click here to listen to the latest episode on Spotify).

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