Is 2026 the Year of the Wolves?

The leader of their defense was suspended for flagrancy. The leader of their offense was shelved by an infected toe. The remnants of the Minnesota Timberwolves nevertheless opted to close out the first half of their 2025-26 NBA season by conducting a clinic on how to dismantle Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, seasoning their scrubs in with their secondary stars for a 33-point drubbing that wasn’t that close Tuesday night, to kick off a four-game road trip that could provide more ammunition that 2026 is indeed the Year of the Wolves. 

Minnesota is now 6-1 this calendar year, propelling them to a 27-14 record at the halfway mark—a 54-28 pace. There are a sprinkling of cautionary notes around that gaudy mark. Even after the Tuesday-night absence of Rudy Gobert (serving a one-game suspension for committing too many flagrant fouls) and Anthony Edwards (toe-jammed to the injured list), the Wolves have enjoyed relatively good health and availability from their roster this season. Their first half has been front loaded with relatively weaker opponents — per the Basketball Reference website, they rank 27^th among the 30 NBA teams in strength of schedule. 

Last but not least, they have been careless about these advantages. More than once this season, Wolves coach Chris Finch has ruefully noted his team’s tendency to “get bored” by the grind of sustained preparation and execution, a nagging character flaw that gnaws away at their resilience and reliability. 

But as often happens to teams guided by Finch, the Wolves have slowly but steadily coalesced in ways that buttress their virtues from previous seasons while adding distinctive new elements that reflect both changes on the roster and the refinement of roles and skill sets from players already on board. 

Here at the halfway point of the season, there is evidence to suggest that for the second straight year, Minnesota is formidable on both sides of the ball, a well-rounded, versatile squad that can achieve victories in myriad ways. As of Wednesday morning, their offense had generated 117.6 points per 100 possessions through the first 41 games, which ranked sixth in the NBA. Their defense had allowed 112.4 points per 100 possessions, which put them eighth in the league. Their net rating — points scored minus points allowed per 100 possessions – was +5.3 (sometimes the math isn’t exact due to rounding), which was sixth among the 30 teams overall. 

Last season, the order was flipped: The Wolves were eighth on offense and sixth on defense. Their net rating was fourth at +5.0, which was not reflected in their won-lost record due to underachieving in crunch time, which we’ll get to later. 

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The relationship between the team’s offensive and defensive efficiency last season was more straightforward: The defense was pretty much always on point, while the offense sputtered early and gradually became a powerhouse after the All Star break. This season has been less routine. 

Let’s put aside Tuesday night’s blowout win for a minute and break the team’s first 40 games down into four ten-game segments.  In games 1-10 and 31-40, the Wolves had the NBA’s fourth-best offense in terms of points scored per possession, while the defense languished at 20^th place in games 1-10 and 17^th in games 31-40 in terms of points allowed per possession. In both of those segments, the offense carried the team to 6-4 records.

In the middle two segments, the Wolves ranked fourth on defense in games 11-20 and seventh in games 21-30, while the offense finished 15^th and 17^th, respectively. In general, then, the defense carried the team to another 6-4 record in games 11-20 and to an 8-2 mark in games 21-30. 

Despite significant disparities in offensive and defensive efficiency over those ten-game segments, the team’s net rating remained consistently strong, between +4.3 and +4.9, which is one reason why they won at least 60% of the time in all four segments. Bottom line, the Wolves have been regularly capable of beating opponents with either a potent offense and/or a stingy defense. 

Compare that to last season, when the Wolves flirted with a .500 record for a majority of the season, due in large part (aside from a welter of injuries in February) to an anemic offense. When the offense belatedly kicked into gear, the Wolves closed on a 17-4 run.

Yes, the closing schedule was forgiving and the Wolves have already received that break early in the 2025-26 slate of games. But what we’ve seen thus far in January – an offensive juggernaut to complement a steady, above-average defense – looks very similar to that late-season run in 2024-25.

Better in the clutch 

Another reason to feel good about these Wolves over the second half of the season is that they seem to have effectively addressed two chronic weaknesses that were evident and injurious to the team last year. 

The first of these is “clutch” play, defined as the time when teams are within five points of each other in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. In 2024-25, the Timberwolves had a lousy 20-26 record in these games that were close down the stretch and therefore winnable. In games that contained no clutch moments, the team was 29-7. 

The clutch ineptitude was costly in a packed Western Conference race where the sixth-place Wolves finished just three games behind the second-place Rockets and one game behind three teams tied for seeds three through five – and all four of those teams had a winning record in clutch games. 

The Wolves clutch statistics in 2024-25 actually make that 20-26 record look better by comparison. The team was 20^th in clutch offense (106.4 points scored per 100 possessions), 24th in clutch defense (114.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) and 23^rd in net rating at -8.4. 

Thus far in 2025-26, the Wolves are 11-7 in clutch games, the 7^th best winning percentage in the NBA. They are ninth in clutch offense at 114.8 points scored and ninth in clutch defense at 105 points allowed per 100 possessions, with a net rating of +9.8 that is a whopping 18.2 points per 100 possessions better than the way they performed in the clutch last season. 

The most obvious reason for this is that the leaders are leading this season. On offense, the default go-to guy is Ant, of course, and last season he floundered in the clutch, making just 32.3% of his three-pointers and 42.6% overall. This season, he’s been spectacular, converting 57.1% of his treys and 70.7% of his shots overall – 76 points in less than 60 clutch minutes, compared to 157 points in a titch over 160 minutes a year ago. 

On defense, Gobert has been nails in the clutch this season. The Wolves have yielded just 92.3 points per 100 possessions when Rudy has been on the floor in clutch minutes during the 2025-26 campaign, more than 20 points fewer than the 112.7 points per 100 clutch possessions the team allowed with Gobert last season.  

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Even in the clutch, basketball is a team game, and citing just Ant and Gobert is an over simplification for space reasons. Before we move on, however, a shout-out to  Julius Randle who, despite inaccurate shooting and relatively mediocre individual stats in the clutch, has contributed to the Wolves best offensive rating (117.9) and second-best defensive rating (102.8) during the clutch minutes he’s been on the court. Folks who watched him guard Victor Wembanyama in the clutch last Sunday night in a comeback win over San Antonio have seen his improvement on the defensive end.

Bottom line, this year’s edition of the Wolves is coming up big when games are in the balance. 

Scoring in transition, democratizing the offense  

The other glaring weakness from last year (and even further back) that this season’s Timberwolves have repaired is a greater emphasis on scoring in transition. 

Getting out and running after the defense causes the opponent to turn the ball over or miss a shot has always been one of the most efficient and productive ways to rack up points. But last season the Wolves were mysteriously, annoyingly reluctant to follow through. They ranked 30^th, dead last, in the percentage of their offensive arsenal devoted to the “playtype” known as transition.

This season they have joined the party, boosting their transition playtype frequency to 18.2%, good for 16^th in the NBA. They are doing it more and doing it better, boosting their average points scored per transition play up from 1.14 last season (16^th in the league) to 1.16 this season (7^th in the NBA). 

As the cliché goes, correlation is not necessarily causation, but I believe that intentionally leaning into more transition opportunities has enormously benefited the Wolves offense and style of play. The players who dominate the playmaking in the half-court offense, Ant and Randle, have seen their transition frequency inch up from 15.1 last year to 15.5 this season (Ant) and 14.1 last year to 15.3 this season (Randle). By contrast, the “others” who must customarily wait for the stars to involve them, have seen their role boosted by transition. 

Last year Jaden McDaniels had a transition frequency of 17.4. This season it is 27.0. The frequency in transition for Naz Reid is up to 17.0 compared to 13.5 last year; for Donte DiVincenzo it is 18.4 versus 15.9 last season. 

In other words, transition helps democratize the offense by spreading the scoring opportunities around. This hones the playmaking skills and boosts the confidence and sense of involvement of the lesser lights in the Wolves offense. I believe it also increases the pace and decision-making of everyone on the team by creating a habit of movement – movement up and down the court and movement off the ball in the half-court sets as well as transition. And that has improved the offense – along with being a hell of a lot more fun to watch than isolation plays that milk the clock and lead to kick-outs by the Ant-Randle playmaking duo stationed around the perimeter in hurry-up-and-wait mode. 

Here are some numbers to support my bias. In their 27 wins this season, the Wolves play at a pace of 101.98 possessions per game, which would rank seventh in pace of play if done every game. In their 14 losses, the pace is 100.15, which would rank 19^th if mimicked every game. Overall the Wolves are 12^th in pace at 101.35, after ranking 25^th last season with a pace of 97.95 possessions per game. 

In addition, the Wolves pace of play has risen every month thus far this season. It was 99.90 in five October games, up to 100.97 in November, 101.24 in December, and way up to 103.43 thus far in January, when the team is 6-1. 

Based strictly on the eye test, I believe the Wolves thrived on offense at the start of the season due to the stupendous performance of Randle, who was a passing dervish and a deadeye shooter. After the first six weeks or so, the offense began to bog down – and Ant missed a handful of games along the line. 

For the past month or so, the pace has been noticeably faster. A clearcut catalyst for this has been the insertion of Bones Hyland into the regular rotation. The Wolves play at a faster pace when Bones is on the court – 103.75 possessions per game – than they do with any other regular rotation player. Bones just happens to also have the best net rating of any rotation player, at +14.8. 

I’ve been critical of the indifferent character of this team for much of this season, allowing themselves to be lulled into mediocrity by inferior opponents. But after losing seven straight games to opponents with winning records, the Wolves are locked and loaded and thriving against much tougher competition. It is a familiar boon of Finch’s tenure. 

Once again, the Wolves are solid on both sides of the ball. Once again, Ant and Gobert have reasserted their superior virtues and Randle is a glorious adjunct. The loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the aging of Mike Conley have been absorbed; ditto the disappointment of Terrence Shannon Jr. and Rob Dillingham. Bones Hyland has seized his opening and by the looks of what he did Tuesday night in Milwaukee, Joan Beringer may be ready to follow suit. 

I’ll get into both players – Bones and Joan – in the And One newsletter, in the context of the Wolves being able to stand pat at the trading deadline. 

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