Practice Report

Taylor Nardinger

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Intensity On Day Two | Mayo Clinic Training Camp Practice Report

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Folks, I hope you caught a Timberwolves home game last week because now you won’t be able to do so until Sunday, March 22.

On Monday, the Wolves headed to Houston where they’ll begin a 12-day, six-game road trip. It’ll be the longest road trip of Wolves head coach Ryan Saunders’ NBA career.

There are obvious disadvantages of being on the road for that long: players and coaches don’t have the support of home game fans and have to be away from their families for an extended period.

But being on the road for two weeks also provides the Wolves with plenty of opportunities to build team chemistry when the majority of their days revolve around spending time with no one but each other.

Some Wolves players and coaches can go home to their family and friends after their workdays. That isn’t the case for forward James Johnson whose family doesn’t live in Minnesota. Living in temporary housing in Minneapolis, a city that’s still somewhat foreign to him, often feels like living on the road to him. The playing field will be leveled for the entire team for the next two weeks.

“We just have each other on the road,” Johnson said before Monday’s practice. “Take your time, go have dinner and get to know everyone better. I think that’s going to affect (what happens on) the court.”

“Sometimes you get better practice time, individual work time, better film sessions because that’ll be the only thing you have to do for that day,” Saunders said. “I’m looking forward to being able to put the work in with these guys.”

But the Wolves aren’t waiting until they land on foreign ground to put the work in.

Saunders shared that Wolves players were getting shots up at 8 a.m. two hours before the start of Monday’s practice. Once members of the media were admitted into the practice facility around 9:30 a.m., Jordan McLaughlin could be found working on his outside shooting while Johnson, Jarrett Culver, Juancho Hernangomez, Jaylen Nowell, Jake Layman, Naz Reid, Saunders and assistant coaches Kevin Hanson and Pablo Prigioni were seen running through plays on the opposite end of the Mayo Clinic Courts.

“This is a working group,” Saunders said. “Guys are trying to do the right things, and even though the results weren’t what we wanted last night, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to hang our heads for Houston tomorrow.”

Johnson is grateful for the “pre-practice” sessions, which provide him with an extra opportunity to learn terminologies and schemes outside of games. He’s also appreciative of players like McLaughlin and Culver who’re willing to come in early and walk him through the sets he’s still getting accustomed to.

“It translates on the court because on the court they’re still talking to me and I’m talking to them, too.”

The “pre-practice” sessions aren’t new to Johnson who’s played for six different franchises during his 11-year career.

“All the good coaches really do things like that,” Johnson said. “I see a lot of great things in Ryan that I’ve seen in a lot of great coaches I’ve been under. We’re on the right page. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Saunders used the extra time he had with his players before Monday’s practice to reinforce the Wolves’ system values, which he feels they diverted from in their recent losses to the Orlando Magic and New Orleans Pelicans.

Learning and reinforcing their system is at the top of the Wolves’ priority list, but what happens when an opposing player throws chasms into their defensive principles by getting hot from midrange, for example? Do the Wolves remain loyal to their system which prioritizes taking away outside shooting, free throw attempts and shots around the rim while forcing teams to beat them in the midrange, or do they make an exception to lessen the blow?

Saunders said it’s a decision he and his staff make based on the “flow of the game.” To explain his answer, Saunders walked the media through how his team will game plan for defending prolific scorer James Harden in Tuesday’s game against the Houston Rockets.

“(Harden) can beat you in a lot of ways,” Saunders said. “Do you want to live with a contested midrange, do you want to live with him being a passer, or do you just want to get the ball out of his hands and make everybody else beat you? Those are the types of decisions you make as you game plan. You’re going to commit to that and see if it works early in the game.

“So, if we’re saying he’s going to be a mid-range shooter, you want to test that out, and if he’s scoring in the midrange, then you’re saying, ‘OK, let’s throw two (defenders) at him later in the game time scoring situations and get the ball out of his hands because he is getting hot.’”

The Wolves may also add some flexibility to their offensive system when necessary.

Wolves point guard D’Angelo Russell has proven to be deadly from midrange — remember when he dropped 52 points against the Wolves while playing with the Golden State Warriors back in November? Though their offensive system tries to limit shooting long 2s as much as possible, they may give Russell some wiggle room if defenses have trouble slowing him down from midrange.

“We’re not changing what we want, but if (Russell) scores in the midrange, you might bite your tongue a little more as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, let’s try to get you to the rim; let’s try to get a pass-pass to the corner,’” Saunders said.

Yet, their system values will still be reinforced even if a player finds success from the midrange.

“Even if a guy makes 55 midrange shots in a game, we’ll still talk about what we value for this team moving forward,” Saunders said. “We still want the process to be right.”

NBA teams are coming to terms with the harsh reality that their arenas and practice facilities aren’t immune to the spread of the coronavirus.

On Monday, Saunders expressed his trust in the league’s handling of the outbreak.

“The league has a good system in place,” Saunders said. “I know they’re working around the clock to be prepared for whatever situations come about.”

The same is true for the Wolves’ franchise.

“Our medical staff and our organization, we meet a lot to be on the same page with things,” Saunders said. “We’ll educate our players, but it’s nothing to just kind of brush off to the side. This is obviously a very serious thing that we’re dealing with. We’re a group in the NBA so obviously we want to be proactive with things.”

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Wolves Weigh The Benefits Of Upcoming Road Trip

During games, Wolves head coach Ryan Saunders can often be found meandering towards the halfcourt-line where he has a better chance of hearing how his players are communicating on the defensive end.

In Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Saunders was reminded that his team has quite a ways to go before its fully up to speed with its defensive schemes.

“I heard three coverage calls that we don’t have in our package,” Saunders said before Monday’s practice. “As soon as there was a dead ball, you call that guy over and right away he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s a blue here, that’s not a flat. Or that’s a black here, that’s not a switch.’”

Revamping the Wolves’ roster mid-season has already brought plenty of benefits to the franchise but it did force the new Wolves to learn things on the fly while rather than during the preseason.

But that’s just a reality that’s all part of the process for D’Angelo Russell.

On Monday, Russell said the Wolves are continuing to invest in film sessions to help mend their defensive lapses. And of course, building chemistry off the court will also speed up the process.

“Off the court, it’s the comradery whenever we get to go to dinners and just get to do regular things together you get to see guys’ real personality off the court and you find a correct way to approach it whenever you see something that they don’t see or vice versa,” Russell said.

For Russell, defensive improvements rely on strong communication.

“I think we have a good group of guys who have credibility and voice their opinions often enough to where you respect it and it’s coming from a good place,” Russell said. “That line of communication is where it starts.”

The Wolves will need all the defensive communication they can get on Tuesday when they face the New Orleans Pelicans for the first time since the multifaceted Zion Williamson recovered from the knee injury that kept him sidelined until Jan. 22.

“He’s a player who values physicality, a player who welcomes contact, but at a young age, you don’t always see someone welcome it and actually impose it upon other players and other grown men the way he has this early in his career,” Saunders said.

Not only is Williamson a generational force in the paint, but he also has the speed of a guard, which makes shutting him down next to impossible.

“The way he runs the ball and can push in transition, the way he’s scoring in halfcourt too — especially against matchup problems — he’s definitely a challenge,” Saunders said.

But Saunders and his players know that facing players of William’s caliber is also a necessity when it comes to making defensive strides.

“As competitors, that’s what you want,” Saunders said. “You want to compete against the highest level of athlete and team. He’s playing well and he’s obviously been on a historic run.”

Russell and fellow point guard Jordan McLaughlin have only played 46 possessions together since Russell joined the team on Feb. 6.

That’s an incredibly small sample size, and the duo’s two-player lineup stats should be taken with a grain of salt. But they’re also worth mentioning here at Timberwolves.com.

When the two share the court, the Wolves are recording a 58.3% effective field goal percentage (99th percentile in the league) and have just an 8.7% turnover rate (100th percentile). The DLo-J-Mac lineup also holds opponents to 50% effective shooting and a 22.7% turnover rate. Again, a sample size of 46 possessions is pretty menial, but those comparisons are not.

“D’Angelo is a player who can score in a number of ways,” Saunders explained. “We’ve seen more blitzes of him out of timeouts or down the stretch. Jordan handling the ball allows him to get off the ball a little bit, tough for the blitz.”

And when Russell draws blitzes, McLaughlin has more room to shine.

“I think it makes us that much more dangerous,” Russell said when asked how he liked playing with McLaughlin. “With Jordan, he’s a sneaky, fast, crafty guard who gets it done. Whenever I get off the ball and they’re trapping me or whatnot, that’s two guards getting down and making plays for us. So I think it makes us that much more dangerous.”

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Wolves' Defense Prepares For Pelicans, Zion

If you’re reading this, you probably remember where you were the night of April 11, 2018.

That night, the Wolves defeated the Denver Nuggets 112-106 in an overtime win that did more than boost Minnesota’s regular season record. The win also ended the Wolves’ 14-season playoff drought.

It was a night of celebration in Minnesota, but former Nuggets and current Wolves players Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez don’t remember the night as fondly.

“It was a tough, hard loss, but after that moment we went to the gym, worked really, really hard that summer and were ready next season to go,” Hernangomez said. “(There was) no more playing around right from the first game.”

After the April 11 loss, the Nuggets went on to finish the following regular season with the second-best record in the competitive Western Conference. And as his team improved and added more depth, Hernangomez saw his playing time begin to dwindle.

That hasn’t been the case since he was traded to Minnesota.

Before coming to Minnesota, the four-year forward had never averaged more than 19.4 minutes per game in a season, but he’s averaged 30 minutes a night on his new team. And so far, as his minutes increase, so do his shooting percentages.

Hernangomez averaged 12.4 minutes per game in the 34 games he played with Denver this season. In those games, he shot 34.5% from the field, just 25% from deep and recorded an effective field goal percentage of 41.4%. Since playing in a Wolves jersey, he’s improved to 42.9% from the field and 3-point range and has a 51.4% effective field goal percentage.

Hernangomez’s improvement doesn’t surprise Wolves head coach Ryan Saunders.

“I think that’s something that’s pretty normal with guys who have talent and guys who are hungry to compete and hungry to play a bigger role,” Saunders said. “We feel like Juancho is a player who can continue to get better and better.”

With a new team and new opportunity, Hernangomez shares Saunders’ belief.

“(Denver) let me go, but I’m thankful for what they did and thankful for the chance I’ve got right now,” Hernangomez said. “I just want to keep going and keep practicing to get my shots up and keep believing in me.”

And he’s carried the lessons of Denver’s April 11 loss with him to Minnesota.“Every game matters,” the Wolves forward said. “Like last game against Charlotte. We cannot lose a game like that after leading by 16 at halftime. So we have to learn from that and figure it out.”

“Figuring things out” and learning how to play with one another will be the reconstructed Wolves’ main focus for the final two months of the 2019-20 season. Forward Jake Layman returned to practice on Thursday to get acquainted with his new teammates, but the Wolves will have to continue to grow without center Karl-Anthony Towns, for the time being.

Of course, Towns’ absence isn’t ideal, but Hernangomez is optimistic knows his team’s only option is to move forward.

“I think it’s going to be short,” Hernangomez said when asked how long he thinks it’ll take his teammates to get used to playing with one another. “From the first game, we saw something special. Without KAT now, it’s going to be a little harder, but when he’s back, I think it’s going to be short.”

Saunders said post-All-Star break would be the ideal time for Hernangomez and Towns to build their on-court chemistry, but he, like Hernangomez, is optimistic of what Towns’ return will do for the duo.

“(Hernangomez’s) ability to cut is something that will help Karl in the future,” Saunders said. “It’ll help him in the post, but Karl will also be able to help Juancho.”

With or without Towns, Juancho’s goals for himself and his new team remain the same.

“Our goal is to compete, be a family, know each other,” Hernangomez said. “I think our goal is to compete every single game and be us. Enjoy the journey and just play hard.”

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Hernangomez Excels In Expanded Role With Wolves

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Trying to get a team with nine new players on a roster to mesh in less than a week isn’t the easiest thing to do.

If you need proof, just ask Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders how much sleep he’s gotten lately. 

But through two games, the Timberwolves have looked really good with a new cast of characters. If you were an alien and knew nothing about this team starting Saturday, you probably wouldn't have had any idea this team just made a franchise-altering trade.

The new-look Wolves beat a championship-contending Clippers team in front of a sold-out Target Center on Saturday and gave a Raptors team that had won 14-straight games all they could handle on Monday night in Toronto. 

Next up for the Wolves is a feisty Hornets squad on Wednesday night at home. It will be D’Angelo Russell’s home debut for Minnesota. Against Toronto, Russell finished with 22 points and five assists while shooting 7-for-12 from the field and 4-for-5 from the 3-point line.

Russell, along with Karl-Anthony Towns, knows how important homecourt advantage is for a team trying to find itself more than 50 games into the season. That’s why the two of them bought 1,000 tickets each to give to fans for the game.

There’s probably a pretty good chance the Wolves sell out their second-straight game, which goes to show just how excited and intrigued fans are about this completely overhauled unit. And they should be. There��s the Russell and Towns aspect surely, but players like Malik Beasley and Juan Hernangomez look like they could be major contributors as well. 

Around this time of year, most players and teams are looking forward to the All-Star break. Bodies and minds need rest. For the Wolves, it’s the opposite. The break for this relatively healthy unit (it feels like Jake Layman could be back soon) comes at a time when the group would rather be focusing on how to best make this new relationship succeed.

“It’s kind of weird because we have one more game and then it’s the All-Star break and we kind of split again,” Beasley said before Tuesday’s practice. “I kind of wish we had continuous things going on where we could just continue playing.”

It’s worth noting that Beasley was in the gym at 9 a.m. getting shots up about eight hours after the team landed in Minneapolis from Toronto.

This break will be different than most years for players and coaches. For players, it will be trying to adjust their personal life after having to fly into Minneapolis 24 hours after being traded last week. I would guess there is some laundry to catch up on. For coaches, it will be trying to best figure out how these players can succeed together.  

With 30 games left in the season, the playoffs aren’t the goal. The goal now is to lay down the foundation. The Timberwolves have a system in place where the players seem to fit perfectly (the team has averaged 134 points in its two games with the new pieces). The system that coach Saunders implemented to start the season has the players to run it correctly.

That next opportunity will be Wednesday night against the Hornets at 7 p.m. The game will air from Target Center on Fox Sports North and 830 WCCO. Tickets are available here.  

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Wolves Hope To Be Ignited By Home Crowd Before All-Star Break

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When asked how his team responded to its defeating loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday at Tuesday’s practice, Timberwolves head coach Ryan Saunders stated the obvious.

“Guys were disappointed; we all were — for a number of reasons,” Saunders said before Wednesday’s practice. “We all wore our emotions, but we also went through film, we addressed what went wrong and then we went through it on the court.”

It’s bittersweet that Monday’s overtime loss came before a four-day break from games. On one hand, the Wolves would have liked to have had an earlier opportunity to right their wrongs instead of letting the bad taste of Monday’s loss fester until Saturday’s afternoon, road game against the Los Angeles Clippers. But, they aren’t taking the extra practice time for granted.

Saunders said he led Tuesday’s film session but asked his players questions to create a dialogue on what went well and what ultimately led to Monday night’s collapse.

“In that Sacramento game, we look back and for three and a half quarters, we had a lot of good defensive possessions; we had a lot of good offensive possessions,” Saunders said. “We feel a certain way right now because of the end. That’s the bottom line. We can’t ignore that, but we also need to make sure we still stay solid in knowing we feel we are doing the right things up until the end.”

The first critique mentioned in Wednesday’s media availability was the Wolves’ handling of Karl-Anthony Towns being double teamed by Sacramento late in Monday’s game. When asked how his team can handle such scenarios in a crisper fashion, Saunders commented on the frequency of basket cuts.

“We’re cutting too much, and we’re bringing too many help defenders to KAT,” Saunders said. “We were actually just going over that as coaches. We’ll clarify with everything, and I’d expect us to see that a little more.”

Monday, of course, wasn’t the first time Towns has been met with two defenders in crunch time this season, and it surely won’t be the last. The Wolves will keep that in mind as they continue to rework Towns, who missed 15 games due to a knee injury and illness, into their lineup.

“A lot of times when you’re out for an extended period of times, it’s not just on Karl, it’s on everybody to get the rhythm of having someone of his talent level back in the lineup with everything,” Saunders said. “That’s why these four days are good for us to be able to practice and do things at a game-competitive speed.”

Defensively, Saunders wants to see his team become a better pursuit and contest team, finish plays and be more disciplined about executing game plans.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re also being a team that is sticking to a game plan by forcing guys to what we’ve called,” Saunders said, “because that’s what’s going to make a difference on where the big is going to be.”

With those improvements, Saunders believes his team can become a top defensive team in the league just as it was mid-December to mid-January. As always, they’ll lean on each other as they attempt to overcome recent disappointment.

“We’ve got a good locker room,” Saunders said. “We’ve got a good group of guys, and we’re always available to communicate through things, too; if guys need clarity or if they need to talk through something, if they’re having a tough time. I feel like despite losing some games, this is a together group.”

In the first half of Monday’s game, Allen Crabbe went down with what was later diagnosed as a left knee subluxation. Saunders said the Wolves are currently waiting for the swelling of Crabbe’s injured knee to go down and that he wasn’t expected to participate in Wednesday or Thursday’s practices.

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Wolves Take Advantage Of Four-Day Break From Games

The Timberwolves played competent, system basketball for about three and a half quarters of Monday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings. But their 20-plus-point lead and new franchise record of 23 3-pointers made in one game were vanquished in the final two minutes of play when the Wolves gave up a 15-point lead and allowed the Kings to settle things in overtime. The Kings jumped on that opportunity and claimed a 133-129 win despite being down by as much as 27 points.

Words can’t diminish the disappointment of Monday’s loss. The Wolves have to be about action now.

Karl-Anthony Towns knew this on Tuesday when he kept his answers brief in his two minutes, 57 seconds of pre-practice media availability.

“It’s just frustrating all around,” Towns said when asked if how well the Wolves played in the first three quarters of Monday’s game added to his frustration. “No one wants to be a part of history, but we put ourselves in the history books for the wrong reasons.

Based on Wolves head coach Ryan Saunders’ pre-practice comments, the Wolves have already begun to learn from Monday’s loss.

First and foremost, the Wolves’ late-game execution has been insufficient during their current losing streak. The Wolves have proven they can play with above .500 teams like the Rockets, Raptors, Thunder and Pacers, but when it comes to finishing games in crunch time, they’ve repeatedly fallen short.

“Late-game situations isn’t just a side out-of-bounds play,” Saunders, who didn't sleep after Monday's loss, said. “Late-game situations are a free-throw box out. A free-throw where we think the ball will be. It’s not fouling 3-point shooters. You’d like to think that youth plays a factor in that, but we need to be better with that. And we will.”

Saunders acknowledged how the Wolves played well for the majority of Monday’s game but said that wouldn’t be the emphasis of Tuesday’s film session.

“I’ll talk about how we played 45 minutes of good basketball, but I’m focusing on those last three minutes and overtime as opposed to showing clips from early on,” Saunders said.

Yet, the Wolves have to hold onto what went right in the first 40 minutes of Monday’s game. The Wolves made 23 of their 46 3-point attempts, recorded 29 assists and improved on the boards where they outrebounded the Kings 61-49, proving that their system does work when executed properly.

“I do take positives from that,” Saunders said. “Trust me, I understand — especially as a Minnesota fan — a game like last night’s hurts. It does. It hurts all of us. But we mean it when we say we’re going to focus on today, and we’ll use last night as a stepping-stone to get better because when you look at three quarters and almost three and a half quarters, we played a good, system basketball game that I was very happy with. Then things did not go our way late in the game.”

When the game began to unravel, the Wolves seemed to enter survival mode by forcing shots as defeat lurked. They can’t continue to play not to lose.

“I think that a lot of times when you do go on losing streaks, you have to pull yourself out of the mindset of, ‘Oh, here we go,’” Saunders said. “It’s got to be moving on to the next play, the next one. That’s what I plan on doing today. That’s not just a lip-service thing, because I believe in what we’re doing and I believe in the down-the-line vision of this. But we need to make sure that we correct last night.”

Monday’s loss won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But all the Wolves can do now is move on and continue to focus on their long-term goals while still committing to improving every day so that their goals of the distant future can eventually come to fruition.

“We’re a group that’s focused on the long-term goal,” Saunders said. “We’re focused on that, and that means that you have to pick yourself up. It’s like anything in life; things happen, and it’s tough. A lot of things are in your control, some are out of your control. But it’s how you respond the next day, and we’re going to respond today by getting after it in terms of seeing what we did wrong, seeing how we could be better and knowing that we’ll be better in the future.”

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Wolves Continue To Keep Long-term Goals In Mind

The start of Jarrett Culver’s rookie season was one full of adjustments. 

He’ll be the first to admit that, but a lot of times with rookies, we all need that reminder that playing in the NBA is not easy. Schemes are different. Players are stronger and faster. There are different rules. There aren't very many players who get to the NBA and immediately figure it out.

But as of late, Culver has been on a roll.

The sixth-overall pick out of Texas Tech has been one of the league’s best rookies since Dec. 30.

And he’s not just doing it in one way. Culver has been doing so with his all-around game, which was what was so attractive to Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas during the draft process.

Culver has four games with 10 or more points, five or more rebounds and five or more assists since Dec. 30. The only other rookie to do that more is Rookie of the Year-favorite Ja Morant. 

It’s becoming clear that Culver should be representing the Timberwolves at All-Star Weekend in Chicago in the Rising Stars Challenge. 

Since that Dec. 30 date when things started to really click for Culver, no U.S. born rookie has more steals than Culver’s 15. Culver ranks second in both points scored and rebounds hauled in.

The most impressive stat for Culver, though, again shows off his all-around skillset and is a season-long achievement. Among U.S. born rookies, Culver is one of two players who rank in the top-10 in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. The other is Charlotte’s P.J. Washington – a player who has played 200 more minutes than Culver has.

Playing in the Rising Stars Challenge certainly isn’t a make-or-break deal or even an accurate reflection of a player’s rookie year. But it is an opportunity for Culver to be around the best players in the league that should only help his confidence.

“I think that he’s very deserving of that,” Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders said Tuesday. “You look around the league and Jarrett, the way he’s come on and the way he’s progressed, his improvement and development is a great story over this last month here. . . Being around other players like that, being around other All-Stars . . . that will really help Jarrett.”

Culver knows that the decision to get the invite, which should come on Jan. 28, isn’t up to him. But he’ll be ready if he does get the call.

“That’d be very fun for me – a great opportunity,” Culver said. “A blessing, for sure. I’m just gonna keep working. It’s not my decision who pick, but just keep working to get in that. I think I should, but I’m just gonna keep working for it.”

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Culver Has Been One Of NBA's Best All-Around Rookies As Of Late

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