Things appear far from rosy in the Minnesota Timberwolves camp following a heavy 133-107 defeat to the New York Knicks.
Despite winning six of their last eight games the team only sit eighth in the Western Conference with a 14-12 record.
The Timberwolves’ defence was put to the sword by the returning Karl-Anthony Towns who was traded to the Knicks this season, his display has left many Timberwolves fans hurting.
Towns dropped 32 points alongside 20 rebounds and six assists, safe to say he enjoyed returning to Minnesota.
Despite struggling to keep Towns quiet on the defensive end it was the offense that came under fire from star player Anthony Edwards, who himself had a quiet game by his standards.
The Timberwolves can often rely on the genius of Edwards even in the toughest of games, but the star scored just 17 points in the side’s defeat to the Knicks.
Julius Randle top scored for the team with 24 but no other player put up more than 15 points.
As a team, they were shooting at 46% and 40% from three-point range. Edwards himself struggled from three-point range scoring just three of seven from behind the arc.
Speaking about the team’s offensive struggles after the game Edwards said: “We don’t have s**t on offense, we don’t have no identity. We normally shoot a bunch of shots, you know Ju [Julius Randle] gonna shoot a bunch of shots and that’s all we know.
“It’s not on our coaches at all, we out there playing but we gotta make it easier for each other. The coaches put us in great positions to man we just don’t do it.”
With the words of Edwards ringing loud it’s worth having a deeper look into the offensive numbers the Timberwolves have put up this season.
The side is averaging just 109.7 points per game which makes them the tied-23rd worst scoring team in the NBA with the Brooklyn Nets.
The 2,852 points the side has scored this season is almost 600 behind the current point-scoring leaders in the Memphis Grizzlies who boast 3,442.
Averaging 45.9% of field goals made they rank 17th and from behind the arc they are shooting at 37.2% which appears to be their strong suit with them sitting 12th, this is perhaps no surprise with Edwards in the team.
Here’s a look at some stats from the team’s top five points scorers.
| Points | Points Per Game | Field Goal Percentage | |
| Anthony Edwards | 673 | 25.9 | 45.3 |
| Julius Randle | 526 | 20.2 | 48.3 |
| Naz Reid | 308 | 11.8 | 44.2 |
| Rudy Gobert | 268 | 10.3 | 63.5 |
| Jaden McDaniels | 265 | 10.2 | 44.5 |
It is clear that the Timberwolves need to up their game on the offensive side of the court and they’ll look to find their shooting form against the Golden State Warriors.
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