On Sunday night, the Minnesota Timberwolves moved to 37-29 on the season after securing their fifth consecutive victory, a 141-124 win over the San Antonio Spurs. Things are trending upward for the Timberwolves; they recently got Julius Randle back from injury and he’s been very productive since, and then on Sunday, Rudy Gobert re-assumed his place in the starting lineup after a 10-game absence and put up 16 points, eight rebounds, and two steals in his return.
The Timberwolves managed to score a season-high in points on Sunday, and this coincided with the return of Gobert, who doesn’t believe that such a feat is a coincidence whatsoever.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” Gobert told reporters following the Timberwolves’ win, per Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
Gobert, of course, does provide some utility for the Timberwolves on offense. He is one of the best screen-setters in the association, and he opens up a lot of options offensively by rolling hard to the rim and by being a vertical spacing outlet. Even though he’s unable to space the floor, Gobert is not a negative on the offensive end.
But Gobert’s offensive game is not the best; the Timberwolves center rarely punishes mismatches on the interior due to his limited post-game, while his inability to space the floor means that opposing teams can load up the paint or put two on the ball more conveniently due to the shorter rotations that worse spacing entails.
Gobert certainly deserves credit for being an important player for the Timberwolves in their win over the Spurs on Sunday. But there’s a strong chance that Minnesota’s season-best scoring effort simply fell on the date of his return — especially with San Antonio being paper-soft on defense ever since Victor Wembanyama went down with a season-ending injury.
Timberwolves still in striking distance for an outright playoff spot
The Timberwolves, like their peers, would not want to go through the play-in tournament just to get into the playoffs. Their win over the Spurs has them going toe to toe with the Golden State Warriors for the sixth spot in the Western Conference standings.
With the Houston Rockets facing some very devastating injury woes, the door may be open for the Timberwolves to keep on climbing the ladder. They are only four games back of the Memphis Grizzlies for the four-seed, which would be good enough for homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
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