Tom Thibodeau, offensive genius
A Tom Thibodeau offense is clunky, iso-heavy and grinding. Just like his personality and the defenses he designed that helped revolutionize the NBA. At least that used to be the perception.
The image of the Thibodeau defense is the amorphous, strong-side zone that swallows up drivers and ball handlers in its teeth. Only to grind things further to a stop on the other end. In Thibodeau’s coaching career, he has had a top-10 offense just once.
His offenses devolved into Derrick Rose wildly attacking the basket and using his then-incredible passing ability to find what few shooters the Bulls had those years. It was imperfect but did the job for the Bulls. Thibodeau built Chicago into a juggernaut and a constant playoff contender until everything eventually burned out.
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When Thibodeau took over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the expectations were for him to transform this young team’s defense. Minnesota was young and raw. Those are not qualities of a good defensive team and they struggled last season. So far, Thibodeau has not been transformative at that end and the team has continued to struggle on defense.
“I think when you look at your team, you have to study the strengths and weaknesses,” Thibodeau said before last week’s game in Orlando. “For us it was to assess exactly where we are and confront the fact of what we have done in the past. And then how do we improve and to make a commitment to improve and understand the work that goes into each day? There are no shortcuts to it.”
Thibodeau is not going to speed the process up in teaching defense. Young players have to figure it out through practice, repetition and learning. Minnesota will assumedly get it at some point.
Defense is not their identity. Not yet.
But what they do have has unlocked something else. For the first time in his coaching career, Thibodeau has some truly versatile and supremely talented offensive players. And they are delivering on the offensive end.
The Timberwolves rank second in the league in offensive efficiency, averaging 110.4 points per possession entering Wednesday’s game. This is not merely a strong offense. This is an offensive juggernaut. An offensive juggernaut full of good young talent with offensive acumen and accolades already in this league that seemingly only can get better.
Karl-Anthony Towns is the do-everything post player in his second year who is still expanding his game. He averages 22.0 points per game this year. And it still feels like he is scratching the surface.
Andrew Wiggins, the former No. 1 pick too, is capable of big scoring games too. He is averaging 26.6 points per game and shooting an incredible 54.1 percent from beyond the arc, including 29 points against the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday. With several of his teammates out with an injury, he scored 47 points this past weekend.
Zach LaVine is shooting 46.7 percent from beyond the arc and is averaging 19.7 points per game, taking his place among a “big three” with Towns and Wiggins.
“When he steps on the court, he is a difference maker,” Towns said of LaVine after LaVine scored a career-best 37 points on 7-for-9 shooting from beyond the arc against the Magic last week. “His energy just automatically transfers to us. He doesn’t always have to score to be effective. With him just being on the court with us, makes it much easier on all of us to score and do little things.”
Somehow the defensive-minded Thibodeau has walked into the next great offense in this league.
The Timberwolves are still young though. LaVine, Wiggins and Towns are all 21-years-old (they were all born in 1995!). Their third-quarter issues remain a huge problem — and are quickly becoming a running meme. In Wednesday’s 115-108 loss to the Charlotte Hornets, the Timberwolves got a bit antsy with their 3-pointers and struggled to close the game out after being tied late in the game at home. They still had an offensive efficiency of 105.6 in Tuesday’s loss.
Minnesota can keep up with any team in the league it seems, but they still need to learn how to win and close games. That will be something that continues to grow for a young team like this. That’s where figuring out how to lock it down on defense comes in.
The Timberwolves are the future, inevitably it seems. But, at 3-7, they are not the present quite yet.
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Thibodeau will get his trademark defense there eventually. By sheer force of will if anything else.
The year off, and the team he inherited, has helped rejuvenate and refresh his ideas and create a team that has all the offensive potential and capability in the world. And is unleashing it on the NBA with the terror he unleashed his defenses on them in Boston and Chicago.