NBA Season Preview 2017-18: A sideline gem for the Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves have two of the best isolation players in the league in Andrew Wiggins and the recently acquired Jimmy Butler. In 2016-17, head coach Tom Thibodeau ran a late game out-of-bounds play for Wiggins that will fit either player extremely well. With some slight alterations, both will be able to play different parts in the action, putting as much pressure on the defense as possible.

In SLOB AI Hammer, the ball is coming from either hash mark, initially inbounding to a cutting guard at the top of the key. After a short delay, Wiggins runs a shortened Iverson cut across the court to the opposite side of where the ball was initially inbounded, catching on the move and attacking a quick pseudo side pick-and-pop with Karl-Anthony Towns, with a hammer screen taking place on the weak side.

The ball is inbounded to Ricky Rubio after he executes a zipper cut to receive the ball at the top of the key. Once the ball is inbounded, Wiggins makes his move, using the Iverson cut across the court with the aid of two screens from the Wolves’ big men, the second of which is almost always Karl-Anthony Towns. Rubio takes a dribble or two toward Wiggins’ eventual destination, hitting him with the pass while Wiggins is moving and his defender is still fighting through the two screens.

After catching and turning toward the basket, Wiggins can now attack his guy, whose momentum is still carrying him away from the basket, pull up for a jumper if his defender hangs back too far, or play it just like a side pick-and-pop, with Towns waiting on the wing for an open three-pointer.

Watch below how Wiggins plays both defenders before rising up for the jumper as Nikola Vucevic drops off into the paint.

Once Wiggins receives the ball from Rubio, the defense is behaving exactly the same as if they had ICE’d the side pick-and-roll with Towns, which is perfectly set up for Wiggins to exploit. He’s a ferocious scorer with the ball in his hands, which draws both defenders toward him. He doesn’t often make that pass to Towns, but getting Butler, a much more willing passer in isolation situations, into that position will open up more opportunities for the Wolves across the board.

The Wolves run a variety of out-of-bounds plays, mostly for either isolations or post-ups for their best players or loop or floppy actions for their shooters, but SLOB Flare Iverson is their go-to play at the end of games when they desperately need a basket. They ran it on no fewer than six occasions in the last few minutes of a game last season, including for Wiggins’ game-winning jumper in Phoenix:

With the addition of Butler, look for that number to go up, since he would fit into Wiggins’ role in this play seamlessly. Butler is a better all-around scorer in isolation and a better passer when he is double-teamed in these situations. Towns is mostly a decoy when Minnesota runs the play for Wiggins, setting the initial screen on Wiggins’ Iverson cut and then hanging out on the wing waiting for the pass that almost never comes, but Butler will look to get the potential All-NBA big man involved.

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Where Wiggins ends up if Thibodeau runs this action for Butler is an open question — it seems logical that Wiggins will be the one inbounding the ball, taking his man as far away from the main action as possible, but his lack of quality in shooting the ball makes it more difficult for him to succeed as the shooter in the hammer action on the weak side.