Here we are, the home stretch of the NBA regular season.
It’s been a bumpy first two-thirds of the schedule for the Minnesota Timberwolves. They’ve had some high-hights, including a pair of wins against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, and many low-lows, most notably a five-game losing streak in January.
With the All-Star break now in the rearview and just 26 games remaining on the schedule, the Timberwolves look to finish out the season strong heading into what they hope is another successful postseason campaign.
Before that, there is still a lot to be determined and numerous questions that still need to be answered. Let’s take a look at each of those questions, how the Wolves might find answers, and what that means for the Wolves’ playoff chances come April.
Which version of Julius Randle will take the Court?
Julius Randle has an up-and-down season for the Timberwolves. On many nights, Randle has had outstanding performances where he almost single-handedly overpowers the opposing team as a matchup nightmare. There have also been games, though, where his bully-ball style isn’t working, the playmaking goes away, and his defense becomes untenable, as Randle has showcased a frustrating level of inconsistency.
In the aggreagate, Randle has had a fantastic season for the Wolves. Both his points and assists per game have both increased while seeing no meaningful dip in either shooting efficiency or turnovers.
Right before the All-Star break, Randle showcased what he is capaple as he put up 41 points, including 23 in the fourth quarter against the Portland Trail Blazers and Deni Avdija, who was selected to the All-Star game above Randle.
In the first two rounds of the 2025 Playoffs, Randle played his best stretch of basketball in a Timberwolves uniform, putting up 23.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game as the Wolves won both series in five games.
Then, in the Western Conference Finals, the inconsistency showed back up. While he did score 20+ points in three of the five games, Randle scored just six points in Game 2 and five points in Game 4, both losses for Minnesota.
If the Wolves want to get back to the Western Conference Finals or beyond, they will need the version of Randle they saw in the game against Portland and in the first two rounds of last year’s playoffs. They will need the player who made Draymond Green, of all people, admit he got outplayed.
If Minnesota gets the opposite version, the one that often gets beaten back door on defense, provides little ball movement on offense, and has an overall moodiness to his games, then the season will likely end sooner than anyone wants.
Can the Timberwolves flip the switch?
For much of this season, the Timberwolves have played like a team that knows they can turn up the intensity when its required. When they put their mind to it, the Wolves can beat anybody. When they don’t, though, they can lose to anybody.
There are very clearly two different Timberwolves teams, one that takes the other team seriously and one that does not. It has led to the Wolves having incredibly varied performances from night to night and, despite being one of the healthiest teams in the NBA, sitting at sixth in the Western Conference.
While there are many reasons for the varied level of intensity from the Wolves, one of the biggest reasons is their franchise superstar, Anthony Edwards. Similar to Ranlde, the inconsistency of Edwards, seemingly dictated by the level of the opponent, has become maddening.
While Edwards is having by far his best season on the offensive end of the floor, the defensive end has been another story. There have been numerous games where Ant has felt totally disconnected from the Wolves’ game plan on the defensive end of the floor, leading to consistent open shots for the other team.
“He has the capacity to be the best two-way player in the league,” Timberwolves Head Coach Chris Finch said recently of Edwards. “Really, when he’s playing that way, we’re a whole other team defensively. So he’s really got to lean in and lead us that way.”
While Edwards is not the only player relying on “flipping the switch” come the playoffs, as Finch noted, the fix to that type of thinking needs to come from the team’s best player, as when Ant does lock in on defense, he becomes one of the best on-ball defenders in the entire league.
With the Wolves making the last two Western Conference Finals, they have a level of playoff success that is undeniable, but if they want to be better than either of those teams that lost in five games, Ant and the rest of the team will need to find far more consistency in their level of play.
How much value will Ayo Dosumnu provide?
Since the departure of Nickeil Alexander-Walker last offseason, the Wolves have been desperate to replace his role and production. With Mike Conley’s game dropping off, Terrence Shannon Jr. dealing with nagging injuries, and Rob Dillingham failing to crack the rotation, the Wolves have felt a player short the entire season.
At the trade deadline, they seemed to have solved that issue, as the Timberwolves traded for Ayo Dosunmu, who has provided a scoring punch off the bench that Minnesota has craved all season. Dosunmu scored in double figures in each of his three games with the Wolves, including a 21-point performance against the Atlanta Hawks.
Dosumnu’s skills that are most needed on this Timberwolves roster are his ability to attack the paint with his drives and his willingness to push the ball in transition, often doing both on the same possession.
Even just a few games into his time in Minnesota, it has become clear just how good a fit Dosunmu is with this Wolves team. After an All-Star break to recover from the turbulent trade deadline and some practice time to integrate himself with his new team, Ayo is ready to his the ground running when the Wolves’ season resumes.
“This last three to five days helped me a lot,” Dosumnu said of the All-Star Break. “The coaches, I asked them to send me the playbook, send me the most frequent actions we run, defensive schemes, things of that nature, and I’ve just been watching it, and I’m getting very much more familiar with it. I’m getting comfortable with it, where I’m able to call sets out. So that’s been great, and I think these pasts, I’m blessed to have these past five days to be able to do that.”
While Dosunmu and Alexander-Walker are stylistically very different players, Ayo seems like the perfect fit to fill the hole left by NAW on the Wolves roster. Dosumnu can put the ball in the basket, something the Wolves bench desperately lacks, especially on nights when Naz Reid struggles, and does so without taking up too much of the offensive bandwidth.
The rest of this regular season for Ayo will be about getting up to speed and finding his role with his new team. If his first few days in the organization are any indication, he will be just fine.
What will the rotation look like with the return of Mike Conley?
It has been a whirlwind past couple of weeks for Mike Conley. Before the trade deadline, he got traded from the Wolves to the Chicago Bulls, who traded him to the Charlotte Hornets, who bought out his contract allowing the 19-year NBA veteran to return to Minnesota.
With Conley back on the roster, the question now is, how much will he play? Before getting traded, Conley was averaging 18.5 minutes per game, but with Dosunmu added to the roster, Bones Hyland joining the rotation in the past month, and Terrence Shannon Jr. back from injury, Mike is unlikely to see the same level of playing time post All-Star break.
“Honestly, I don’t expect to be out there playing a ton of minutes,” Conley said in his first media availability after re-signing with the Wolves. “I don’t expect to be out there 20 minutes. I expect Ayo, Bones, and all these guys who’ve earned their time and minutes on the court to get their opportunities and do what they do. So I’m going to be ready and be prepared just for whatever role, whether it’s in rotation or spotty or whatever it is.”
While Conley likely will gladly take any minutes that may come, he seems to understand that his role within the team has changed since the trade deadline. It appears Conley is set up to be more of a break glass in case of emergency option for the Wolves. If Hyland or Shannon Jr. struggle in their playing time, Conley may be called upon to grab the eighth-man minutes.
Other than that, Conley’s role will likely be in and out of the rotation depending on what the matchup or injury report dictates, unless Finch has other plans, which is always a possibility.
Can the Timberwolves get a top-three seed?
If the playoffs were to start today, the Timberwolves would have to go through the Denver Nuggets, then likely the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder, all on the road, to reach the NBA Finals. That is a gauntlet of championship-contending teams that almost every team would have difficulty advancing through.
That can and likely will change with the Timberwolves are just a game and a half back of the three-seed Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference. Just like last season, where the Wolves finished just a single game back of the third seed and only a game up on the seventh seed and the Play-In Tournament, there is again a lot of the line in March and April for the Timberwolves.
While the Wolves’ strength of opponent is high for the rest of the season, something that may not be a negative for this team, their travel schedule is incredibly nice as they have the fewest back-to-backs remaining at four, only two of which require the team traveling between games.
“We’re not afraid to go anywhere or play anybody, but obviously, you want to give yourselves the best chance. So we have that in front of us.” – Chris Finch
While the Wolves clearly feel like they can beat anyone in the Western Conference, they can make things a whole lot easier on themselves by advancing up the standings. Home court advantage in the first round is still well within their reach, and a dream scenario of forcing conference-title favorites OKC and Denver to face off again in the second round exists.
The Wovles have proven they can win multiple playoff rounds even if they are the sixth seed, but if they want to advance further than they ever have, that place in the standings will likely not be good enough.
