Alperen Şengün took nine shots with Rudy Gobert on the floor Wednesday night and missed all nine. He took six with Gobert on the bench and made five. That split, from Basketball Reference’s play-by-play, is the story of Minnesota’s 117-107 win in Houston, and it’s why Gobert’s ordinary-looking box score was the most important line of the night.
Gobert had eight points, went 2-of-6 at the free-throw line and won’t lead anybody’s highlight reel. He was also a big reason Houston, a top-three offense, scored 23 points in the fourth quarter. Without Anthony Edwards, this is the formula. The Wolves don’t need Gobert to score. They need him to take the other team’s best player off the board, and on Wednesday he did.
What the split looks like
Şengün still finished with a triple-double, 17 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, his 13th career triple-double per the AP recap on ESPN. But the scoring came at a cost. He shot 5-of-15, his fewest made field goals of the season, and he played 39:13, the most minutes he’s logged this year, per his game log. Coming in, he’d made at least six shots in every game he played, and he’d shot 12-of-15 against Boston on Monday.
Here’s where the shots went:
| Gobert on the floor? | Şengün FG | Gobert blocks on Şengün |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 0-of-9 | 3 |
| No | 5-of-6 | 0 |
The five makes all came with Joan Beringer at center: two early in the second quarter and three in a late third-quarter stretch after Gobert sat at 5:05. The nine misses were two short jumpers, a 26-foot three, four hooks and two layups. Gobert blocked one of the hooks, in the second quarter, and both layups, one in the third and one with 46 seconds left in the fourth.
Şengün’s free throws kept his night respectable. He went 7-of-9 at the line, and Houston shot 30 free throws to Minnesota’s 19, per the box score. The Rockets won the foul line. The Wolves won the shooting, with an effective field-goal percentage of 61.5% to Houston’s 50.6%.
The last two minutes were Gobert’s
Minnesota led 109-104 after Jonathan Kuminga’s three with 2:37 left. Here’s what Gobert did from there:
- 1:54: Grabbed Ayo Dosunmu’s missed three. His putback missed, and Kuminga tipped it in for a 111-104 lead.
- 1:12: Won the jump ball after Jaden McDaniels tied up Fred VanVleet, credited as a steal.
- 0:57: Grabbed the offensive rebound after Şengün blocked Dosunmu, then found Kuminga for a three and a 114-106 lead.
- 0:46: Blocked Şengün’s layup.
- 0:40: Finished a LaMelo Ball pass for a 116-106 lead.
Two offensive rebounds, a steal, a block, an assist and a layup in under two minutes. Kuminga’s eight points over the last 2:37 will get the attention, and they should. Five of them started with a Gobert offensive rebound.
Gobert finished with six offensive rebounds, 11 boards in all and four blocks. He had four blocks total in his first seven games, per his game log. The Wolves were 11 points better than Houston in his 32:43 and a point worse in the 15:17 he sat.
Ball got the fourth, and Gobert made it possible
Ball deserves his credit. He scored 12 of his 20 points in the fourth, per the AP, after going into the quarter with eight points and six of his seven turnovers, per the play-by-play. Bones Hyland gave the bench 19, and Dosunmu led the team with 21.
Minnesota trailed 84-82 entering the fourth, and the third quarter is why. Şengün made all three of his shots in the last five minutes of it, after Gobert went to the bench. Şengün made the right reads, with assists on two Jabari Smith Jr. baskets and a Kevin Durant layup in the fourth. But he went 0-for-2 from the field in the quarter and scored one point, on a split pair of free throws.
In my preview of the Rockets game, I said the test was Şengün’s fourth quarter. I expected the Wolves to wear him down by running pick-and-roll at him on the other end. It was simpler than that. Every shot Şengün took with Gobert on the floor missed.
What it means for the Gobert debate
I’ve been hard on Gobert’s free throws. Before the season I argued the Wolves should wait on a Gobert extension because of them, and nothing about Wednesday changes that. He’s 20-of-47 at the line this season, 42.6%. A team that needs to close games without Edwards can’t love a center who shoots that.
But that piece also said the rim protection was the part of his game that hasn’t aged, and Wednesday was a loud example. Houston’s offense is scoring 121.2 points per 100 possessions, third in the league behind Portland and the Lakers, per Basketball Reference’s league page, and it runs through a center who had made 12 of 15 shots two nights earlier. With Gobert on the floor, that center didn’t make a field goal. His only points in those minutes came at the free-throw line.
It also adds context to the Beringer question. I wrote on Sunday that Joan Beringer’s Spurs start should earn him late-game trust, and I still think he’s earning it. Gobert was inactive that night. Against a post scorer like Şengün, I’m not ready to trust Beringer late yet. Şengün went 5-of-6 in the minutes Beringer played center, and the Wolves have to plan the backup minutes around that against skilled bigs.
The full Wolves roster and depth chart shows who else is behind those two. With Edwards out for up to two months after knee surgery and Terrence Shannon Jr. still out with a bruised hip, per the AP, Minnesota is 6-3 and just handed Houston its first home loss.
Next up is Friday in New Orleans. When you look at Gobert’s line from that one, check the opposing center’s shooting before you check Gobert’s points. That’s the number that won the game in Houston.