The Timberwolves play their first game without Anthony Edwards on Wednesday night, and I know exactly where I want them to go looking for points: the paint. Golden State has been the easiest team in the league to score on inside the arc, and it has struggled to finish defensive possessions with a rebound. Minnesota has the bigs to punish both.
Shams Charania reported Tuesday that Edwards will have an arthroscopic procedure on his ailing right knee, and Chris Haynes put the absence at approximately two months. Jon Krawczynski reported the surgery is set for Thursday and said the belief is that Edwards will be out more than two months. The Warriors come to Target Center for a 7 p.m. Central tip, per ESPN’s event feed, and the Wolves (3-1) host a 1-3 team that has three players of its own out with injury or illness. My take: don’t spend this game proving someone can be Edwards. Spend it feeding Rudy Gobert, Joan Beringer and every cutter who can get to the rim.
Golden State’s defense leaks inside
The numbers on the Warriors’ Basketball Reference page are ugly. Opponents have made 128 of 204 two-point attempts, a 62.7% mark that ranks 30th in the league through Tuesday. Golden State’s defensive rating of 122.9 ranks 29th, and its opponents’ effective field-goal percentage of 60.2% also ranks 29th.
Four games is a small sample, and the schedule has been rough: losses to the Lakers, Grizzlies and Suns, then a 134-114 win in Denver on Monday, per ESPN. But the roster explains some of the leak. ESPN’s injury report lists Jimmy Butler out after right knee surgery, Moses Moody out after left knee surgery and Kristaps Porzingis out with an illness. Porzingis is the big loss inside; without him, Golden State has less size protecting the rim.
The rebounding split is where I’d focus. Basketball Reference has Golden State grabbing only 68.2% of available defensive rebounds, 28th in the league. Minnesota rebounds 34.8% of its own misses, second best. Put those together and the Wolves should get extra shots all night if they keep sending bodies to the glass.
Feed the bigs before the guards
Edwards has taken 59 of Minnesota’s 217 two-point attempts this season, per Basketball Reference’s Wolves page, and made 32 of them. That’s about 27% of the team’s shots inside the arc, by my math. Those attempts don’t vanish on Wednesday. The question is who takes them.
Gobert is my first answer. He has 20 offensive rebounds in four games, and against a team this soft on the defensive glass, a tip-in or a putback is the most reliable shot on the board. Our case that LaMelo Ball can turn Gobert back into a lob threat matters more tonight than it did with Edwards available. Ball’s best pass against a short-handed frontcourt is the one over the top.
Beringer is the second. He has 14 offensive rebounds in about 58 total minutes and has made 12 of 19 shots, all of them twos. I’d play him a few minutes beyond his 14.5-minute average if the matchup holds. Beringer’s backup job depends on staying out of foul trouble.
Then the wings. Jaden McDaniels has made 20 of 30 twos, the best percentage of any Wolf with more than 10 attempts inside the arc. Ayo Dosunmu is 16 of 32 and has already shown he’ll crash the offensive glass from the guard spot. Those two cutting while Golden State’s defense turns to watch Ball is how Minnesota replaces Edwards’ drives without asking one player to absorb them.
Kuminga has to go to the rim
Jonathan Kuminga is 9 of 20 on twos this season, and he has drawn 14 free-throw attempts in four games. That second number is the one I care about. Against the team he played five seasons for, per Basketball Reference, and with Butler and Porzingis missing, Kuminga should be attacking a closeout every time it comes rather than settling for the pull-up.
There’s a catch, and it’s the same one that cost Minnesota in Cleveland. The Wolves have made 65 of 107 free throws, 60.7%, which ranks last in the league per Basketball Reference. Gobert is 12 of 24. A paint-first plan earns free throws, and the free-throw line already decided one Wolves loss this season. I’d still take the trips. A missed free throw is a bad outcome; a contested 19-footer from a player who isn’t Edwards is usually a worse one.
Win the glass at both ends
The danger runs the other way, too. Golden State leads the league in offensive rebounding percentage at 35.7%, per Basketball Reference. Yaxel Lendeborg has 18 offensive rebounds and 87 points in four games, and ESPN lists him as day-to-day with a foot injury. If he plays, he is the player Minnesota’s box-outs have to find first.
The Wolves are built for that fight. They grab 79.5% of available defensive rebounds, second in the league. Stephen Curry has scored 71 points in three games and made all 23 of his free throws, so a rebounding plan won’t stop him. It can still hold the Warriors to one shot while Minnesota takes two of its own.
That’s the version of the Edwards-less stretch I want to see start tonight. Edwards’ absence is a real hole, and the full Wolves roster and depth chart shows there’s no second scorer of his kind waiting. But Golden State has handed Minnesota a matchup where size and second chances do the work. Throw it inside, chase every miss and make the Warriors prove they can defend the paint.