The Timberwolves opened their preseason night at Target Center with the building looking and sounding like a real home crowd, but the energy didn’t carry over to the final score. Minnesota fell 128-106 to the Pistons in a game that never really found a rhythm for the home side.
That said, there was at least one clear bright spot for Minnesota: Kuminga. After a preseason that had mostly been quiet - eight points in the opener, 1 of 9 shooting against Indiana, then two games out of the lineup against Miami and New York - he finally looked like the kind of player the Wolves tried hard to bring in this summer.
Against Detroit, Kuminga gave Minnesota a spark with 16 points, a preseason high, on 5 of 6 shooting and 2 of 3 from deep. He added four rebounds and three assists, and the way he got there mattered as much as the box score.
The catch-and-shoot threes were encouraging, because he doesn’t need to become a volume shooter to be useful, but he does need defenses to respect him enough to stay honest. More importantly, he attacked quickly and made decisions on the move.
Kuminga also flashed some real feel with Rudy Gobert. He delivered one dump-off and one lob to the big man, two plays that showed early chemistry between the pair.
Getting on the same page with Gobert usually takes time for new teammates, but Kuminga appears to be ahead of schedule there. He looked comfortable as a downhill passer, and that’s the kind of detail Minnesota will want to keep seeing once the games count.
Still, the night belonged more to Detroit’s physical edge than anything Minnesota did well. The Wolves were loose and behind the action far too often on defense, especially along the perimeter, and that can’t become a habit as this new version of the team takes shape.
The Pistons hammered Minnesota inside, winning the paint battle 64-30. A big part of that damage came from Jalen Duren, who finished with a game-high 24 points, all in the first half.
He was setting heavy screens and Minnesota had no answer for them, with Cade Cunningham and other Detroit ball-handlers able to turn the corner and create easy chances. Whether it was Gobert or Joan Beringer at center, the Wolves struggled to contain the action once it got downhill.
That problem points straight at the roster construction Minnesota is rolling with now. Beyond Gobert and Beringer, there just isn’t much rim-protecting size in the rotation.
The tradeoff is obvious: the Wolves want more pace, more movement, and a freer offensive flow. That can work only if the rest of the team compensates with activity and discipline.
Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels, Ayo Dosunmu, and the rest of the perimeter group have to be locked in at the point of attack. If they don’t, Gobert and Beringer will be forced to clean up too much traffic in the lane, and that’s a dangerous place for Minnesota to live.
A preseason loss can be shrugged off. Low energy on a Wednesday night in October doesn’t carry the same weight as the grind of the regular season.
But the Wolves saw versions of this last year too, when their point-of-attack defense slipped and games got away from them. In this new era, that can’t become a recurring theme.
If it does, nights like this one at Target Center will show up more often than Minnesota wants.
In Other News...
Former Bulls Guard Now Faces A Brutal Question About His NBA Future
Rob Dillingham entered the league with plenty of buzz as the eighth overall pick by Minnesota in the 2024 NBA Draft, but the early arc of his pro career has already taken a sharp turn. After a strong season at Kentucky helped make him one of the more talked-about guards in that class, he has since bounced through a messy stretch of trades and waivers, leaving him without an NBA contract for the moment and raising familiar questions about how quickly a young guard can be judged in this league.
For the Timberwolves, it is another reminder of how fragile draft projections can be, especially for smaller guards who have to prove they can hold up on defense while still translating their scoring touch. NBA draft analyst Rafael Barlowe and other scouts have revisited Dillinghams evaluation, wondering whether the pre-draft optimism overshot his long-term ceiling or whether the leagues patience with developmental players has simply thinned. Either way, the next landing spot, if it comes, will have to answer a brutal question about what kind of NBA player he can still become. [Read more 🡒]
Joan Beringer Is Giving The Wolves One Big Reason To Worry
Joan Beringer has given the Timberwolves plenty to like in preseason, flashing the kind of rim protection and rebounding that can make a young big man hard to ignore. In limited minutes, he has looked productive enough to suggest Minnesota may have found another frontcourt piece worth developing, especially with Rudy Gobert getting older and the team likely needing to be mindful about how often it leans on him.
The problem is that Beringer has also been living on the edge a little too often, and the fouls are the part that could keep him from turning those flashes into real rotation trust. Averaging three fouls in about 17.6 minutes is the kind of detail that can shrink a coach's patience quickly, and for a Wolves team that could use more depth inside, foul trouble would undercut the value he is trying to build. [Read more 🡒]
Tim Connellys Latest Wolves Swing Just Changed The Pressure On Everyone
Tim Connelly has never been shy about pushing Minnesota forward, and since arriving in 2022 he has made a habit of reshaping the roster with a big swing every season. The Timberwolves built around deals for Rudy Gobert and, more recently, LaMelo Ball, while the franchise kept climbing into the West mix with back-to-back trips to the conference finals in 2024 and 2025.
Now the pressure around the roster looks different after the Wolves fell in the second round in 2026 and Connelly moved Julius Randle and Naz Reid to get Ball. Jaden McDaniels has also flashed in preseason, giving Minnesota another reason to feel encouraged, but the bigger question is whether this latest overhaul finally settles the team or just sets up another round of hard choices as the Northwest picture keeps shifting around them. [Read more 🡒]