LaMelo Ball didn’t exactly stroll into his first home game with the Timberwolves and take over right away. Foul trouble kept him on the sideline for most of the first half Sunday night, and by the time he picked up his fourth foul just 30 seconds into the third quarter, Minnesota fans were still waiting for the full show.
Once Chris Finch decided to keep him on the floor, though, Ball started delivering the kind of plays that can change the feel of a building in a hurry. He hooked up with Jaden McDaniels on a lob, flashed a highlight-worthy move, then buried a three over Collin Murray-Boyles. From there, the crowd-pleasers kept coming as Ball finished with 15 points, eight assists and two steals in Minnesota’s third straight win to open the season.
“I’m just happy I get front-row seats to it,” Terrence Shannon Jr. said of Ball’s three-point shot. “It was crazy seeing it.
I was actually talking to him about it on the bench at the end of the game. I’m like, ‘That was crazy.’”
The trade that brought Ball to Minnesota stirred up some feelings because it cost the team longtime favorite Naz Reid, but the early returns are hard to ignore. In 16:44 on the floor, the Wolves outscored Toronto by 33 points, and Ball has already brought a different kind of energy to the offense - quicker, looser and a lot less predictable.
“Just get your head up,” Ball tells his teammates. “Actually, I tried to hit them in the head a couple times the first day (of practice).
You get hit in the head one time, you’re always gonna have your head up. That’s how I was as a kid.
You don’t want to get hit in the head.”
Rudy Gobert, meanwhile, says the changes around him haven’t changed the way he approaches his job. In his 14th NBA season, the Timberwolves center said his responsibilities remain exactly what they’ve always been: anchor the defense, own the glass and do the dirty work that defines him.
“My role is the same,” he said. “My role is to be who I am, be the best in the world at what I do. And then offensively just dominate, dominate, dominate in my own way, with my running, with my screening, my offensive rebound.”
Sunday also offered a stark reminder for Utah. Luka Doncic dropped 52 on the Jazz, and the performance underscored how far the team still has to go defensively if it wants to be taken seriously as a contender. Keyonte George didn’t mince words about the challenge.
“These last three years, calling me up, switching me on and making me guard, and they’re going to try to pick on who they think is the worst defender,” he said. “… It’s not just about one guy.
We got to play team defense. All five guys on our team got to make it tough for these players that we are preparing for.”
Out in Portland, the Trail Blazers used Friday’s win at Sacramento to show off something else: depth. Seven players scored in double figures, and Donovan Clingan finished just two points shy of making it eight.
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