Timberwolves' offensive outburst continues in shootout win over Brooklyn

Jan. 24—The Timberwolves' formula for success has shifted over the past couple weeks. A team that used its defense to stay afloat amid offensive struggles for the first half of the season is slowly reverting back to the form it showed at the end of last season — all offense, no brakes.

And when you have as much offensive talent as Minnesota possesses, that can be a winning formula on a lot of nights, as it was Sunday. The Timberwolves outscored Brooklyn 136-125 to win at Target Center.

Minnesota has the best offensive rating in the NBA since Jan. 3. It's won games with offense and a high-degree of shot making. Sunday was no different.

Minnesota shot 52 percent from the floor, 44 percent from 3-point range and went 26 for 31 from the free-throw line. Anthony Edwards finished with 25 points on four triples. D'Angelo Russell added 23 points and 10 assists.

Karl-Anthony Towns responded to a slow first three quarters by going off for 15 points in the final frame to help put the game away.

"Superstars show up when you need them the most, and the fourth quarter got tight, so I had to come in, I had to show up," Towns said. "I felt very confident that in the fourth quarter I was going to start hitting shots, and I was right."

Minnesota displayed more than enough firepower to stave off Brooklyn (29-17) — another of the League's top offenses. The Nets themselves shot 51 percent from the floor and 40 percent from deep, led by 30 points from Kyrie Irving. The Wolves have had defensive slippage of late, but it's been masked by their offensive aptitude.

Minnesota (23-23) has scored 108-plus points in each of its last eight games. It's gone over 119 points in six of those contests, and Sunday marked the third time it cleared 130 points in that stretch.

The offense that was so far behind the defense at the season's outset — which Timberwolves coach Chris Finch has attributed to the shear amount of attention paid to the defense in training camp — has now caught up and passed the other end of the floor. The Wolves now more closely resemble the team everyone expected at the start of the season.

"I don't know if our free-throw rate is any higher, I don't know if we're making shots any better or whatever, but feels like we're getting a little bit more in transition, too, where you're going to get easier shots," Finch said. "So yeah, I think it has a lot to do with the ball movement, and I think it's a lot that these guys are letting the game come to them, rather than everyone is trying to go out and put their mark on it like we were doing earlier in the season."

Oddly enough, Finch thinks that conversion started when the Timberwolves' high-octane scorers were in health and safety protocols. Without them, the likes of Nathan Knight, Jake Layman, Jaylen Nowell and Co. survived by moving the ball and playing team basketball. It was the type of rhythm and flow Finch has wanted this team to play with all season. But it took the team's stars seeing it in practice to put it into play themselves.

"Sometimes you've got to see it to trust it," Finch said. "Those guys during that time had no other way to play. We didn't have guys that were going to create their own offense all by themselves. So I think it's very mature and very self-aware for those starters to come back and recognize that the rhythm had changed a little bit."

Briefly

Edwards exited the game late after knocking knees with an opponent. He told Finch after the game that he was fine.