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It's time for Timberwolves to ride Rob Dillingham to new heights

27 November 2024Last Update :
It's time for Timberwolves to ride Rob Dillingham to new heights

When the Minnesota Timberwolves traded into the eighth pick of the 2024 NBA Draft to take Kentucky point guard Rob Dillingham, it was unclear how quickly a 19-year-old, undersized player could become a rotation player for a team that was a championship contender.

Seventeen games into the season, with the Wolves floundering under the weight of lofty expectations, Dillingham’s time has arrived. Come hell or high water, Mike Conley or no Mike Conley, the rookie point guard has to play right now.

Dillingham had 12 points, seven assists and five rebounds in a career-high 24 minutes. The Timberwolves won those minutes by a staggering 26 points in a game they lost 117-111 in overtime. He was not particularly efficient, making 5 of 13 shots, and turning it over three times, including a devastating one late in the fourth quarter that helped the Rockets force overtime.

It is not always going to be pretty when a player that young is playing a position that demanding. But the electricity in his game is undeniable. For a team that has too often played with low energy and been bogged down in the games Conley has missed, the Timberwolves are in desperate need of a jolt.

Putting Dillingham into the game is like putting a pair of defibrillator pads on the team’s chest and delivering an electric shock to its collective heart.

“Gave us a little swag,” Rudy Gobert said with a grin. “It’s good too. It was good. It’s great for him to play in those kind of games and just learn because we’re going to need him in the future.”

The future is now for the floundering Timberwolves, who have lost three consecutive games to fall to 8-9 on the season. Conley has missed all three of those games with a turf toe injury, taking the team’s only true point guard away.

In his absence, Finch has used veterans Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Donte DiVincenzo as point guards, but neither player looks comfortable in that role. They are not floor generals, and their modest handles allow aggressive defenses like Houston’s to pressure full court and slow down everything.

Dillingham had seven DNPs in his first 11 games while Finch leaned to the vets. The trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York for Julius Randle and DiVincenzo threw off the Wolves’ equilibrium just days before training camp, and Finch understandably prioritized giving the lion’s share of the minutes to his starting five and then DiVincenzo, Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid off the bench, hoping that all of the playing time would expedite the acclimation process.

With DiVincenzo (26.1 minutes per game), Conley (25.0) and Alexander-Walker (24.0) dominating the guard rotation, there was little room left for Dillingham to cut his teeth. Conley is 37 and has not played well by his standards, but the Wolves have still posted an impressive 115.9 offensive rating when he is on the floor. Alexander-Walker’s biggest impact has come on the defensive end and his most reliable offensive minutes have been as an off-ball guard playing with another ballhandler.

DiVincenzo has struggled in his first season in Minnesota. After a promising preseason, DiVincenzo is shooting 32 percent from 3 and 35 percent from the field overall. The Wolves sung his praises as a playmaker in training camp, but he has been a disaster in that area. He got the start for Conley on Tuesday, his second in a row, and went 1 of 5 from the field, 0 of 4 from 3-point range and turned it over three times.

“He’s certainly pressing a little bit,” Finch said. “Probably overdribbling in a crowd. He was good at making plays early when he had it (in the preseason). So I think maybe just be a little bit more safe with the ball. And I think he’s also just trying to get his shot going, too. It will all turn around for him, but maybe just overpenetrating at times.”

DiVincenzo’s struggles on offense have bled over to the defensive side of the court as well. Rockets guard Fred VanVleet went right by DiVincenzo on several early drives and then caught him flat-footed to get a too-easy 3-pointer.

Part of the reason Dillingham’s plus-minus total was so high is that Minnesota’s alternatives at point guard are so underwhelming. But that also made his competent running of the offense, slippery drives to the basket and pull-up jumpers leap off the court even more than the aurora green paint for the NBA Cup.

“I think it’s evident that our rhythm is affected when there is no natural point guard on the floor,” Finch said. “Oftentimes, Ant and Julius probably feel that they’ve got to do too much too early in the offense. For sure, Rob’s play of late has revealed that for us.”

Dillingham also is holding his own on the defensive end, a crucial component of his long-term outlook. His listed height of 6 foot 3 is pushing it and it will take more than a Thanksgiving gorging and a leftover feed bag later on Thursday evening to get him to his listed playing weight of 175 pounds.

The concern was that his lack of size would make him a target on the defensive end, but Dillingham is performing with pure hustle and fight. On a team that is not defending anywhere close to the intensity that it did last season, his sheer activity stands out.

The Wolves were getting booed loudly in the third quarter when the Rockets jumped out to an 18-point lead. That’s when Finch went back to Dillingham at point guard, and he helped Minnesota chip away at the deficit. He got a few buckets, including a tough floater for a 100-97 lead in the fourth quarter. But even more importantly, he injected pace, ball movement and structure into the offense, which generated good looks for his teammates to spur the rally.

“He competed extremely hard and gave us a lot of energy,” Randle said. “He’s been working extremely hard all year and these past few games he’s got his number called and been ready for his moment.”

If the Wolves are playing like they are a little too fat and happy with last season’s run to the conference finals, Dillingham has embodied the hunger and energy of the new kid on the block. His eyes are wide and his stomach is growling, an unbridled ambition that needs to be infectious on what has been an apathetic team.

“I’m trying to earn their trust,” Dillingham said. “It’s probably not all the way there.”

He then pointed to a costly turnover late in regulation that helped the Rockets erase a five-point deficit with two minutes to play to force overtime. After the miscue and almost nine straight minutes on the court in a frenetic fourth quarter, Finch decided to go with Alexander-Walker at point guard in the overtime.

“We wanted to give him a quick blow, and I thought Nickeil would settle in on defense,” Finch said.

That did not work out. The Rockets outscored the Wolves 15-9 in the overtime, including an 11-0 run that sealed the win. Finch did not go back to Dillingham until the final minute, and the Wolves offense was just 3 of 11 in the quarter, including 0 of 5 from 3, while the Rockets hit 6 of 9 shots.

Finch also decided to keep Reid on the bench for more than eight minutes in the fourth quarter and almost all of the overtime, a decision he deemed a mistake on a night that Reid scored 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 27 minutes.

“I think if I had to do it over again I might play him at the 3 so I could get him in there more,” Finch said.

That would take minutes away from Jaden McDaniels, who had another awful shooting night. He missed 12 of 16 field-goal attempts, including 7 of 8 from 3. His corner 3 late in regulation went halfway down before popping out, an unfortunate miss because it would have given the Wolves an eight-point lead with 2:05 to play. McDaniels is shooting 29.6 percent from 3 this season and many of the misses have come on wide-open looks created by Edwards and Randle driving to the basket.

“He’s got to stay confident in his shot,” Finch said. “We’ve seen him make at it a high level. His teammates keep trusting him. He’s just got to keep shooting it.”

Edwards also cratered. He scored 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but he missed his last nine shots in the game. In the fourth quarter and overtime, he was a combined 0 of 8, including missing all five of his 3-pointers.

And how about this defense in the first half?

Randle was low energy throughout the game, save for a nice sequence in the fourth quarter when he grabbed two offensive rebounds on the same possession and powered through the Rockets defense for a layup. But he also had a couple of wild shot attempts in the fourth quarter and overtime that went nowhere, short-circuiting Minnesota’s offense.

“I just gotta be better,” Randle said about grabbing just six rebounds.

At the start of the season, Finch’s decision to keep Dillingham out of the rotation was based on the need for the veterans to build chemistry. He is just getting started in this league and the mistakes are going to come. He will take a bad shot, get lost on a defensive rotation or turn the ball over. All young players go through it.

Finch also didn’t want to see Dillingham struggle and have that hinder the Wolves’ ability to compete in the powerful West. The goals are that high in the organization. But 17 games into the season, the veterans are not playing together well enough to merit keeping Dillingham off the floor. He does too many things that the Wolves need right now.

It is not an easy decision. If Dillingham gets a real role once Conley is back, whose minutes are going to be cut? Six weeks ago, it was hard to justify drastically reducing the minutes of Alexander-Walker, who is in a contract year and was essential to the playoff run last season, DiVincenzo, a major part of the Towns trade, or Conley, who just keeps helping his team win games — the Wolves are 8-5 when Conley plays, 0-4 when he doesn’t.

Now, with Dillingham playing the way that he is and the Wolves’ shortage of true point guards presenting a clear and present danger to their ability to compete in the West, it might be time to make some hard decisions. The more time he gets, the closer the Wolves may get to having their point guard of the future.

Any adjustments to the rotation that Finch makes now do not have to be permanent. But he has been searching for answers all season and they have been slow to come. In the meantime, Dillingham is taking advantage of the opportunity.

“It helps me just learning my teammates, learning where they need to be and then just coming in and playing as confident as I can,” Dillingham said. “Even if it doesn’t go the right way, just got to keep playing. That’s how I look at it.”

(Photo of Rob Dillingham: Jordan Johnson / NBAE via Getty Images)

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