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Will Donte DiVincenzo's breakout game fuel optimism for Timberwolves?

4 December 2024Last Update :
Will Donte DiVincenzo's breakout game fuel optimism for Timberwolves?

Donte DiVincenzo’s shooting mechanics tell the story of a player who can’t be held down for long.

His body is perfectly aligned as he rises, the ball loaded in his right hand and ready to fire. His elbow is locked and his wrist flicks the ball into perfect rotation as it arcs toward the rim. It looks like it should go in.

This is why it’s so difficult to reconcile his start to the season. The shots that go halfway down and then pop out. The clanks that never had a chance. For a player who is supposed to be such a seamless fit for the Minnesota Timberwolves after being acquired with Julius Randle in the trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York, DiVincenzo is having a heck of a time finding his comfort zone in his new surroundings.

Over the last few days, his words were tinged with the saltiness of a player searching for a rhythm. His 3-point shooting percentage is way down and his turnovers are way up, two of many reasons why the Timberwolves have been one of the more disappointing teams to start this season. It was expected that it would take time to come together, but a team that made the Western Conference finals a season ago starting 8-10 was not in anyone’s plans.

“There’s a lot of outside noise,” DiVincenzo said after practice on Sunday. “A lot of people want to dissect everything that’s going on over here. We win games, everybody shuts up. We lose, everybody keeps talking.”

Just about every player on the team not named Nickeil Alexander-Walker has underperformed relative to expectations this season.

Try as they might to block out the endless, and often inane, discourse that surrounds the league, some of it did appear to reach DiVincenzo’s purview. He remains upbeat with his teammates and believes that the Wolves have a winning roster ready to come together. But he also is on his fifth team in four seasons and was traded just two days before the start of training camp in a move that no one saw coming.

“You guys can talk about whatever you want to talk about. Fitting in, shots, turnovers, whatever you want to talk about,” DiVincenzo said. “We win games. Nobody talks. So, that’s our focus, staying together, going through these adversities together. Going out and start stacking wins.”

The Wolves have stacked two wins on top of each other, and it is no surprise that DiVincenzo has been right in the middle of both of them.

He had three 3-pointers and five assists in a win over the LA Clippers on Friday night and followed that with his best game in a Timberwolves uniform on Monday against the Lakers. He scored 11 points, hit another 3 3s and dished out nine assists, igniting the Wolves’ floundering fastbreak and helping them cruise to a 109-80 victory, their easiest win of the season.

The Timberwolves are last in the league in transition frequency, a stat that illustrated their plodding offense of late. Playing against a tired Lakers team on the second night of a back-to-back that has one of the worst transition defenses in the league, DiVincenzo made a point to get the ball up the court as quickly as possible.

The touchdown pass to Randle gave the Wolves a 12-point lead in the second quarter and started to turn the crowd to their side after the fans booed them in consecutive home losses to the Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings last week.

“I think when you slow down, sometimes guys kind of get out of rhythm,” DiVincenzo said. “Playing fast, get the early transition opportunities, get everybody going, and then we can play both types of games.”

The activity seemed to help DiVincenzo find his shooting rhythm. He entered Monday’s game shooting 32 percent from 3-point range, a deep drop from last season’s 40.1 percent. In the losses to the Rockets and Kings, he was 1 of 10 from deep. In the last two wins, he is 6 of 11.

The encouragement has come from all angles. Anthony Edwards pulled him aside during a workout on Thanksgiving Day.

“I was telling him, get back to yourself, know what I mean?” Edwards said after the win over the Clippers. “Be confident, shoot your shots. Be the Donte we need you to be, know what I mean? Don’t worry about the past and what went down.”

Rudy Gobert has put his arm around him as well.

“I always tell him to stop overthinking,” Gobert said. “You’re a good basketball player. If you’re open, shoot it. If you’re not open, drive it. You know how to play basketball. He’s been great the last few games, just playing free and focusing on defense like all of us have been doing, focusing on defense and offensively making the right play for our teammates.”

Learning to play with Gobert takes time, on both ends of the floor. So DiVincenzo was never discouraged by the early growing pains. But what a difference it makes when he is at his best, making plays for teammates, burying open jumpers and swarming on the defensive end. A locked-in DDV checks so many of the boxes that had been empty for the Wolves in the early going.

“We’re not worried about what other people are saying,” DiVincenzo said. “We leave everything up to all you guys to decide about what works, what doesn’t work. We’re focused on ourselves and staying together. Stack a few wins and everybody’s energy changes. So we just got to stay with it.”

His best sequence in Monday’s game came early in the fourth quarter when he sprinted back on defense to break up a home run pass from LeBron James and then came back to the other end of the floor and buried a long 3. That is the kind of hustle and tenacity that has defined his game throughout his career, and the Wolves need every bit of it.

The Lakers looked completely gassed after a narrow win over the Utah Jazz on Sunday night. James scored 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting with six turnovers. He has missed 19 consecutive 3s. Rookie sensation Dalton Knecht was 0 of 5 from 3 and bullied on defense. Even Anthony Davis, who normally torches the Timberwolves, had a quiet 12 points and 11 rebounds in 33 minutes.

Randle had 18 points, five rebounds and two steals, Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid scored 15 points apiece and Gobert dominated the matchup with Davis, going for 17 points, 12 rebounds and one memorable steal.

The Timberwolves held the Lakers to a season-low 80 points, 40.5 percent shooting and scored 26 points off of 21 turnovers. It is the closest their defense has looked to the overpowering unit that finished first in the league last season. Rotations were in sync, Randle was aggressive from his spot as the low man and the Wolves made sure the Lakers never felt like they were going to get back into the game.

But DiVincenzo’s struggles aren’t the only issues. Gobert has not been as tough defensively as he was last season in winning the DPOY. Jaden McDaniels continues to struggle with his shot. Edwards is in a shooting slump. Mike Conley has been banged up and not playing like himself. Coach Chris Finch has had a hard time expanding the rotation.

Most importantly, the Wolves had plummeted from No. 1 overall defensively last season to 12th before the last two victories over the Los Angeles teams. Minnesota gave up 172 points in those two games and appears to be finding some cohesion on that end. Defense like that allowed the Wolves to beat the Lakers on an off night for Edwards, who scored eight points on 3-of-13 shooting.

“That’s the kind of defense we want to play, but it’s still just coming together,” DiVincenzo said. “It’s the consistency factor of it now of doing it every single night. When shots aren’t falling offensively, we can always rely on their defensive abilities.”

Gobert put an exclamation on the night in the fourth quarter. He had the ball with his back to the basket and Lakers rookie Armel Traore on his left hip. Pushed far out on the floor, Traore did not expect an aggressive offensive move from his countryman.

Gobert had other ideas. He faked a dribble handoff, spun quickly to the right, burst to the rim and threw down a dunk.

The move took everyone in the arena by surprise, but most important was the reaction afterward. DiVincenzo was smiling ear to ear and smacked Gobert on the rear. Edwards raced off the bench to meet Gobert at center court following the Lakers timeout. Randle flexed from the bench.

That kind of energy only comes from two places: winning and trust. The Timberwolves have a long way to go on both fronts. A few signs of positivity are a welcome departure from the frustration that has stewed early this season.

(Photo of Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo: Jordan Johnson / NBAE via Getty Images)

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