Minnesota is being slept on. That part stopped being arguable a few blowouts ago.
Through Thursday, Nov. 12, the Timberwolves sat at 9-3 with a five-game winning streak and the best defensive rating in the league, holding opponents to around 106 points per 100 possessions. They just put up a 133-94 beatdown of Dallas. They've cleared 110 points in every game of the streak. And they're doing it while their leading scorer watches in street clothes. A team this good should not be this far down the national conversation. The people deciding what gets airtime are the ones failing here.
Kill the lazy version of this story before it spreads any further. The Wolves are missing one specific player, Anthony Edwards, out after right knee arthroscopy and, as of late October, expected to miss up to two months. Edwards was pouring in 33.3 points a night before he went down. LaMelo Ball, meanwhile, has played the whole run and been one of the engines of it, finishing the Dallas game with 22 points, nine assists and three rebounds. Donte DiVincenzo is still out after Achilles surgery back in April, with the Wolves hoping he returns at some point this season. A very good roster is absorbing the loss of its best perimeter scorer and barely flinching.
Rating
RatingIf you want to hand out the credit, it isn't a mystery. Chris Finch has a group giving up 106-ish a night without an MVP-level scorer, and a defense that strong without your headliner is a coaching story first. Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels are the spine of it. Ayo Dosunmu has carried the scoring load on multiple nights, leading the team in points against Utah, New Orleans, Houston and San Antonio. The bench piled on 54 against Dallas, with Bones Hyland dropping 24 and Trey Lyles going plus-26 in just over 15 minutes. That depth is the actual headline: a dozen guys have clearly bought into what Finch is selling.
The honesty has to kick in here, because the people already booking Minnesota's parade are getting ahead of the evidence. Winning five straight is real, but beating an elite Houston team and a quality Dallas team counts for a lot more than piling up wins over the Jazz, Pelicans and Bucks. Hammering a shorthanded or rebuilding opponent by 20 in November tells you almost nothing about a seven-game series against a playoff defense in May. The streak proves Minnesota has built what a contender needs: a smothering defense and a bench that survives without its star. That's a prerequisite for a title, and it still has to be proven in May.
RTGThere's also the thing every Wolves fan is quietly bracing for. This franchise has a habit of getting its flowers and immediately face-planting, and nobody has yet seen the full projected rotation healthy and on the floor together. You can't crown a team whose best version hasn't played a minute this season.
The schedule is about to answer this for real. Minnesota hosts Portland on back-to-back nights, Monday and Tuesday, and those games carry a storyline built for this exact team: Micah Nori, Finch's lead assistant for five seasons, is coming back to Target Center as the Trail Blazers' new head coach, and he knows this roster from the inside. After that comes the longer wait for Edwards, whose rehab is going well even if a return remains a ways off. How the Wolves look against real competition, and once their star is back, will be the real test.
So say the first part at full volume: Minnesota is the best team in the league almost nobody is watching. Just don't confuse underrated with proven. Pay attention now, and save the title talk for when they beat someone who can actually hurt them.
