MINNEAPOLIS — In a dominant, 39-point win over an ascending Dallas Mavericks team, the Minnesota Timberwolves defense showed once again why they have been the best unit across the association this season.
“Our defense kind of just broke things open and gave us, you know, good transition stuff,” said Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch. “I thought we did a good job of handling the switching as the game went on too.”
The Timberwolves held a Mavericks team, which ranked 12th in the league with a 115.2 offensive rating coming into Thursday, to just 94 points, while their young superstar Cooper Flagg was held to just 12 points, over 13 below his season average of 25.1. He was a minus-21 overall in tonight’s contest.
“(Flagg)’s a great young player, no doubt about it,” said Finch, regarding last year’s No. 1 overall selection. “He’s got such a high motor, so you gotta match that first and foremost. He’s a physical player, so he loves to kind of draw contact and play off of that creative advantage. He gets to the line a lot, you know.”
Coming into tonight’s contest, Flagg averaged 7.2 free-throw attempts per game. Tonight, he attempted just two.
In 3 career games vs. MIN, Cooper Flagg is now a -83 in 85 minutes. pic.twitter.com/tlWoehCgF8
— Alan Horton (@WolvesRadio) November 13, 2026
“I thought we did a good job of keeping him off the line,” said Finch. “That’s huge. When he has his big games, he’s getting there about eight, nine times a game. And you know, we’re lucky enough to have guys like Jaden who have size and to be able to kind of bother him. … And I thought (Jaylen Clark) did a really good job with him too, kind of like taking away his space to be creative. So it was just a lot of different looks, you know. We’re lucky — we’re spoiled that way right now — and guys are really kind of doing it their own way, but, you know, collectively, good enough.”
Finch credited his three wings — Jaden McDaniels, Jonathan Kuminga, and Jaylen Clark — with a collective defensive domination over one of the league’s brightest young stars. Regarding Clark in particular, Minnesota’s seventh-year head coach noted his ability as a defensive playmaker.
“He’s an outstanding defensive playmaker,” Finch said. “He’s a very good defender in his own right, but he just makes plays. He makes things happen. He goes and gets steals, he gets 50-50 balls, he gets his hands on things, he steals the inbound passes. All kinds of things as a possessions guy, and those guys are super valuable. And we’ve challenged him to be way more consistent in the things that he does, and he’s really responded, both ends of the floor.”
The Timberwolves will take their five-game winning streak into Saturday’s matchup against a reeling Chicago Bulls team.
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