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The Minnesota Timberwolves have had a bit of an up-and-down season as they try to get new pieces in Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo acclimated, but they came away with a dominant 109-80 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday.
Rudy Gobert has been a hot topic as well, as Minnesota is trying to maximize him, and DiVincenzo spoke on the potential the group has and how Gobert is as a teammate.
“We're building that trust factor. I mean, Rudy's been, excuse my language, f***ing amazing. He has been,” DiVincenzo said, via Chris Hine of the Minnesota Star Tribune. “Knowing that when he's going, we got his back, and then we were rotating out of it, and we're really good when we're flying around.”
Gobert turned in a great performance against the Lakers, scoring 17 on 7-of-8 shooting with 12 rebounds. For the Timberwolves to reach their potential, Gobert is going to have to continue to turn in those types of performances.
DiVincenzo performed well off the bench as well, scoring 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting and 3-of-6 from three. Randle led the way with 18 points. It was a balanced effort from Minnesota, and one that showcased the potential of the team.
Timberwolves look to put together strong December
The Timberwolves have a big month coming up, which they started with the win over the Lakers. The month of December will be telling about where Minnesota stands in the league. They passed a test against the Lakers, and up next is the Los Angeles Clippers.
Minnesota will face the Golden State Warriors three times as well, along with the New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks, and Oklahoma City Thunder. It will be interesting to see how the Timberwolves fare in this stretch, especially in Karl-Anthony Towns' return to Minnesota with the Knicks.
It will be important for DiVincenzo, Randle, and Gobert to continue to build chemistry. The Timberwolves reached the Western Conference Finals last season, but the departure of Towns is obviously a big factor, and the outlook for this year is a bit unknown when it comes to the upside.
It will be worth monitoring how the team performs over the course of the next month to get a feel for how deep the Timberwolves could go in the playoffs. The Western Conference is stacked, and the Timberwolves need to showcase that they can beat these other contenders, not only to make a deep run but to get a good seed and avoid the play-in.
