MINNEAPOLIS
Preseason losses are supposed to be forgettable. Wednesday night's 128-106 defeat to the Detroit Pistons at Target Center gave the Minnesota Timberwolves something more useful than a win: an early look at the defensive blueprint every opponent is about to copy. Detroit picked up LaMelo Ball full-court, bodied him on every catch and turned Minnesota's new backcourt into a problem the Timberwolves now have two days to start solving.
Ball finished with three points on 1-for-5 shooting in 18 minutes, numbers that would look alarming if they told the whole story. They do not. As Yardbarker reported, Ball still handed out a team-high six assists, finding teammates even as the Pistons denied him the ball and funneled Minnesota's offense into other hands. Anthony Edwards led the Timberwolves with 20 points in 28 minutes, going 9-for-9 from the free-throw line on a 5-for-15 shooting night, according to the Sportradar box score, while Jonathan Kuminga gave Minnesota an efficient 16 points on 5-for-6 shooting.
Edwards: "I invite it"
Edwards addressed the tactic directly after the game. In comments reported by Yardbarker and ClutchPoints, he said he likes the physicality and invites it — and then got to the real issue. Every team Minnesota plays, he said, is going to pick Ball up full-court, refuse to let him catch the ball cleanly and play him as physically as the officials allow. The Timberwolves' job, in his telling, is to find ways to get the ball into Ball's hands anyway, and to get defenders off his body once he has it.
That is a star talking like a co-star, and it matters because the alternative — two high-usage guards taking turns — is exactly what opponents want. Detroit's plan worked because it forced Edwards and Minnesota's secondary handlers to initiate everything, and the sloppiness showed: the Timberwolves committed 20 turnovers, were outscored 64-30 in the paint and lost the second quarter 36-20, according to game coverage of the loss. Jalen Duren needed only 15 minutes to score 24 points for the Pistons.
Two nights, two very different answers
The frustrating part for Minnesota is that it has already seen the version of this backcourt that works. On Monday at Madison Square Garden, the Timberwolves beat the New York Knicks 122-104 behind 26 points from Edwards and 22 from Jaden McDaniels, making 18 three-pointers as a team in the kind of spaced, free-flowing offense Ball was acquired to run. The Sportradar box score from that night shows Ball with seven assists in 22 minutes, operating comfortably against a defense that had not yet decided to turn his every touch into a wrestling match.
Two nights later, Ausar Thompson and the Pistons made that decision, and Dunking with Wolves noted Ball has now shot a combined 4-for-12 across the Knicks and Pistons games while still producing 13 assists — the profile of a playmaker being guarded by scheme rather than by a single defender. The sample is tiny and the games do not count, but the pattern is the kind that follows a player into the regular season if his team does not answer it.
The fixes on the table
The options are not mysterious. Edwards can bring the ball up more often and let Ball work off screens away from it. Minnesota can set its first screen higher and earlier, forcing Ball's defender to navigate contact instead of delivering it. Secondary handlers such as Ayo Dosunmu, who has had a steady preseason, can initiate sets that end with Ball attacking a defense already in rotation. What the Timberwolves cannot do is leave Ball to win a nightly shoving match at midcourt; at his size, that is a battle of attrition across 82 games.
Context explains the urgency. Ball arrived in a June trade from Charlotte — the Associated Press reported the Hornets sent Ball and Josh Green to Minnesota in a deal headlined by Naz Reid and a package of draft picks — and he left Charlotte as a former All-Star whose teams never reached the playoffs. Minnesota, coming off deep postseason runs and sitting 3-2 in this preseason, did not make that move for October. It made it for May, which is precisely why October's film matters: contenders get scouted, and the Pistons just published the first page of the book on this backcourt.
Zoom out, and the preseason shape of this team is still encouraging. A Fubo preview of Friday's finale credited Ball with a team-best 5.8 assists per game across the exhibition schedule, with Edwards averaging 19.8 points and Jaden McDaniels contributing 14.8 points and 4.2 rebounds — production spread across the lineup rather than concentrated in one star. That balance is the entire bet behind this roster's construction. It only works, though, if the ball moves, and the ball only moves if Ball can touch it without a defender living in his jersey from the moment he crosses half-court.
The final rehearsal comes Friday night, when Minnesota closes its preseason at the Chicago Bulls at the United Center, with tip-off at 5 p.m. Pacific on Chicago Sports Network. Expect the Bulls to test the same pressure — every team will, until the Timberwolves make them regret it. Catch up on the rest of the league's week in our NBA night wrap-up from October 15, and follow the season on our sports page.
