Chris Finch looks to keep Wolves from overthinking on defense

LOS ANGELES – It's not that Timberwolves coach Chris Finch wants his players to stop thinking when they're on defense, Finch just wants them to not get paralyzed by thought.

Upon taking over the job last month, Finch said one of the things he wanted to do was uninstall some concepts and get the Wolves playing more freely. On defense, that includes Finch telling his team: When in doubt, just run toward the ball.

"We have young energetic, long, athletic players and I think we needed to activate them," Finch said. "Fly around, cover for each other a little bit more. Err on the side of being aggressive toward the ball and then get out and contest shots at a higher rate."

Finch said the Wolves' previous principles were built on ball containment and trying to prevent the opponent from getting too deep. If someone made a mistake, it threatened to throw the whole sequence out of whack. Finch just wants to see the Wolves running around to compensate for when they inevitably make those mistakes.

"With young players sometimes it's just like go be as active as you can," Finch said. "If you make mistakes we'll cover for them, work our way out of them, hustle our way through them, and both systems are equally effective, but I just think it takes some of the thinking out of it for guys and they can play more on instincts."

As Jaden McDaniels said after the win over New Orleans on Thursday: "When it does mess up, all of us were just flying around, so you couldn't tell when we messed up, because everyone was just out there going hard."

In the three games since the All-Star break before Tuesday, the Wolves had the 19th-best defensive rating in the NBA. For the season, they rank 26th.

"The way he wants us playing defense is more just kind of be your brother's keepers," Josh Okogie said. "Make sure we're containing the basketball and if I'm guarding my man, I know whichever way my man goes, I have a brother to the left of me and brother to the right of me and when the ball is passed, it's my job to be to the right or left for my brothers."

If Finch has any trouble instituting his new concepts, or lack thereof, he'll have help from Anthony Edwards.

"I feel like if my teammates don't buy into this new principle every game then I gotta go into the locker room and cuss a couple people out," Edwards said.

Finch also recently described his philosophy when it comes to dealing with players in foul trouble. When a player hits a certain number of fouls, such as two in the first quarter or three before halftime, some coaches will take that player out automatically. Finch isn't as convinced players need to come out.

"Generally I'm not taking a guy out with two fouls in the first half for sure," Finch said. "The reality is you either play your best players and let them foul out or you foul them out yourself by sitting them. And I want them in the game and if they happen to foul out at the end and we give ourselves a chance, that's far better than letting the game slip away from you while they're sitting on the bench."

McDaniels was available to play after missing Sunday's game in the NBA's COVID health and safety protocols. McDaniels registered a false positive test that kept him out of Sunday's game, but subsequent testing came back negative and McDaniels was allowed to suit up Tuesday.