MIAMI – Throughout his coaching career, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch has always preferred to take an even-keeled philosophy to the arc of a season: never get too low when times are tough, never get too high when his team is winning.
As the Wolves have jumped to a 20-5 start, Finch tried to impart that on his team, and will make sure in film sessions he is emphasizing where the Wolves can improve.
The coach has made sure to tell his team he is less than thrilled with how they have performed at the start of games and throughout the first halves of late.
"I would say we've been made aware of it," a deadpan Mike Conley said after Monday's 112-108 win over the Heat. "It's something we need to work on for sure. It's something we're going to address and figure out how we can start games better. We can't be two different teams."
The Wolves fell behind 17-2 in a win over Dallas on Thursday. They were sluggish in the first half of their win over Indiana and fell behind by as much as 17 in the first half of Monday's game.
The Wolves, who are at Philadelphia on Wednesday night, have a net rating of -1.5 for the season (20th in the league) in first quarters, their worst quarter by a significant margin. In the second quarter that improves to 6.3 (eighth). The third quarter is where the Wolves do the most damage with a net rating of 18.2 (second) and in the fourth they are seventh with a net rating of 5.5.
"It's concerning," Finch said. "We got to be better. Tonight we turned it over seven times in the first quarter so [the offense] wasn't any better, and then our defense let us down too. We got to be better."
All this might seem like nitpicking for a team that has the Western Conference's best record and the NBA's best defensive rating.
"It wouldn't be fun if there wasn't things to get better at," center Rudy Gobert said. "That's definitely something we need to get better at because it can cost us games."
To Gobert, the key to turning those numbers around starts on the defensive end, where he was a menace again Monday, especially in the second half. Come out playing solid defense, and the rest will take care of itself, he said.
"It takes for us to get punched in the face to wake up and then do the things that we need to do," Gobert said. "Every time we do the things that we're supposed to do, especially defensively, we put ourselves in the position to win the game."
Guard Anthony Edwards said he couldn't come up for a reason why it has taken the Wolves a while to get into games.
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Edwards said. "I don't like it at all. We got to figure out ways to start better, and that's what Finchy put an emphasis on when he came in the locker room after the game. We got to find ways to start better."
But at least they don't let these starts linger.
