Veteran coach Elston Turner helped mold Timberwolves into better defensive team

DENVER – One of Elston Turner's first assistant coaching jobs in the NBA was with Portland in the late 1990s, and when he was with the Trail Blazers, his teams preferred to trap or blitz against pick and rolls.

When the current Timberwolves assistant got to Sacramento a few years later, he figured he would bring that blitzing style to the Kings, who had taller players like Vlade Divac and Chris Webber. They quickly told him otherwise.

"They're looking at me like I'm crazy," Turner said. "They're saying, 'You want me to go out there and trap and run all the way back to the rim? I'm not going to do it, Coach.' "

That was the moment Turner learned a valuable lesson that he has carried through nearly three decades as an NBA assistant who specializes in defense: Don't be married to one type of scheme or style of play. Figure out what your players do best and mold the defense around that.

As the Wolves enter Game 2 of their first round playoff series in Denver on Wednesday night, Turner has become a valuable voice, just as he was on multiple benches throughout different iterations of the NBA. It's what Wolves coach Chris Finch appreciated about Turner when both worked in the Rockets organization in the early 2010s.

Turner, 63, has accumulated so much institutional knowledge that there is no scheme or adjustment to a defense he feels uncomfortable teaching. In his second season in Minnesota, the team has played different styles of defense thanks to the arrival of center Rudy Gobert. Even amid a turbulent season, Turner has helped guide the Wolves to their first top-10 ranking in defensive efficiency since the 2003-04 season.

"With experience came the ability to adjust according to who you have," Turner said. "The amount of years that I have in this game, and the amount of different coaches and styles I've been able to coach under … I've been in systems and covered everything. It allowed me now to see what group I have, and be more comfortable putting in a system because I've coached in all the rest of the systems."

Finch and Turner never served on the same staff in Houston — Finch was coaching for the team's D-League (now G-League) affiliate, while Turner was an assistant to Rick Adelman — but they would communicate on ideas, specifically switching concepts, that Finch might consider trying.

"Just always warm, gracious, welcoming," Finch said of Turner. "I was just a young guy who thought I had all the answers, coming in from Europe, and he was just such a pleasure to be around."

When Finch interviewed Turner before the 2021-22 season, they talked about how they might want to style the defense that season. Finch wanted to play aggressively since drop coverage didn't traditionally work with Karl-Anthony Towns at center, and aggressive is the style Turner prefers.

"I like physicality. Because that's what it was when I played," said Turner, who played eight seasons with Dallas, Denver and Chicago from 1981-89.

Finch also appreciated Turner's laid-back demeanor.

"He has worked for offensive-minded coaches — [Mike] D'Antoni, Adelman," Finch said. "He wasn't going to be bothered by offenses creating problems for defense, whether it be playing at pace or high turnovers, or leaning into offensive personnel [in lineups]. I've been on staffs where there's oftentimes a battle between offense and defense."

Turner came to Minnesota because he saw a young roster he could mold.

"I was in Houston with James Harden, Russell Westbrook. You're not really teaching them anything at that point in their career," Turner said. "But here I can do teaching and put an imprint on some of the young guys' careers. That was the major factor."

Finch joked that Adelman gave Turner probably only about 10 minutes per day to work on defense when they were both with the Rockets. Turner joked back whatever time Adelman gave him, Finch gives him maybe 30 seconds more.

"But he's been really good," Turner said of Finch. "He's got a very high basketball IQ. He's meticulous, which keeps us on our job, because he wants situations explained to him and covered in the right way. Players can relate to it, so he's in depth that way and guys see that."

Finch said he trusts Turner "implicitly" and that his experience as a player in the '80s and as a coach for the Rockets twice, Kings twice, Grizzlies, Suns and Portland speaks for itself with the players.

This is Wolves guard Mike Conley's second tenure playing for Turner after they overlapped during Conley's years in Memphis.

"He's been the same dude," Conley said. "Today, eight years ago when we were together. He's a laid-back dude, but he loves some defense. He loves to get after guys and it's just a treat to be back with him. Somebody I have such a good rapport with and really can call a friend."

Last season, the Wolves played an aggressive high-wall, scramble style of defense. Towns and other big men would contest screens on the perimeter and players would scramble behind to cover for the opening that created.

The Wolves jumped from 28th in defensive rating to 15th and made the playoffs. Then they got Gobert, a three-time defensive player of the year who has thrived in drop coverage, when a big man is more focused on protecting the rim in screen and roll action. The Wolves were going to have to switch up their schemes with Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns sharing the floor, and it meant a lot of changes.

"We got a lot of stops forcing turnovers last year," Turner said. "This year, a lot of our stops have been coming from contested shots because we can't fly around too much with two 7-foot guys. ... It's two drastically different kind of schemes."

The Wolves are trying to vary their schemes a little bit while not sacrificing what Gobert does well. This way, they are harder to figure out on a game-to-game basis. It has required both Turner and Gobert to trust each other.

"First of all, Rudy has been great. He's a good personality," Turner said. " … A lot of times I find with just about every player that comes to a team from somewhere else, they're used to doing it wherever they did there. So he has some residue left from other places that he's been. Not saying that's wrong, but you got to sometimes reel players in and get them to adapt to what our system is. That takes time sometimes. So, he'll do some things, not out of spitefulness, they're just reactionary."

Finch said Gobert might be "a little bit stubborn" when it comes to how he might want to do things defensively, while adding, "All great players have that in them."

The Wolves are trying to be more adaptable with Gobert on the floor, so that when teams go small against the Wolves, Gobert doesn't have to sit for matchup purposes, which sometimes happened to him in Utah during the playoffs.

That's where the communication between Turner and Gobert has been key, and the two have been able to bounce ideas off each other and respectfully disagree at times, Gobert said.

"I really appreciate him letting me change what we do defensively and try to really change a lot of the principles they built the last few years," Gobert said. "... It's a lot of cool conversations through the year and we're still growing. I love how much he takes pride in what he does. You can tell when someone's passionate and puts his heart into being the best defensive team we can be."

Added Conley: "It's an ongoing conversation every day. Rudy wants one thing, and he's like, 'I got it.' And E.T. is like, 'We need to stick to the script and stick to this, I think it'll help us.' Their communication is key. They continue to communicate and figure it out because Rudy is one of the best in the world at what he does, and E.T. is too. We're lucky to have both."

The result has been the best Wolves defensive team, by defensive rating, in nearly 20 years. Turner said he's looking forward to next season and what he and Gobert can do.

This season, Turner has drawn from his experience as a player to help empathize with what he's asking his players to do when the Wolves change coverages sometimes within a game.

"If our bigs are in a situation, it's played one way, if the smalls are in the same situation, it's played another way," Turner said. "So you have to be vigilant of who's in this particular play. See it, and then execute the coverage. Sometimes we're a little slow doing that."

They face an uphill challenge in their playoff series with Denver, which has two-time MVP Nikola Jokic. The Wolves' halfcourt defense held up OK in Game 1; it was their offense and transition defense that let them down, especially in the second half. The Wolves will need to make adjustments if they're going to get back in this series.

One thing is certain with Turner — whatever adjustments the Wolves want to make on that end of the floor, he has seen it and has probably already taught it somewhere along the way.