Like Timberwolves insider Jon Krawczynski put it to Karl-Anthony Towns in the locker room Saturday night, it was a bit of a "rock fight" between the Timberwolves and Nets inside Target Center.
It was Minnesota with the bigger rocks to pull away in the fourth quarter, and it was Jaden McDaniels throwing them when it mattered most as he knocked down a pair of critical 3-pointers to spark the 101-86 runaway win.
McDaneils' triple with 8:39 to go put Minnesota up 75-72, and his second 3 with 4:53 remaining pushed the lead to nine points at 87-78. It was exactly what head coach Chris Finch wanted to see from McDaniels, who he said needs to "wake up" and snap out of a funk.
"Absolutely huge to make those two to kind of give us some breathing room. We needed it. He's gotta wake up, snap out of it, he's been in a little funk and hopefully he can carry this into the next game," Finch said.
McDaniels had two points and five fouls in Minnesota's loss to the Bucks on Friday night. Those offensive woes carried over to Saturday as he had zero points on just one shot attempt before he drilled the first of his two 3s in the fourth quarter.
"It's another weapon. It's funny, he's one of our best players. For him to start hitting some shots, we become a really hard team to guard when all five people are a threat to score," Towns said of McDaniels. "We got a lot of people who really can put the ball in the basket. When Jaden's doing that I think it also gives him a lot of confidence defensively as well."
Hitting big shots and defending at an All-NBA level is why the Timberwolves gave McDaniels a $136 million contract before the season. But whether he's making shots or not doesn't stop him from stepping up when his team needs him. With 22.5 seconds left Saturday night he was in the face of Dennis Schroder, who started an altercation with Mike Conley after Conley hit a 3 with the game out of hand and the shot clock winding down.
“Other teams be mad, I guess,” McDaniels said afterward, according to Krawczynski. “Whatever happened, happened. I was just protecting Mike. It was unnecessary but I have to have my teammate’s back.”
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