The Minnesota Timberwolves have had an up-and-down 2026, and star center Rudy Gobert has not been happy with what he has seen from his teammates. Following the Timberwolves’ 119-115 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, Gobert harshly called them out for not playing with effort and urgency and lacking accountability.
Gobert was stinging in his criticism, and Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch was asked about his comments at practice on Saturday.
“Well aware of his comments,” Finch said, via Andrew Dukowitz. “I’d say a couple things, one is anybody who knows how we do things here knows there’s a high degree of accountability. Secondly, I handle all my conversations with ourselves in-house.
“Disappointing that he felt the need to go outside, but nonetheless, that’s been addressed already today,” Finch continued. “There has never been a team that’s won anything meaningful that has substituted their way there.”
Well, players usually say such things out loud when their message isn’t getting across behind the scenes. Is that the case here? Well, we can’t say for sure.
What we can say is that the Timberwolves have repeatedly come up short against weaker teams in the NBA this season. To go with the Pelicans, they have also lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors (without Jimmy Butler), Chicago Bulls, and Utah Jazz over the last three weeks.
Gobert thinks the Timberwolves are not taking these teams seriously and made it clear that these games matter. The three-time All-Star also believes defending at a high level is the recipe for success for this team, and they simply aren’t doing it.
Gobert bluntly stated that no one on the Timberwolves should get a pass for not playing defense. The four-time DPOY added that the players lacking accountability means it then has to come from the coaching staff. Gobert wants the players who aren’t putting in enough effort to be taken out of games, including himself. It was quite a rant.
Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels was also asked about Gobert’s comments on Saturday and chose to be tight-lipped.
“I don’t know nothing about it (smiling),” McDaniels said, via Dukowitz. “I don’t even want to talk about it for real, I just try to do my job and try to do my job to the best of my ability.”
McDaniels isn’t someone who can ever be accused of not giving effort on the defensive end, so Gobert certainly wasn’t talking about him. The 33-year-old was likely referring to Anthony Edwards and, in particular, Julius Randle. You want the biggest stars on the team to set the tone, and these two haven’t been doing that.
You’d have liked to see a strong response from the Timberwolves after all that Gobert had to say, but there wasn’t one. The Los Angeles Clippers blew them out 115-96 at the Target Center on Sunday.
The Clippers went 39-76 (51.3%) from the field and 14-27 (51.9%) from beyond the arc on the night. This was by no means an aberration, as the Timberwolves have now allowed their opponents to shoot 51.3% from the field over their last five games. Keep this up, and you’ll tumble down the standings.
The Timberwolves dropped to 32-22 with this latest defeat and are sixth in the West. They’ll take on the Atlanta Hawks next at Target Center on Monday at 8 PM ET. This will be the second meeting between the teams this season, and the Hawks came away with a resounding 126-102 win in the first one.
The Hawks had lost seven in a row coming into that contest, and it was just yet another example of the Timberwolves losing a game they had no business losing. Will they manage to avoid a repeat? You’d like to think so, but time will tell.
