Timberwolves rout Pelicans, overcoming their tendency to let up against the least

The Timberwolves lost to a depleted Pacers team Monday, then to a depleted Pelicans team Wednesday. On Friday afternoon, their rematch against New Orleans got even easier on paper when the Pelicans declared out Wolves bully Zion Williamson because of a back injury. That could have been a bad thing for the Wolves, who have a tendency to play down to their level of competition, as this week has shown.

But this time, the Wolves did as they should and came away with a 134-93 victory.

Friday featured a balanced scoring effort, with seven Wolves in double figures. Julius Randle led them with 20 points while Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels each had 17. New Orleans committed 26 turnovers to help the Wolves recover from their bad week.

Randle said the energy with the team was “off” after their two-game slide. So what kind of effort did the Wolves want to come out with Friday?

“Just try to get the game over as early as possible,” McDaniels said. “Not messing up to give them confidence to stay in the game, just coming out with a business mindset, for real.”

McDaniels did that in the third quarter, when he had 10 points as the Wolves took the drama out of the evening by extending a 14-point halftime lead to 25.

“I didn’t want to play no more after the third quarter,” McDaniels said. “We all got in, did what we had to do.”

Coach Chris Finch did something a little different to change the energy of the team from the start. He started Joe Ingles, whose autistic son Jacob is now able to attend games in an arena for the first time in his life. Ingles’ family has been living in Orlando this season, and they were here this week, but Ingles hadn’t played. Finch gave Ingles the start, with Ingles’ former teammate in Utah Mike Conley ceding his spot.

“It was emotional,” Finch said. “Sometimes you gotta do the human thing. We always talk about all these minutes matter, and those minutes matter for another reason.”

The Wolves ran the first play for Ingles, who finished 0-for-3, but it didn’t matter that he didn’t score.

“At this point in my career, if it happened it happened, and if it didn’t it didn’t,” Ingles said. “To look up there tonight and I could see my name, and especially with Jacob — obviously, to Mike as well, being cool with it, it’s rare in this league for someone to give up something that he’s earned over 16 years to give me that opportunity. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

Whether it was Ingles’ start or the Wolves having a different mindset, they did have a different energy on both sides of the ball. They had 40 assists on 48 made baskets, and their defense forced all those turnovers.

BOXSCORE: Wolves 135, New Orleans 93

NBA standings

“I thought just the will to make the extra play, the easy play for our teammates — we did that for 48 minutes tonight, and it’s contagious,” said Rudy Gobert, who had 15 points and 11 rebounds. “It shouldn’t, but it does really impact our defense too. I feel like we’re really connected on both ends of the floor. Our defensive intensity was, our level got up throughout the game.”

Gobert was a team-high plus-34 while rookie Jaylen Clark (11 points) provided a necessary spark in the second quarter with a three-pointer and a pair of steals when the Wolves were down four. Clark’s hustle sparked a 12-2 Wolves run, and for once this week there was no drama for the Wolves in a game they should win.

“I think getting the fans involved makes it so much funner,” Clark said. “When it chaotic, everything slows down for me. That’s just my zone. People are flying around, fans are screaming, I’m seeing everything slow-motion almost, so I can start flying around, creating steals. It goes from two to 10 points quick, and it just rolls.”