Q&A with Timberwolves coach Chris Finch

LAS VEGAS – The Timberwolves decided not to make any major shakeups to their roster for next season and will run back the Karl-Anthony Towns-Rudy Gobert two big-man lineup, which didn't get much time together because of Towns' right calf injury.

Even in the limited time they had, coach Chris Finch said he had an idea of what was able to work and what didn't. In an interview with the Star Tribune at summer league in Las Vegas, Finch talked about what he wants to emphasize with both on the floor. Among other issues, Finch also touched on Anthony Edwards' development, and how Edwards can close games better, what he thinks of Gobert playing internationally for France in the FIBA World Cup and how the Wolves must handle their relationship with officials next season.

Q What are some things you've reflected on with the Rudy-Karl partnership. What do you want to accentuate more? What didn't work?

A I think we have to be way more definitive with our spacing around Rudy in pick and roll and KAT in the post. That gives you two anchor points. Maybe in general, just a little more structured two-big spacing. Both bigs having a purpose at the same time. Then, I think we got away from KAT being in the trail spot. I think we got to get him back where he's really destructive, which is playing at the top of the floor early in the offense. That's just off the top of my head of the things that pop out, which I feel pretty confident about being able to firm that up.

Q Ant said he figured out how to play with both of them late in the season. What do you think he learned, especially in the playoffs, that helped him?

A A lot of it had to do with his decisiveness. Particularly in pick and roll. With Rudy, he's being way more decisive. Then I think with KAT, that's another thing I think we got to get back to. They had a great chemistry. A lot of pass and chase, pass and cut. Playing off each other and we were never able to really re-establish that when he came back. I think a lot of it was like a trained learned behavior. You spend so much time and effort learning to play with Rudy, the KAT chemistry, obviously with missing games, that chemistry wasn't the same, and they maybe didn't occupy the floor all that much together. Rudy and Ant would be out a lot when KAT was in. Just how rotations fell where we always played KAT and Ant together previously. I think it's just part of Anthony's overall development. He's experiencing all this stuff and gets better at it.

Q What are the next steps for Ant?

A How do you manipulate the game with the ball in your hands. How do you read the defense. How do you understand this is what the defense is going to do to me? How do I best use it to our advantage? Maybe slowing down a little bit, processing a little bit earlier in the possession. Then I think he also has to learn how to close games better. He's always going to be able to get to his step-back three, but is that the best shot for the best situation? Probably not. Mixing up how you attack and close in games. Then, all of that, I would say, his foul draw rate. He's got to learn to draw fouls, sell foul contact, and that's going to help him in those high leverage situations to be able to get to the free-throw line.

Q Ant is playing for Team USA this summer, Rudy is playing for France and last year he came back and didn't practice too much early on. Do you anticipate that being an issue in training camp?

A I trust our guys to come back in the right frame of mind. We do like it because they should be in shape. It's the mental piece that's the hardest for them. They have to start a new season all over again, and they got to be locked in. We can't go into preseason looking for opportunities to rest our guys, because we got chemistry to build that we were never able to build last year. That's a priority for all of us. So by all means, we support their efforts to go play overseas, but understand they're coming back into training camp and we're going to get to work, and we're not going to be resting our way through the preseason because of their summer commitments. We have to build the right chemistry. It's absolutely essential to us this season.

Q Something team President Tim Connelly talked about this summer is that this team isn't good enough to complain to the officials as much as you do. How do you set that culture going into next year?

A It's certainly a major point of conversation for us going into next season. It's all part of our maturity and learning how to handle and play with adversity. It's just going to be out there. I need to set that tone. I need to be way more demanding of our guys and their behaviors, myself included. I try to not complain, get us technicals. There were technicals sometimes you want to get strategically, but we had gotten so many as a team it takes even that opportunity away. You have to focus on the things that matter, and that's going to be our performance.

Q Your record against bad teams last year was not good. Was there a common theme there you might attack differently?

A If you want to be a 50-win team, you got to win those games. That's what 50-win teams do. They take care of business in those situations. I think it just has to do with professional approach, having a healthy and appropriate amount of respect for your opponents regardless. I think we haven't had a lot of guys who won at a high level, and winning at a high level is more about what you do every single day, even when no one's looking. In the games where seemingly you think you should win, it's your habits that win those games for us, more than anything else. We just got to keep building those habits, inconsistent young habits for guys that at times maybe we're guilty of thinking we're better than we are and our margin for error is bigger, but really it wasn't.

Q What did Mike Conley really change about your offense when he came in, and what are you looking to build on with him?

A The single biggest thing he changed is he elevated Rudy's impact in it. His ability to play pick and roll with him and get everything out of it. Not just for Rudy, but for others as well as himself. That was something we were never quite able to maximize. We needed him to score. After about a handful of games, the gravity of D-Lo's scoring, his shooting was gone. Teams were not respecting Mike as a scorer, even though he can score it. We needed him to be more aggressive. He did that. Really scored it well. I think the single biggest thing he can do for us that we weren't able to maximize or figure out is to be that connective bridge between Ant, Rudy and KAT. Make all the right plays and all the little plays that you don't see, and help talk everybody through all these situations. He's not wired to want to score all the time.

Q How do you feel about your point guard depth?

A We feel great about it. We feel we have a lot of different profiles at that position, or guys that can move over and play that position, whether it be conventional guys like J-Mac or unconventional guys like Kyle, and given the way that we play, we're fine with that. I think we could very much evolve to a special night to night situation. It's going to come down to which guys accentuate our best players, whether it be Wendell just being a role player, guarding next to Ant, making spot shots, and Ant plays a lot at the one, so exactly, these are exciting parts about going into next season. We don't really know how it's going to be mapped out. We do feel comfortable and confident in options that we do have.