Chris Finch and D'Angelo Russell on the search for chemistry and combinations

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch almost certainly has not been hacking into my web browser, but he did seem to be describing my behavior on Tuesday.

I had asked him after practice, as the 6-8 Wolves prepared to play Wednesday in Orlando, what the relative benefits are of looking at five-player lineup data this early in the season compared to clusters of how two or three players fare together.

"You can drive yourself crazy looking at a lot of five-man lineups, because circumstantially, you can't always get back to those anyway, and they're a small sample size at this point in the season, anyway," Finch said. "I think it's more about two- and three-man lineups that you want to focus on."

The NBA's web site makes all this information readily available, and some of us are more guilty than others of scouring the data while concocting new starting lineups out of players who have barely played together – something I talked about on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast.

The Wolves' preferred starting five of Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell has played 177 minutes together this season — a growing and relatively meaningful sample. No other group has played more than 36 minutes together, and the next-highest total is 16 minutes.

Break things into two-man or three-man chunks, though, and you get larger minute totals and more usable data. You see that no two-player group comprised of those five starters has a positive net rating, owing in large part to their minus-6.2 rating as a five-man group (meaning that per 100 possessions, they are being outscored by 6.2 points).

You see that Edwards with backup point guard Jordan McLaughlin (plus-25.0 net rating in 106 minutes) and Towns with McLaughlin (plus-20.3 in 99 minutes) have been clicking, albeit in samples less than one-third the size of Edwards-Russell (minus-6.7 in 336 minutes) or Towns-Russell (minus-5.9 in 341 minutes).

Smaller groups at this point might still tell us more about what the Wolves need than what they have.

"We need to find more offensive creation around Rudy, more defense around KAT," Finch said. "That's kind of a big thing I think we've been trying to find right now."

That said, the game is always played five-on-five — at least unless someone forgets to check in – and Russell stressed the importance of developing chemistry as a five-player group.

"All five players. You run a play, all it takes is for one guy to mess it up for it not to work," Russell said. "To see and develop chemistry, you run the play once and if it works, you run it again. The first option might not be there, you go to the second. That's how you develop that chemistry. Then you slowly develop the third and fourth option."

That's not necessarily at odds with Finch's view. Perhaps it just demonstrates the difference between finding things that work now and finding cohesion with a starting five that will make or break the Wolves in the long run.

To that end, this should make both the coach and player happy: In their last three games together, 44 minutes total on the court, the starting five has produced a net rating of plus-10.5. The group was a catalyst for a 40-20 first quarter that propelled the Wolves to a win over Cleveland on Sunday.

Will the Wolves be able to replicate that energy and efficiency going forward, starting Wednesday in Orlando?

You should be able to tell pretty early on in the game. Russell will probably know even sooner.

"Yeah. Shootaround you can see it," Russell said Tuesday. "As soon as you get together as a group, you can see who didn't get sleep last night and all of that."