Defenses on display when Wolves, Thunder clash

The Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder have been two of the NBA's best teams through the season's first two months.

Their defenses are a big reason why.

Entering Tuesday's matchup in Oklahoma City, the Timberwolves lead the league with a 107.4 defensive rating — points allowed per 100 possessions — while the Thunder are sixth at 110.9.

Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert have been big parts of Minnesota's defense successes, altering shots and grabbing rebounds.

Gobert entered Monday third in the league in rebounding with 12.3 per game and sixth in blocks at 2.3.

McDaniels' contributions are a bit more subtle, but his ability to guard all over the court make him a dangerous weapon on the defensive end.

"I don't see how they're not going to be on the all-defensive first team," Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards said of McDaniels and Gobert.

The Timberwolves have trailed in the fourth quarter in seven of their 22 victories, including their 106-103 win over the Thunder on Nov. 28 in Minneapolis.

"I think it's starting to hit for a lot of us," Minnesota's Mike Conley said. "We always kind of felt that we could compete with anybody. Now we've won a whole bunch of different ways.

"We've learned to win and come back late in games. When you take a step back and look at it, that's a recipe for success on how to win later in the season. We're going to continue to grow and guys are going to continue to learn from what we've done so far."

The Timberwolves have won back-to-back games and 11 of their last 13.

The Thunder are coming off a 129-120 home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, but have won 13 of their last 18.

Oklahoma City's defense has been keyed by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and rookie Chet Holmgren.

Gilgeous-Alexander is leading the league with 2.8 steals per game. No other player is averaging more than 1.8.

Holmgren is third in the league in blocks with 2.7 per game.

Though the Thunder are also among the top shooting teams in the league, the defensive end is the bigger focus.

"We won't wanna be a team that relies on the most variant part of basketball," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. "You've gotta build your foundation with something other than just shot-making."

That was especially evident Saturday, when the Thunder shot just 31.7 percent from beyond the arc while the Lakers shot 52.2 percent from the floor and went 16 of 32 on 3-pointers.

Oklahoma City's worst shooting performance of the season came in the earlier loss at Minnesota, when the Thunder hit just 41.1 percent of their shots from the field.

The Timberwolves are hoping to get Karl-Anthony Towns back after he missed Saturday's win at Sacramento with left knee soreness. Towns was injured late in a win over the Lakers two days earlier.

Oklahoma City was without Josh Giddey on Saturday due to a left ankle sprain.

—Field Level Media