Mike Conley is leading the Timberwolves back to the defensive identity they need

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MINNEAPOLIS — Mike Conley is not a profane man by nature. His reputation for being the nice guy is so deeply ingrained and so widely known that he has built his brand around the slogan “Good Guys Finish First,” including a tongue-in-cheek social media series that trumpets his record four NBA Sportsmanship awards and the fact that he has never been assessed a technical foul in his 18 seasons in the league.

Don’t mistake his kindness for weakness. Conley is still as competitive as they come, but he saves his fiercest displays of emotion for when his team really needs to see it. After chasing Golden State Warriors shooter Buddy Hield all over the court during a possession early in Game 2 of their second-round series that helped force a shot clock violation, Conley turned and hollered toward the Minnesota Timberwolves bench.

“I’m locking that s— up!” Conley howled. “I’m locking that s— up!”

The Timberwolves’ bench roared back in approval, emboldened by the rare bit of Conley trash talk. The genteel version of Conley was nowhere to be found on Thursday night in Minnesota’s 117-93 victory that evened the series 1-1. After a most disappointing performance in the series opener that featured a decided lack of edge, Conley took it upon himself to set the tone for Game 2, a game the Timberwolves could not afford to lose.

With Steph Curry out for at least the next three games with a strained hamstring, the new biggest priority for the Timberwolves’ defense was to get a handle on Hield, the sharpshooter who scored 24 points in Game 1 and hit nine 3-pointers to help the Warriors beat the Houston Rockets in Game 7 of their first-round series. Timberwolves coach Chris Finch had several options for guarding Hield, including perimeter stoppers Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

But Finch and defensive coordinator Elston Turner understood how important the first few minutes of Game 2 were for this series. They needed a strong start. They needed to play with energy and tenacity. So the coaches turned to their 37-year-old point guard to handle the responsibility of chasing Hield through the gauntlet of screens that the Warriors’ offense employs to spring their movement shooter.

“I just wanted to really show the guys I’m going to do whatever I can for the team, sacrifice,” Conley said. “That’s all I was focused on for the majority of the game. I know our guys kind of fed off the energy I was bringing.”

Conley understood the assignment. By the time the Wolves forced that shot clock violation with 9:49 to play in the second quarter, Hield had only taken three shots. The Warriors managed just 15 points in the first quarter and would trail by as many as 22 points in the first half. Conley may have only scored six points and picked up two assists in fewer than 18 minutes on the floor, but his doggedness at the start of the game gave the Wolves everything they needed to get their swagger back.

“Bite-Bite brought all the energy tonight, and we just fed off of it,” Anthony Edwards said, scanning a group of unfamiliar media faces standing in front of him for this second-round game. “If y’all don’t know who Bite-Bite is, (it’s) Mike Conley.”

The Timberwolves jumped out to a 13-0 lead in the first four minutes of the game, forcing the Warriors to miss their first eight shots. Hield was 0 of 2 with a turnover in that stretch, and the rest of the Wolves followed Conley’s lead. With no Curry to follow around, McDaniels hounded Jimmy Butler, holding him to 17 points and just 13 shot attempts while picking up three blocks and three steals. Alexander-Walker and Edwards kept Brandin Podziemski (11 points) in check, and the Wolves forced 20 turnovers and held the Warriors to 28 percent shooting from 3-point range.

“We looked a lot more like ourselves,” Finch said. “The start was great. For us, that’s what we needed. It set the tone.”

Last year’s run to the Western Conference finals was built on an elite defense, one that was No. 1 in the league by a wide margin all season. But the Timberwolves emphasized improving their 17th-ranked offense, and that may have come at a small expense to their defense this season. The Wolves slipped to No. 6 in the league in defensive rating, but they also jumped to eighth in offense heading into the playoffs.

After doing pretty much whatever they wanted offensively against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, the Wolves have found that Golden State provides far more defensive resistance. That means that for them to win this series and advance to their second straight conference finals, they are going to have to rediscover the nastiness in their defense that has not always been present this season.

Without Curry’s gravity, the Warriors are far less potent. Butler prefers to be a playmaker rather than an alpha scorer. Podziemski has been quiet through two games. Jonathan Kuminga had 18 points in Game 2 but has been wildly inconsistent, as has Hield, who did go 4 of 9 from 3, but didn’t get going until the Wolves were up by 20 points.

“He wants to win,” Donte DiVincenzo said of Conley. “Everybody wants to win, but you just see how hard he’s playing in whatever stints he has. He’s giving everything he has.”

The Timberwolves have set their mission to suffocate this short-handed team, forcing turnovers and missed shots. That also helps their finicky offense. The Wolves have found out through two games that facing the Warriors’ defense, which has been No. 1 in the league since Butler was acquired in February, has been an entirely different beast to attack than what they saw from the Lakers. Golden State’s activity and length have bothered the Wolves, and they can’t count on the 16-of-37 shooting from 3 that they had in Game 2 to always be there.

“Make or miss shots, we have to defend. We made a few more shots tonight and we win by 20 or whatever,” said DiVincenzo, who hit three 3-pointers. “But we can’t rely on that. I think everybody knows even not making shots in Game 1, we still have the ability to win a game like that on the defensive end.”

Julius Randle had 24 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds, Alexander-Walker shrugged off a shooting slump over the first six games of the playoffs to go 7 of 13, including 4 of 6 from 3, to finish with 20 points. McDaniels had 16 on 7-of-10 shooting and Edwards overcame a sprained left ankle to put up 20 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals.

In Game 1, the Wolves shot 39 percent from the field and 17 percent (5 of 29) from 3. They had made 12 of their previous 76 3s spanning Game 5 of the Lakers series with Game 1 against Golden State.

If the Wolves are going to be that enigmatic offensively, they have only one strategy upon which they can rely. If the Warriors can’t score, they can’t win.

“If we’re going to have a chance, we’re going to have to defend at a high level for four quarters and be consistent with it,” Conley said. “It can’t be a game-to-game thing. It has to be every game. We’ve got to be locked in that way.”

With Steph Curry out, Julius Randle and the Timberwolves focused on stopping Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield. (Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)

Conley was motivated on several fronts in this one. He is not sure how much time he has left in the league — he is under contract for one more season with the Wolves next year at $10 million — so he is putting everything he has into helping this team make the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, and the first time in Conley’s career.

He also did not play well in Game 1, going 0 of 5 with five assists and missing both 3s. So he wanted to atone for that performance while also showing his teammates, many of whom are still young, exactly what it takes to be a great team.

“To be 50 years old and still come out and defend and play with the effort that he does,” Randle cracked. “I’ve talked all year about the leader that he is for our team, and kind of how he just keeps a balance.”

The Timberwolves did what they needed to do in winning to even the series as it heads back to San Francisco for Games 3 and 4. But if they were hoping to send the Warriors a message that there is no way they can win without Curry, that did not happen. The Wolves won the first quarter by 14 points, but then the second and third by just three points each and the fourth by four. The Warriors cut the deficit to seven points in the third quarter and still were within 15 with five minutes to go.

The Warriors will go home believing they will shoot a lot better at Chase Center and that the Wolves will keep the door open for them with their sloppiness against Golden State’s zone defense and their occasional shooting droughts.

“This is not the team to be overconfident versus,” Randle said. “They’re a championship team. They have championship DNA. We’ve said that from the beginning. So if we want to win this series, we’re gonna have to take every game seriously.”

The Timberwolves are not used to being the favorites, nor do they like it. This is a team that thrives off slights and doubt. The franchise has lived almost its entire life in the shadows, being looked over and discounted, not taken seriously except for only a brief flash here or there in the last 35 years.

Now, here they are, expected to advance to the conference finals for the second season in a row. It would be the first time in team history to pull off that feat, and there is a palpable difference in the feeling surrounding the team as they grapple with this new standard. They were favored to beat the Warriors even before Curry went down. Now that he is injured, those odds have tilted even further toward the Wolves.

These Wolves do not like the wind at their backs. They prefer to hang their heads out the window as the car speeds down the road, noses forward and eyes narrowed while they are blasted in the face.

Last season, when they won the first six games of the postseason, including a first-round sweep of the Phoenix Suns and two road wins in Denver to start the second round, they were told they were going to the NBA Finals. They promptly lost three straight games to the Nuggets.

When they came through with a thrilling Game 7 victory in Denver to go back to the West finals for the first time in 20 years, they had home-court advantage against the Dallas Mavericks. What followed was a way-too-easy 4-1 series victory for Luka Dončić and the Mavs.

They opened this season with more excitement than there had been around this team in ages, even after trading Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks for Randle and DiVincenzo. The expectation was they would be one of the top seeds in the conference, and the hope was that they could take the final step to the NBA Finals. They started the season 8-10. An eight-game winning streak came crashing down with home losses to the severely short-handed Indiana Pacers and the flailing New Orleans Pelicans.

Even within games, there was a struggle when things were going too well. They led the Milwaukee Bucks by 24 points in the fourth quarter, but gave it all away in a 110-103 loss.

The Wolves were stunned by their flat performance in Game 1 against Golden State. Embarrassed, really. Finch held a blunt film session on Wednesday in which “no one was spared,” DiVincenzo said.

Game 2 was a step in the right direction for them, back toward the identity that keyed their run last season. Sometimes this mercurial team can forget what got them here. It is no surprise that Conley was the one who reminded them.

(Photo of Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley defending Buddy Hield: David Berding / Getty Images)

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