The Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors play tonight for the third time this season. The season series is split if each team wins. These two teams played back-to-back sets in early December, with the Timberwolves winning the first game 107-90 and the Warriors winning the second game 114-106. Neither team is playing well at the moment. The Warriors have lost 4 of their last 5 and 9 of their last 11 games. Their last game was an embarrassing 114-93 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. The Timberwolves welcomed Karl-Anthony Towns back to the Target Center in their last game and lost to their former superstar 133-107. Anthony Edwards showed his frustration after the game by questioning the team’s identity on offense in postgame interviews. “We have no identity. We know I’m going to do a lot of recording. We know Randle is going to take a lot of shots. That’s all we know.”

Despite the tough loss to New York, the Timberwolves played better compared to the start of the season. Minnesota has won 6 of its last 8 games and its defense is once again starting to look like a top unit in the NBA. Over the last 10 games, Minnesota has once again been the top-ranked defense in the NBA, and this is due in large part to the efforts of Rudy Gobert. Against New York, Gobert was played off the field by the Knicks. In Gobert’s 22 minutes played, his plus/minus was -37. Based on Gobert’s current play, this appears to be more of an outlier than a trend. I expect Gobert to have a better performance tonight and Minnesota to answer the call of its star player against the struggling Golden State Warriors.

Warriors vs Wolves prediction: Minnesota -3 available at time of publication. Playable under this number.

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