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NBA NBA Season Latest The Timberwolves focused on feeding Rudy Gobert the ball on Wednesday against the tanking Jazz. David Sherman / Getty Images MINNEAPOLIS — Even before Kyle Anderson ended up back in Minnesota, he would often find himself watching Timberwolves games on his off nights, keeping an eye on his former team while he was languishing on the rebuilding Utah Jazz. He could not help but notice one thing that was holding the Wolves back. Advertisement As they would work through possessions in the half court, Anderson would see Rudy Gobert with his hands up near the rim, waiting for a pass that never came. “I’m like, ‘Oh, they missed Rudy. They missed Rudy, '” he said. “Like, get downhill, and he’s open at the rim a lot. ” One reason the Timberwolves brought Anderson back after he was bought out following a trade to the Memphis Grizzlies was the chemistry he had with Gobert during his first stint in Minnesota. Gobert is a tricky player to connect with on offense. He is one of the best screeners the NBA has ever seen and leads the league with a 70. 5 field-goal percentage. But his hands are shaky enough to make a ballhandler think twice before passing him the ball. Finding a way to make Gobert more of a threat on offense will be crucial to the Timberwolves’ hopes of another deep playoff run this season. Their inconsistency in that department is one of many reasons why they have not been able to separate themselves from a jam-packed group of teams jostling between third and seventh place in the Western Conference standings. The Wolves used a glorified exhibition game against the severely short-handed and tanking Jazz on Wednesday night as a bit of target practice as they try to find a greater comfort with getting the ball to Gobert. With the Jazz focused on hounding Minnesota’s shooters on the perimeter, there were ample opportunities to throw it Gobert’s way. He had five quality chances in the first five minutes and finished with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting, with 12 rebounds and two blocks in a 147-111 wipeout. “It’s always best if we can get Rudy going early, ” coach Chris Finch said. Ayo Dosunmu had 23 points, nine rebounds, six assists and three steals, and Julius Randle had 21 points, eight assists and four steals as the Wolves (43-27) moved into fourth place in the West thanks to losses by the Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets. Advertisement Finch said Gobert’s involvement in the first-quarter offense was not a part of the game plan, but more a reaction to how the Jazz were guarding the Wolves in the half court. Utah doesn’t have a real center at this point in the season, so the Timberwolves kept looking in Gobert’s direction. Of course, they wanted to take advantage of Gobert’s size underneath, but in reality they just needed a game against an opponent with virtually no chance of winning to continue building trust between their playmakers and Gobert. Minnesota scored 43 points in the first quarter, a pleasant surprise for a team that has struggled to get off to good starts of late. The Jazz’s lack of talent had a lot to do with it, but Gobert’s success scoring and rebounding was a step in the right direction for him and the Wolves. Anthony Edwards missed his second straight game with right knee inflammation, and Naz Reid sat out with a sprained ankle. That took two of the Wolves’ best scorers out of the lineup, and Gobert stepped in against the smaller Jazz and flexed his muscles. He had 12 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks in the first half. It was not all smooth sailing. Gobert turned the ball over three times in the first half, dropping several passes and missing layups at point-blank range. The mistakes can be so ugly that they sometimes cause teammates to hide their faces in their hands or toss towels in the air while sitting on the bench, but Finch isn’t having it. The coach knows that Gobert needs to be involved for the Wolves to climb out of the doldrums they have been in for the last week and start hooping again. “They know not to look to me for sympathy if Rudy drops one of their passes, because sometimes he’s going to, ” Finch said. “I tell them to keep throwing it. We have to. It pays off more than not. Advertisement “There are plenty of times when we miss him. We obviously want him to catch it. We want to be able to throw it in a manner where it’s easier for him to catch and finish. But I’ll take some of those turnovers if we’re trying to make the right play. ” It has been a difficult process at times this season, most notably against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, when Gobert fumbled the ball over and over on his way to four turnovers. Edwards and Randle, the Wolves’ two primary ballhandlers in the half court, have often appeared reluctant to throw him the ball. The inability to consistently use their big man as a hub in their offense has been a sticking point for the Wolves, one of the reasons they have dropped to 10th in offensive efficiency, per NBA. com. Gobert is far too important to the Timberwolves’ hopes of finding another level in the playoffs to ignore. As Finch has said, he is a walking top-five defense unto himself, and the numbers have borne that out this season. When he is on the floor, the Wolves give up a staggering 11. 8 fewer points per 100 possessions than when he is off, per Cleaning The Glass. The Wolves also score 3. 6 more points per 100 on offense when he is on the floor, which is not bad. His screening and offensive rebounding are additive properties to the offense, but they come with a ceiling that needs raising. No one expects Gobert to suddenly become Justin Jefferson when it comes to catching passes in traffic. But the Wolves are going to have to figure out a way to make him enough of a threat that opposing defenses cannot completely leave him to sit in the gaps on Edwards and Randle. The Thunder, a team the Wolves presumably would have to see at some point in the playoffs, have mastered that tactic, making it so much more difficult for the isolation scorers to operate. “He’s a force, ” Anderson said. “We’ve got to be able to find him. ” And if Gobert flubs a pass or misses a layup? Advertisement “You move onto the next play, ” Anderson said. “I think he converts ’em, but if he doesn’t, we move onto the next play. ” This time of the season offers precious few opportunities to hone that feel in practice, so getting a glorified open run against this version of the Jazz provided some value. The Wolves never had to worry about losing a game against the fully tanking Jazz, so they could take chances throwing the ball to Gobert without real consequence. Anderson and Dosunmu, who arrived just before the February trade deadline, have shown the most comfort in at least trying to get Gobert the ball, along with Donte Di Vincenzo. Jaden Mc Daniels and Randle are starting to throw more lob passes in his direction. Gobert knows that every pass he gets, whether it’s against the lottery-bound Jazz or the defending champions in Oklahoma City, is a chance to earn the team’s trust. Gobert is a prideful player and does not want to let his teammates down. But he knows that if he dwells on a mistake in the middle of a game, it can bring more mistakes right behind it. “Coach always says if it’s a turnover trying to find your teammates, it’s a good turnover, ” Gobert said. “Not that we want it to happen, but it comes from good intentions. ” Anderson has been back with the Wolves for a few weeks now, but he said he is still re-acclimating to life with Gobert on the pick-and-roll. “I think I’ve probably been looking for him a little too much, ” Anderson said. “Just reading the game today, seeing if that low man is going to come in, if I can kick the 3 or find him at the rim, we can get better at that. We will. ” If they do not figure it out, it is hard to imagine the Wolves going on the kind of run that they enjoyed the last two seasons. What they did against Utah will be far more difficult against better competition. They play Houston twice, the Detroit Pistons twice and the Boston Celtics once down the stretch, part of a brutal finish to the regular season. “I think it’s really about making the right play, ” Gobert said. “I was open in the pocket, they found me in the pocket and I was able to either score or find my teammates. That’s really the brand of basketball that I think is winning basketball. We don’t know who is going to get the shot, but we try to make the right play. ” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Jon Krawczynski is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA and the Minnesota Vikings. Jon joined The Athletic after 16 years at The Associated Press, where he covered three Olympics, three NBA Finals, two Ryder Cups and the 2009 NFC Championship Game. Follow Jon on Twitter @Jon Krawczynski