The Timberwolves dropped a shock bomb on the second day of the free market, instigating one of the biggest single-player deals in recent years, bringing three-time defensive player of the year to Minnesota. Before the deal, not too many people thought that the Timberwolves with All-Star center Carl Anthony Downs would be Rudy Gobert's suitors, but looking at head coach Chris Finch's post-season remarks and previous resumes, the deal was already in the loop, and even exaggerated, it was a gamble that management bet on Chris Fincher's ability.
Chris Fincher, who will be 53 at the end of the year, took over the Timberwolves coaching seal in February 2021 and became the head coach of an NBA team for the first time. Appointments to rookie managers over the age of 50 have been rare in recent years, with the Thunder's Mark Degnault, the Grizzlies' Taylor Jenkins, and even the previous Timberwolves coach Ryan Sanders all head coaching at or before the age of 35.
Born in 1969, Chris Finch had a mediocre playing career, playing only in the third division of the NCAA during his college years before starting his career in the United Kingdom. At the age of 28, he became the team's head coach and succeeded in several European countries (and also suffered defeats and cuts in Germany). In 2009, he returned to the United States as head coach of development league team Rio Grande Valley Vipers, leading the team to championships in his first season and winning the Coach of the Year award.
In 2006
Until 2013, Chris Finch was also the head coach of the British national basketball team, leading the team to the 2012 London Olympics.
In 2011, he was hired by the Rockets as an assistant coach. It wasn't until 2015, when the Rockets fired their employer coach, that Chris Finch was able to fill the chief assistant coaching position. Subsequently, Chris Finch served as an assistant coach or chief assistant coach in several teams such as the Nuggets, Pelicans, and Raptors, until he was hired as the head coach by the Timberwolves.
Nick Nas, who has played against Chris Finch in the European and Development League, served as his assistant coach for the British national team and was his boss at the Raptors, described Chris Finch as:
"He will unleash the potential of his players."
"His players play really tough, they play team basketball. He was the winner on the pitch. ”
Chris Finch is known for his creativity and adaptability, tailoring tactics to the qualities of his stars. In his first full season in charge of the Timberwolves, the team finished its highest ranking in 18 years, reaching the playoffs as the 7th seed.
In order to take advantage of Downs's height and shooting feel, he often used him as a shooter, and even arranged for his teammates to set up cover for him, creating a three-point shot gap, and Towns ranked second in the team in the number of shots after bypassing the cover, second only to pure shooter Malik Beasley; Chris Finch also promoted Jared Vanderbilt to the starters to make up for the lack of defensive coverage of the main general Downs, and used Downs' ability to pull out space, allowing Jared Vanderbilt to focus on rushing for offensive rebounds and hiding his rough offensive skills.
In the first-round 2-4 loss to the Grizzlies in the series, the Timberwolves played well competitively, leading even longer than their second-best opponent in the West, but the reasons for the failure are repeated: poor offense in the fourth quarter and protection of defensive rebounds, Chris Finch said:
"It's not just this series, we've lost to our opponents in the same way all season."
"Sometimes that's our limitation. We have a lineup that plays pretty well, but it's not tall enough, it's just a little bit worse. ”
'When your players are already playing well, it's hard to ask them to change anything.
"We knew it was a gamble to put on this lineup, but a couple of mistakes in the early fourth quarter, and then the three-pointers we lost in the same way, the opponents failed to dunk, grabbed offensive rebounds, shot neutral three-pointers, all brought morale to the bottom. A solid opponent only needs to grasp our mistakes to win the game. ”
Summarizing the experience, Chris Finch shares his views:
'I think what we've learned is that our squad has to be a little bit taller, a little bit stronger and a little tougher.
"Part of the problem is about tacit understanding, part about physique, part about mentality."
"A lot of times, when the team is a little bit behind in the playoffs, I think the difference is only in the physical confrontation."
The opponent's bench forward, Brandon Clark, played his best in the series: averaging 16.5 points and an exaggerated 3.8 offensive rebounds in 67.9% FG per game in 29.4 minutes per game, completely exposing the Timberwolves' defensive rebounding flaws (70.6% defensive rebounding rate ranked 28th in the league).
In contrast to the modern popular 5-out configuration, Chris Finch on the reverse admires the Grizzlies' twin-tower combination:
"Obviously, when you have a high level of shooting, you have a good offense."
"However, I think Memphis is a success story. They often sent two elders, without too reliable projection. ”
'They have some good shooters, but they mainly score by switching between attack and defense, impacting the basket."
"It makes their attack very efficient. If you cooperate with good projection, it will be a very powerful team. ”
At the time, the interpretation was that Chris Finch wanted an experienced striker, but Chris Finch explained:
"There are many ways."
"When you have a player like KAT, you can put a lot of different configurations next to him."
"Let's just look at it, we have some good young players. We need Jaden McDaniels to have the most fulfilling summer of my life and a leap forward in the coming season. ”
Probably beyond most people's imagination, chris Finch's two-tower combination is not a Downs + big forward in the end, but a transformation of Towns, who has been playing center in his career, into a big forward, directly joining rudy Gobert, a center who has no shooting ability.
But looking back at Chris Finch's end-of-season remarks, the deal is not unreasonable. When the coaching staff judges that the main reason for the team's loss is defensive rebounding and stability, recruiting the best basket protector in the league who has just turned 30 is the most direct option. Looking around the league, the Timberwolves can't possibly find a better rebounder than Rudy Gobert, whose rebounding and defensive rebounding rates of 25.0 percent and 36.3 percent, respectively, are the league's number ones and have been at the top of the charts for years.
The Timberwolves collapsed in the final quarter from time to time last year, and another reason was that players often played hard at key moments, unable to play Chris Finch's more ball-oriented flow and offensive mode that still worked in the first three quarters.
Similar to steven Adams of the Grizzlies, Rudy Gobert has an impact on the offensive end that is difficult to quantify by general data, and they are also good at influencing the situation through the details of the game, such as the quality of their cover is the top of the league, Steven Adams averages 5.5 cover assists per game, tied for second in the league, and Rudy Gobert is even better. He averaged the league's first 6.3 cover assists per game; conversely, the Timberwolves' original starting center Towns never had four career cover assists, considering that his partner was blocker De Angelo Russell, replacing Rudy Gobert as a coverer could be expected to release the team's offensive efficiency.
The Timberwolves bucked the tide to form a rare twin-tower lineup today, but for those familiar with Chris Finch's coaching experience, Chris Finch has always preferred a traditional center, twin-tower or even three-tower lineup.
According to The Athletic, Chris Finch shared his European coaching experience from time to time, including a time when he would send 3 seniors to play at the same time, as 3 of the 4 best players under his command at the time were long men. Of course, Chris Finch has been out of European basketball for more than a decade, and the three-tower lineup is almost impossible to make in the modern NBA. However, last year, the NBA just appeared in the starting lineup with three teams with 7 feet long, and the Cavaliers team led the half-season surprise was Chris Finch's comrade-in-arms J.B. Bixtaf when he debuted on the NBA coaching team.
In 2011, Chris Finch and J.B. Bixtaft joined the Rockets as teaching assistants the same year, and in their time, the Rockets were hardened and Howard's team, and the outside and low-post offense were equally important. Until 2015, the duo had been head coach Kevin McHale's right and left hand; After Kevin McHale was sacked, J.B. Bixtaugh temporarily took over as head coach until the end of the season, when Howard played in the team's core role in his final season.
After the 2014-15 season, Chris Finch and J.B. Bixtav left the team separately, and Chris Finch went to the Nuggets as the chief assistant coach, welcoming his first two-tower combination in the NBA: Nikola Jokic and Yusuf Nurkic. In the season before Chris Finch joined the Nuggets, the team tried to put two young and versatile centers on the court at the same time, and as a result, in seven games, they played 92 minutes at the same time, with a net worth of -9.1.
After joining the coaching staff in 2016, the Nuggets continued the experiment, letting them play 12 games for a total of 108 minutes at the same time, with a net worth of -13.8, which is the fourth worst combination of efficiency in the team's duo with a minimum of 100 minutes. Nikola Jokic understood that such a configuration was hurting the team, so he offered to head coach Michael Malone to play as a substitute. The later development of the story is clear to everyone, the Mid-Season Nuggets chose to send Yusuf Nurkic away, the remaining Nikolai Jokic quickly became the core of the team, the All-Star and the MVP of the year, and the departing Yusuf Nurkic also became the Blazers' starting center.
Chris Finch's first twin-tower combination in the NBA ended in failure.
In 2017, the Pelicans, who had just acquired DeMarcus Cousins in mid-season, recruited Chris Finch as the team's chief assistant coach. Previously, the team, led by the star twin-tower combination of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis, finished the season with just 34 wins and 48 losses.
In the 2017-18 season, DeMarcus Cousins averaged 25.2 points, 12.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.6 blocks, 1.6 steals, and Anthony Davis also played a career-best statistic: 28.1 points, 11.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 steals. They led the Pelicans to 27 wins and 21 losses, both of which were selected for the All-Star Game.
Unfortunately, DeMarcus Cousins injured Achilles tendon in January 2018 and did not renew his contract after the season, ending the twin tower era that lasted only one and a half years. Although the Kentucky long-form duo didn't bring much credit to the Pelicans, they each played their career bests in the same game, and the team also achieved a nearly 60% win rate, so Chris Finch's second twin-tower experiment was not a failure, although unsuccessful. Had Demarcus Cousins not suffered a devastating injury, there was absolutely a chance that they would have achieved more.
While most teams are in a 5-out lineup, the Timberwolves are a big bet for three main players, one first-round rookie, four first-round picks (3 for no-pick protection) and one first-round swap in exchange for Rudy Gobert, who has no ability to shoot out, but at least the Timberwolves are a gamble on the problems they faced last year. And Chris Finch, who has probably the league's most experience in fusing the twin towers, plus Downs, the league's best shooter, and Rudy Gobert, who has the widest defensive coverage, may already be the combination with the highest odds.
I don't think it's time for this team, which originally had a lot of potential new stars, to gamble, after all, the team just started to play and build a healthy culture last year, and it is unknown how far the original young squad can go. However, considering that the Timberwolves are about to change hands by the end of 2023, boss Glen Taylor is probably eager to reverse his image as a long-term rotten team before leaving office, and this shock deal has its rationality.
When the Cavaliers formed a three-long lineup last year, the outside world was also not very optimistic, and eventually they punched a group of experts in the face. Moreover, there are more teams with different lineup structures than the mainstream, is not it a blessing for the fans?