RandBall: After enough slander, it’s time to appreciate Mike Conley again

A statistical analysis of what happens to the Timberwolves when they start to struggle will reveal a propensity to turn the ball over combined with a flurry of missed shots, many of them taken too early in the shot clock as players take turns trying to be heroes.

The eye test boils it down to this: The things that can look so easy for the Wolves suddenly look hard, and often, this is self-inflicted.

This is life in the fourth quarter of NBA games, when already taut defensive coverages become even more focused, but these Wolves can be particularly susceptible to being overcome by tidal waves of momentum.

We witnessed it as the Wolves blew a 24-point lead in the fourth quarter Tuesday in Milwaukee, allowing the Bucks to go on a 34-3 run while looking helpless against a zone defense.

We were starting to see evidence of it Thursday, as the Wolves allowed a 23-point fourth-quarter lead over Memphis to dwindle down to 10 with about four minutes left.

A hard mid-range basket from Julius Randle started to get the Wolves unstuck, and sometimes that is required in a make-or-miss league.

But there’s nothing like easy points in a hard game to make everyone relax a little. So this is an appreciation post about the only Wolves starter who didn’t score in double figures during that eventual and massively important 141-125 win over Memphis:

The much-maligned and now once again appreciated Mike Conley Jr., whom I talked about on Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

Micro appreciation: With the Wolves hanging onto a 12-point lead, Memphis guard Ja Morant was fouled. He had been griping all game and earned a technical foul, even though he got the call in this case.

To the line went Conley, a 90% free throw shooter this season, for a nearly guaranteed point that canceled out the Memphis possession when Morant went 1-for-2 from the line.

Next trip down the court, Conley ran a pick-and-roll with Gobert. Seeing that Morant was in no man’s land and was late to arrive, Conley probed into the lane, drew Gobert’s defender and slipped him a pass for an easy dunk.

Ball game.

It was a basic enough play, but that’s the point: In a quarter when nothing was coming easy and every shot seemed to be either an over-confident three or a contested two, Conley got the Wolves the simplest two points possible.

Macro appreciation: Conley was awful in the very early part of the year, and I became fond of lamenting that the Wolves’ strategy of having point guards who were 37 (Conley) and 19 (rookie Rob Dillingham, who has since turned 20) was going to cost them the season.

Since his slow start, which is typical for Conley but becomes magnified with age, he has been very good. He’s shooting 47.2% from three-point range since the All-Star break. In Thursday’s win, he was a plus-29 in 27 minutes.

The Wolves entered Friday 42-27 when he plays and 5-6 when he doesn’t. He calms the Wolves (and their fans) with both his presence and his play.

Assuming the Wolves get into the playoffs, they’re going to need even more of that in the coming weeks.