For 24 minutes at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa, the Minnesota Timberwolves looked like the team the front office tore its core apart to build: Anthony Edwards scoring at will, LaMelo Ball conducting, a halftime lead and a neutral-site crowd leaning their way. Then the starters sat, Indiana poured in 38 points in the third quarter, and the Pacers walked off with a 123-112 preseason win. The Ball-Edwards backcourt is already real. The eight to ten minutes a night without it are the actual project.
The first half was the sales pitch
Edwards scored all 19 of his points before the break and made it look like a formality: 5-of-10 from the floor, 4-of-5 from three, 5-of-6 at the line in 19 minutes. He did not record a turnover. When he’s hunting his own shot inside a motion offense instead of bailing it out at the end of the clock, you remember why he’s the franchise.
Minnesota’s starting five was Ball, Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Jonathan Kuminga and Rudy Gobert, with Donte DiVincenzo the lone name on the out list.
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The best of those was the obvious one. Ball finished with 14 points and seven assists on 4-of-6 from deep, and in the first quarter he was a genuine problem, pulling up from distance and threading pocket passes Minnesota’s guards haven’t thrown in years. He also coughed it up five times, which is the Ball tax and always has been.
McDaniels was the quiet co-star, 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting with four threes, the kind of stretch-four night that makes the spacing math work around two ball-dominant guards. Minnesota won the second quarter 38-29, took a 65-61 lead into the locker room, and shot a frankly absurd 19-of-41 from three for the game. The threes were not the problem. Hold that thought.
The third quarter sent the bill
Here is where a preseason box score turns into a scouting report. Out of halftime, with Gobert and McDaniels mostly finished for the night, Minnesota’s defense came apart at the seams. Indiana outscored the Wolves 38-26 in the third, flipped a four-point deficit into the lead for good, and did it with the prettiest basketball of the night: 39 assists on 48 made field goals, 50 points in the paint, every cut and skip pass finding a body in the right place.
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That’s the whole evening in two sentences. LaMelo made it rain early; the defense fell apart when Rudy and Jaden went to the bench. Jarace Walker ran the show for Indiana with 10 assists, Jay Huff went for 16 off the bench, and Ben Sheppard added 13 with three triples against Minnesota’s reserve units. I rewound the third quarter looking for the stop that never came, and the honest answer is that the non-Gobert lineups didn’t have one in them.
The turnovers compounded it. Minnesota gave the ball away 19 times and Indiana turned that into 28 points, a brutal rate for a team that also surrendered 50 in the paint. You can live with 53 percent opponent shooting in October. You cannot live with handing a good passing team 28 points and then letting it carve you for 39 assists on top. Indiana’s largest lead hit 13; Minnesota’s topped out at nine, all of it in the first half.
The standouts, and the ones who didn’t show
Edwards and McDaniels were the clear two. After them, the bench guards made the better case than the vets.
Bones Hyland scored 10 on 3-of-6 from three in 11 minutes and was one of the few Wolves who looked more dangerous as the night got sloppier.
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That’s the tension with Hyland in a sentence: the point-guard mode gets him on the floor, the scorer’s edge is what makes him worth playing. Ayo Dosunmu added 10 and three assists, Terrence Shannon Jr. had nine and got to the line five times, and Trey Lyles chipped in eight on 2-of-3 from deep. Joan Beringer didn’t score much (two points) but pulled eight rebounds in 19 minutes and blocked a shot, which is a fine October for a young big.
The duds were loud. Kuminga, starting and theoretically a centerpiece of the new frontcourt look, went 1-of-9 for two points with zero made threes in 19 minutes and a minus-7. One bad preseason shooting night is nothing; a 1-of-9 from a player Minnesota is counting on to score in the half court is a data point worth filing. Jaylen Clark played 11 minutes, missed both his field-goal attempts, turned it over twice and finished minus-16, the worst mark on the team. Gobert was quietly fine, seven points and nine boards in 19 minutes, and his plus-7 is not a coincidence given where the defense went when he left.
Rotation math and what it actually means
Finch kept the starters to 19-21 minutes apiece and emptied the bench, which is preseason boilerplate. What it exposed is not: Minnesota’s offense and defense both cratered whenever both Edwards and Ball sat. Wolvesmuse put the cleanest frame on the problem.
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Agreed, and it’s the staggering puzzle Finch has to solve by October 21 in Miami. Keep one of Ball or Edwards on the floor at all times and the non-star minutes get survivable; let them rest together and the half court goes quiet and the defense leaks. That’s a lineup-sheet fix as much as a talent one, and it’s the single most important thing to watch in the next two exhibitions.
Finch, for his part, sounded like a coach who sees the ceiling and the to-do list at once. “There’s tremendous potential for those guys to be dynamic, explosive, entertaining, all of that stuff,” he said of the Edwards-Ball pairing, per The Score. “I think the ceiling is extremely high, but we have lots of work to do to solidify it.” On Ball specifically: “He brings a joy to the game, always fun to be around. He’s got a fast chemistry with everybody.”
On the other side, this was Tyrese Haliburton’s first game action since his Achilles injury in the 2025 Finals, and he eased back in with seven points, six assists and two blocks in 16 minutes. Aaron Nesmith was the Pacers’ most efficient scorer, 19 points on 7-of-9 with four threes. Indiana’s passing was the story of the night, and it’s a reminder that a team can beat you without its best player near full tilt.
The 19 turnovers against 22 assists is the cost of admission on a backcourt this new, and the reps will sand that down. The defense when Gobert and McDaniels rest is the part that won’t sand itself down, and it’s what Finch has two weeks to fix before the opener. Indiana spent one night drawing him the blueprint for free.
