Preseason basketball is open gym with a scoreboard and a national feed, so nobody’s hanging a banner for this one. But the Minnesota Timberwolves walked into Fiserv Forum, beat the Milwaukee Bucks 116-97, and for one October night the roster Minnesota rebuilt over the summer looked like it had been running together for years instead of weeks.
It took exactly one possession to feel the new math. LaMelo Ball came off a ball screen, waited a beat, and slipped Jonathan Kuminga a pocket pass for the game’s first layup, the first of Kuminga’s eight points as a Wolf. A couple of trips later Ball pulled up from the left wing for his first three in a Minnesota jersey, then kicked the next possession to Anthony Edwards for another, and suddenly it was 15-7 and Fiserv Forum had that nervous hum of a home crowd watching the visitors cook. Nine weeks removed from a backcourt that didn’t exist, these two were already finishing each other’s sentences.
The number that told the story: 56-26 in the paint. Minnesota lived in the lane, went 31-of-52 inside the arc, and piled on a 26-9 edge in transition just to be rude about it. The three-point shooting was genuinely rough, 9-of-35, the kind of night where the ball clangs off iron so often you start wondering whether someone nudged the rims a few inches to the left while nobody was looking. Didn’t matter much when the layups come in bulk. The math sorts itself out.
Edwards played 18 minutes, scored 14, buried all five of his free throws, and spent the rest of the night learning the rhythms of a guy who, in his own words, “plays like his hair is on fire.” That was Ant’s scouting report on his new point guard, and he kept going: “He talked more than I expected throughout the game. … I love people who talk. Let us know what you see.” Ball finished with 11 points, three assists, a steal and the one thing Minnesota traded half its core to get: a floor general who makes the whole game louder. None of it was seamless. Nobody sane expected seamless in game one of exhibition season.
The part that actually buzzed was the kids. Young French big Joan Beringer went for 12 points and seven boards in 15 minutes, blocked a shot at the rim, and threw down a dunk loud enough to freeze a Milwaukee run cold. He looked like a rotation player, not a summer project. Antonio Reeves was a perfect 5-of-5 for 12 and a team-best plus-14. Zyon Pullin added 10 off the bench. Rudy Gobert did Rudy things quietly, six and seven in 17 minutes, and Jaden McDaniels slid in nine on 4-of-5 without anybody noticing, which is the most McDaniels sentence I can write.
Milwaukee had its moments. Kel’el Ware stacked a 14-and-12 double-double and looks like a genuine problem. Ryan Rollins dropped 15 but fouled out in 14 minutes, which is a preseason box-score line if there ever was one. The Bucks even swiped the third quarter 28-21 once Minnesota’s starters hit the bench, before the Wolves’ deep reserves slammed the door with a 35-21 fourth and turned a tidy win into a laugher.
So how much of this is real? Honestly, almost none of it. Ant is not shooting 4-of-13 come April, those threes will fall, and Milwaukee was not sweating a Monday in early October. Minnesota controlled roughly 46 of the game’s 48 minutes in front of 9,147 people who paid to watch a glorified scrimmage.
But the paint ownership was real. The ball movement was real. The kids were real. And Ant and LaMelo trading looks like they’d been doing it for a decade instead of a week? That was the realest thing in the building.
File it under pleasant and move on.
The games start counting October 21 in Miami.
