Griffin Wong breaks down his analysis, prediction, and pick for Jazz at Timberwolves on Friday.
For as much success as the Minnesota Timberwolves have had over the last two seasons, making the Western Conference Finals in each season, there’s one hole on their resume: they’ve never made it out of the group stage in the Emirates NBA Cup. Minnesota will hope to make that change this season when it begins West Group A play with an 8 p.m. ET home matchup against the Utah Jazz, who lost their first game of the NBA Cup to the Phoenix Suns.
The Timberwolves should be at full strength; though Anthony Edwards is officially listed as questionable with his hamstring injury, he played 29 minutes in Minnesota’s Wednesday loss to the New York Knicks. The Jazz will play their fourth game without center Walker Kessler, who underwent season-ending shoulder surgery, but Isaiah Collier is off the injury report for a third straight game and could make his season debut.
The Timberwolves are 12.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-575 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 233.5. Utah has +425 odds of pulling off the upset. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s clash and offer a prediction.
Utah Jazz at Minnesota Timberwolves preview, prediction
Minnesota has had a slow start to the season, which has become typical: at this point last season, it was 4-3. Edwards missed most of five games with his hamstring strain as the Timberwolves went 3-2 without him. In his absence, Julius Randle has been brilliant, averaging 26.8 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.6 assists per game while canning 44.2% of his three-pointers, and Jaden McDaniels has shot the ball lights-out as well. However, Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s defense has been missed somewhat, Mike Conley has aged badly, and Minnesota has been unable to stop anyone with Rudy Gobert off the floor.
The Jazz, meanwhile, have been surprisingly competitive after entering the season projected to be the worst team in the NBA. Utah has slowed down a little bit without Kessler, losing two of three games with both losses coming by double-digit points, but its third-quarter comeback against the Boston Celtics was an impressive display. The Jazz have a lot of intriguing young players, including third-year combo guard Keyonte George, whose strong play has effectively pushed Collier out of the rotation, as well as a solid veteran leader in Lauri Markkanen.
Jazz at Timberwolves pick, best bet
Edwards shot just five-for-13 and didn’t play his usually impactful perimeter defense as the Timberwolves got blown out by the Knicks in his return. Randle’s heroics aside, it was a poor display overall for Minnesota, which saw Naz Reid and Rob Dillingham each shoot just two-for-seven from the floor and allowed New York center Mitchell Robinson to snag nine offensive rebounds in just 16 minutes. All in all, the Knicks out-rebounded Minnesota 50-31, which has been somewhat of a theme: the Timberwolves have had the ninth-lowest total rebounding percentage so far this season after finishing 10th in that stat in 2024-25. All in all, they also have the fourth-worst defensive rating.
Individually, Gobert has had a career-low rebounding percentage, but he’s been the least of Minnesota’s concerns. Without him on the floor, the Timberwolves’ rebounding percentage drops by 9.9 percentage points, and at plus-26.6, he’s had the sixth-biggest on-off swing of any qualified player in the league. Reid has averaged just 5.3 rebounds per game and has had a negative-5.0 on-court net rating, and Conley has had a negative box plus/minus for the first time since 2009-10. It’s no surprise that Minnesota’s bench has had the league’s ninth-worst net rating, even though it was among the league’s best units last season. Thankfully, Chris Finch doesn’t utilize his bench very frequently, giving his second unit the seventh-fewest minutes in each of the past two seasons.
Utah would have been a bad matchup for the Timberwolves prior to Kessler’s injury, given that it ranked third in rebounding percentage through the end of October. However, since his injury, the Jazz have dropped all the way to 13th in rebounding percentage and have attempted the ninth-fewest shots in the restricted area, hitting such shots at the seventh-lowest rate. They also went from allowing the fewest shots per game at the rim to the 16th-most, which is good news for a league-average finishing team that has attempted the 12th-most restricted-area shots this season and held opponents to the fifth-lowest percentage on the other end. The key for Utah will be drawing fouls — it has done so at the league’s fourth-highest rate this season — which, in turn, might force Gobert’s second disqualification of the season. Its pass-heavy scheme might pay off, especially if Collier plays: Minnesota has allowed the 11th-most assists and forced the 11th-fewest turnovers.
Just as they were last season, the Jazz have been exploitable from deep, allowing the most three-point attempts per game, though that figure has dropped to merely the seventh-most since Kessler’s injury. The Timberwolves have also allowed lots of deep tries over the last few games, though unlike Utah’s, a small proportion of those threes have been uncontested. Both teams have benefited from some shooting luck: Minnesota has hit at the third-highest rate on wide-open threes, with the Jazz ranking ninth. McDaniels, Edwards, Randle, and Conley have all made more than half of their uncontested tries this season, an unsustainable number, and Markkanen’s 53.3% mark is also certain to drop.
Picking Utah to win would be too bold, since Jusuf Nurkić probably isn’t an NBA-quality starting center at this point in his career, but the Timberwolves have been unconvincing, especially in non-Gobert minutes. Shooting luck normalization would also hinge towards an advantage for the Jazz, and Collier can be a useful low-usage player in an offense that has been more pass-heavy this season than last. Utah’s surprising competitiveness will continue with a closely-fought defeat.
Best bet: Utah Jazz +12.5 (-110)
