NEW YORK — For the moment, Donte DiVincenzo’s nose winds twistedly from his forehead to his upper lip like a tributary of the Mississippi River.
An inadvertent elbow from Collin Sexton in Charlotte last weekend inducted DiVincenzo into the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Broken Nose Club, an injury that has also befallen teammates Rob Dillingham and Rocco Zikarsky in this young season. All three have worn masks, but DiVincenzo takes the award for most gruesome.
“Mine looked worse,” he deadpanned.
Yet there is something about the swollen nasal bone, the gash across the bridge and the two blackened eyes that came with it that just seems to suit the Timberwolves’ fiery veteran. He doesn’t look like a shooting guard. He looks like a prizefighter, and he has been throwing haymakers ever since he was first knocked down two games ago.
Donte Divincenzo has a broken nose pic.twitter.com/bI9a7IB8Ot
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) November 1, 2025
DiVincenzo went 6 of 13 from 3-point range and scored a team-high 25 points Monday night in Brooklyn, nine of them coming in the fourth quarter, to help the Timberwolves turn a too-close-for-comfort game against the lowly Nets into a comfortable 125-109 victory. He also had nine rebounds and five assists, one game after he hit five of his last seven shots against the Hornets, with no mask and a piece of gauze shoved up his nostril to stop the bleeding.
If Hollywood was going to remake “Raging Bull,” DiVincenzo would be a shoo-in for Jake LaMotta. The look fits his personality. He is the hot-blooded Italian, the one who stepped into the fray in a brawl with the Detroit Pistons last season, the one still beloved in New York for the grit and toughness he brought to the Knicks.
The elbow from Sexton put the taste of blood in DiVincenzo’s mouth, and it seems to have added some vinegar to his game and some salt to the Timberwolves after a less-than-impressive start to this season.
When DiVincenzo reflected this summer on his first year in Minnesota, he was proud of the team for making it to a second straight Western Conference finals. But as he talked things over with the coaching staff, he felt like something was missing in his play for most of that whirlwind year. The trade from New York right before the start of training camp threw him and his family for a loop and seemed to sap some of his trademark attitude. Assistant coaches, including James White, showed DiVincenzo clips of the player who captured the hearts of Knicks fans at Madison Square Garden. Then they showed him clips of his time in Minnesota, a decidedly more muted version.
“I just don’t think I played with that same edge or chip on my shoulder that I did in years past,” DiVincenzo said. “And I wanted to get back to that, first and foremost.”
This team needs a little spice right now. The opening to the season has been underwhelming at best and uninspiring at worst. The Wolves have looked, at times, like a team that just can’t wait for the playoffs to get here. The defense has been slow to arrive. A home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers without Luka Dončić and LeBron James stoked some frustrations. Anthony Edwards’ injury raised some concerns about a potential losing skid.
Whether it was a lack of energy because of an early-season malaise or some real deficiencies in the roster, the Wolves have needed a jolt. For much of his career, DiVincenzo has been the kind of guy who delivers it. Like most of his teammates, he wasn’t playing with the necessary physicality on defense to start the season. He also may have put a little too much on his own plate by trying to be a playmaker after coach Chris Finch inserted him into Mike Conley’s usual spot in the starting lineup.
After the loss to the Lakers, Finch said one of the priorities going forward without Edwards was to get DiVincenzo more shots. He took only seven in that game, but has combined to shoot 31 times over the last two victories.
Even if he is looking at it through tears in his eyes. DiVincenzo had to leave the game in Brooklyn in the first quarter after getting hit in the face by Nets guard Cam Thomas. The mask could do only so much protecting, and the shot caught him in just the right way to stun him. But just like in the game in Charlotte on Saturday, DiVincenzo came back firing.
“Donte’s one of those guys who I don’t think you can ever challenge his toughness,” Finch said. “He’s tough all the way around. He’s feisty.”
The Timberwolves pride themselves on toughness and resilience, but that has been slow to materialize this season. Monday night was a perfect example. The Nets are winless on the season and have one of the worst rosters in recent memory. That includes Michael Porter Jr., who missed the game for personal reasons.
But the Wolves turned the ball over eight times in the first quarter, clearly taking such a talent-starved team for granted. They led by only four at halftime — the first time this season Brooklyn has not trailed by double digits at the break — and three after three quarters. But Finch went with a zone defense to start the fourth quarter and also got creative with an ultra-big lineup of DiVincenzo, Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert to put the game away.
25 POINTS FOR DONTE pic.twitter.com/ixDlle84zy
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 4, 2025
“That’s what Te does, he’s a big-time shotmaker,” said Randle, who had a triple-double with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. “He can get really hot, ultra-competitive. Plays really hard both ends of the floor and that’s why he’s such a big piece for us.”
Reid had 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including three 3s in the fourth, Gobert had 15 points and 12 rebounds and was a plus-27 in 34 minutes, and McDaniels continued his offensive blossoming with 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting.
Victories over the Nets and Hornets are nothing to get too excited about, but the glimmers of defense they have put on display are a welcome change from the first two weeks of the season. Edwards figures to be back soon. He was cleared for contact work and will practice in New York on Tuesday.
DiVincenzo is also more involved on offense than he has been since he was acquired in the trade, shooting 25 3s in the last two games.
“Guys are generating them and also I have to not turn them down,” he said. “If it’s open, a kind of so-so look for somebody might be a better look for me. But that’s making the right read and not just launching when I’m out there.”
The timing of the trade last season made it difficult for DiVincenzo to truly establish himself on a team with grand ambitions. He left a starting job with the Knicks to come to a backup role in Minnesota, and the lack of familiarity with his teammates brought a hesitance to his game and his attitude that dulled his impact. He spent too much time jabbing last season and not enough time standing in the middle of the ring and swinging.
Now the Timberwolves are starting to see signs of the real DiVincenzo. Outside of Edwards, the Wolves have a largely quiet locker room. McDaniels, Randle, Gobert, Conley, Reid, none of them are particularly emotional or fiery. DiVincenzo is salty, even ornery sometimes. When the battle starts, he jumps into the pit with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.
That is exactly what these Timberwolves need from him.
“He crazy,” McDaniels said with a wry grin. “Just the energy he brings on defense. He’s always in the lanes, getting steals, starting the break and stuff, making us play faster. He’s crazy.”
The next ring will be a familiar one. Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night against the team that unceremoniously dumped him after his stirring performance in a seven-game loss to the Indiana Pacers in the 2024 Eastern Conference semifinals. He will have another fight on his hands, but that’s nothing new for him.
DiVincenzo has always been a fighter. Now he just looks the part.
