LATE IN GAME 4 of the Timberwolves’ first-round collection towards the Phoenix Suns, with Minnesota seeking to safe the sweep, Wolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker knew he needed to make a play.
It was April 28, and Minnesota was clinging to a 113-111 lead within the remaining minutes. After a missed 3-point try from the Wolves’ Mike Conley, the Suns had an opportunity to tie or take the result in lengthen their season.
Alexander-Walker watched as Devin Booker threw a cross to Kevin Durant, who obtained doubled within the put up. Durant tossed it again out to Eric Gordon, who swung it to Bradley Beal within the left nook as Durant slipped again to the suitable.
Because the sequence developed, Alexander-Walker made the kind of play his coaches and teammates now belief him to make: He noticed Durant open after Karl-Anthony Cities reduce off a driving Beal within the lane, and as Beal let a bounce cross go in Durant’s route, Alexander-Walker stretched out his arm for the tip and the steal.
Sixteen seconds later, Anthony Edwards detonated on the rim for a dunk on Durant that pushed the Wolves’ benefit to a two-possession recreation. Minnesota by no means led by lower than 4 once more in finishing the sweep.
“I believe that play proper there was like, ‘I’ll win this recreation and affect it as finest as I can,'” Alexander-Walker tells ESPN. “Earlier than it was like, ‘Man, I do not obtained it going. I am looking for it.’ Now it is like, ‘I’ll affect this it doesn’t matter what.'”
After taking part in for 3 NBA groups in 5 years, the 25-year-old Toronto native who arrived in Minneapolis on the 2023 commerce deadline has proven why he is a key a part of the Wolves’ hopes to advance from the Western Convention semifinals towards the top-seeded Denver Nuggets.
“He is been certainly one of our greatest gamers within the playoffs to date, and a variety of it has been his psychological aspect,” Conley tells ESPN. “He is actually labored on that so much. He isn’t letting anger take over, not letting previous errors take over the subsequent play.
“When he is 100% on that, man, he is certainly one of our higher X elements for our group.”
ALEXANDER-WALKER HAS quietly turned himself into one of many NBA’s finest defensive gamers.
His journey has been something however linear. As a rookie out of Virginia Tech with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019-20, Alexander-Walker held opponents to 48.4% capturing because the contesting defender. That ranked 288th out of 317 gamers who defended at the very least 250 photographs.
Alexander-Walker was initially billed as a bench scorer however shortly struggled to seek out rhythm in his first two years. Halfway by his third marketing campaign in New Orleans, the group dealt him to the Portland Path Blazers. He thought it may very well be a much-needed free begin, however he was shortly traded once more to a aggressive Utah Jazz group, which meant he’d be spending extra time on the bench.
“I virtually felt like I had missed the window for my profession,” Alexander-Walker admits. However now, he appears at it utterly in a different way. “I believe New Orleans (buying and selling) me was the perfect factor that might have ever occurred. It taught me easy methods to be a person. be a real skilled.
“By means of the ups and downs of all of it, I discovered the one factor I’ve is my work.”
Whereas in Utah, Alexander-Walker’s mindset shifted. He realized he was going to must grow to be extra of a defensive participant. In restricted minutes in 2022-23, he held opponents to 40.9% capturing as the closest defender. He knew that if he was to have a protracted future within the NBA, he would wish to prioritize the soiled work.
Two days earlier than the 2023 commerce deadline, Alexander-Walker was on the transfer once more.
As part of a three-team cope with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Timberwolves that concerned Russell Westbrook and D’Angelo Russell, the Jazz despatched Conley and Alexander-Walker to Minnesota.
Alexander-Walker was a throw-in, typical knowledge indicated, a participant whose wage happy the mundane guidelines of the collective bargaining settlement.
When he arrived in Minnesota, there have been acquainted faces: Conley, Rudy Gobert and several other staffers who had been beforehand with New Orleans, together with Wolves coach Chris Finch, who did not at all times have the rosiest relationship with Alexander-Walker.
“Me and him had been butting heads due to my eagerness in a sure means as a rookie for what I used to be wanting for my profession,” Alexander-Walker says.
The 2 hadn’t spoken since Alexander-Walker left New Orleans, and he wasn’t positive if Finch knew concerning the progress he made as a defender. However Alexander-Walker was relieved to seek out out that each Finch and Wolves president Tim Connelly did know — they usually hoped it was one thing he would proceed to develop in Minnesota.
“It takes some time for everybody to form of determine who they’re on this league,” Finch tells ESPN. “As a younger participant, I watched him undergo many frustrations, however that is who we at all times felt he may very well be.
“Even again in New Orleans, we at all times thought this was who he may very well be.”
A SINGLE PUNCH would offer Alexander-Walker the opening he wanted in Minnesota.
On April 9, 2023, the Timberwolves and the Pelicans entered the regular-season finale tied within the standings at 41-40. They performed at Minneapolis’ Goal Middle, with the winner getting the No. 8 spot and the Lakers within the play-in match, whereas the loser would fall to No. 9 and face the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder.
Late within the first quarter, after choosing up his second foul, Wolves beginning ahead and defensive stalwart Jaden McDaniels walked into the tunnel close to the Minnesota bench and punched what he thought was a cloth wall. He did not see the brick behind it.
McDaniels instantly clutched at his proper fist; his hand was damaged.
The Wolves ended up successful. After a subsequent loss to the Lakers, Minnesota and Oklahoma Metropolis matched as much as decide who would go to the playoffs to face the No. 1-seeded Nuggets.
With McDaniels out, Alexander-Walker drew OKC’s hardest matchup — his cousin Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Within the first 4 years of his profession, Alexander-Walker had guarded his cousin 27 occasions in half-court matchups, holding him to 3-of-11 capturing.
Alexander-Walker came upon he was beginning — and drawing the task — that morning at shootaround. Eschewing a few of his regular recreation day routine, Alexander-Walker went dwelling and watched three hours of movie on his cousin’s earlier video games. He appeared for each inform, each transfer, each play that might occur.
That evening, the Wolves dominated, beating the younger Thunder 120-95. Gilgeous-Alexander shot 5-of-19 within the loss.
Alexander-Walker subsequent drew the task of guarding Nuggets’ star Jamal Murray. In response to ESPN monitoring information, Murray shot 17-of-40 (42.5%) with Alexander-Walker as the primary defender and 29-of-53 (54.7%) with another Wolves participant guarding him.
Though Denver gained the first-round collection 4-1, it was a stifling defensive efficiency from Alexander-Walker that raised eyebrows all through the Wolves group.
“I do not assume he was often called a defensive stopper or something like that coming in, however he actually took that satisfaction and took satisfaction in that,” Conley says. “And as soon as Jaden went out, it was like, we want any individual to protect Jamal. We want any individual to protect these elite guards. Who can it’s?
“He confirmed up, and he answered the bell.”
And Alexander-Walker has continued to take action. Taking part in in all 82 video games for the primary time in his profession and averaging a career-high 23.4 minutes per recreation, he held opponents to 41.1% capturing because the contesting defender in 2023-24. Per Second Spectrum, that ranked fourth finest amongst gamers to contest at the very least 500 photographs.
Nonetheless, he has struggled to lock down the defending champs this postseason. The Nuggets are at the moment capturing 49% whereas he is the first defender.
“He doesn’t wish to be scored on,” Wolves assistant coach Jim Boylan tells ESPN. “He is a really aggressive individual.”
AFTER BEING DRAFTED by New Orleans and traded thrice, Alexander-Walker lastly had a selection of the place he wished to play when he turned a free agent final summer time.
Remaining in Minnesota would give him the chance to do one thing he’d by no means completed earlier than both: begin the season with the identical coach he completed the earlier yr with.
Finch stated the group pitched him on each in an effort to convey him again.
“It was so essential to re-sign him,” Finch stated in December. “We noticed what he might do to assist this group final yr down the stretch. He feels actually comfy right here. I believe we now have a larger appreciation for who he’s as a participant. Now, the protection is means higher than we had anticipated, and he understands that that is his ticket to creating an affect on the ground.”
In July, Alexander-Walker agreed to a two-year, $9 million contract with Minnesota. For the primary time in his profession, the function he wished and the one his group wanted had been in settlement.
“It was a two-way buy-in,” Boylan says. “We purchased into him, however he purchased into us on the identical time.”
His teammates have purchased in too.
“For me, I respect work greater than something,” Gobert tells ESPN. “And initially, I like the way in which he works daily. And that interprets to the court docket … each minute that he’s on the court docket. He takes each play critical. He takes each possession critical. … Every little thing that he does has a objective.”
Conley says he has seen a “night-and-day distinction” from the participant he first met to the one he sees now.
Cities, for his half, credit Alexander-Walker for extra than simply his protection.
“After we actually need our group to get disciplined to settle down, he is been the one a variety of occasions in these actions,” Cities says. “So, Keil been super for us. I may very well be right here all day speaking concerning the nice issues he does for our group.
“We’re simply tremendous blessed to have him.”
