As the Minnesota Timberwolves seek to temporarily reinvent themselves in the wake of a knee surgery that has sidelined their star, Anthony Edwards, for up to two months, one reassuring phenomenon has come to the fore.
The Dosunmu Dash.
The most delectable example of the Dash is when Ayo Dosunmu becomes a one-man fast break, usually by stealing the ball, or, as happened Wednesday night when the Wolves upset the first-place Houston Rockets, outrunning the rest of the players and snatching a rolling loose ball in stride en route to a court-length layup. On these thrilling occasions, his path to the hoop is a torrid beeline, as clinically determined as a bolt from a crossbow.
Last spring, after a game against the Celtics in Boston, I asked Ayo if hours of practice on the playground was responsible for his uncanny ability to finish his breakneck dribble-sprint to the hoop with the delicate finesse required to complete the layup. “I’m not going to lie, that’s just God,” he replied.
But the myriad other ways Ayo has refined his ability to get to the rim is the result of repetitive drudgery over deity — work that has yielded a disciplined bag of artistic tricks that improvisationally shift tempo and tenor like the hoops equivalent of a jazz solo. On Wednesday in Houston, he consistently burned a top-10 defense with bursts of throttle and brake, ambidextrous crossover dribbles and angular paths that looked improbable but were proven possible by quick-strike contact with his defender, feinted upfakes that turned into pivots, or body contortions that enabled him to knife through small seams.
He carried the Wolves’ offense with a half-dozen layups in the first two quarters, scoring nine of the team’s 11 fast break points in the half and twelve of their 24 points in the paint. He finished with 11 fast break points (no other teammate had more than two) and 20 points scored in the paint (Jaden McDaniels was next-best with 12), 18 of them on nine layups. It was the third straight game he led the Wolves in both fast break points and points in the paint.
Ayo’s elevated presence has come in response to coach Chris Finch opining that he still had an “extra gear” to provide the Wolves at both ends of the court. As the first player off the bench coming into the season, he was the logical candidate to replace Ant in the starting lineup after surgery for the star was announced four games into the season. His path to greater relevance was further enhanced by the foul trouble and minutes management that have reduced playing time for his backcourt mate, LaMelo Ball, and by the sore hip that has sidelined TJ Shannon the past two games.
He has seized the opportunity, becoming arguably the Wolves’ most impactful player in the five games since Ant went down. He’s second on the team in minutes (171, two behind McDaniels), first in scoring (19.8 points per game), tied for first in steals (10), third in rebounds (32, behind the two bigs, Rudy Gobert and Joan Beringer), and second in assists (23 to LaMelo’s 28).
But it goes beyond the numbers. For the Timberwolves, the 2026-27 season is a marathon, meant to last into May and perhaps June, when champions play. The franchise has advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs for three straight seasons and made dramatic changes to the roster this summer risking a lower floor for a higher ceiling that might better confront the two teams that dominated them, the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder, in previous postseasons.
Ant’s injury puts a dent in the momentum they hoped would occur as the new personnel gained experience and cohesion. With Ant out, the new hope is to foster strengths among the remaining players that easily complement Ant’s return with minimal disruption while winning enough games to keep the team competitive in terms of playoff seeding.
Ayo’s character and versatile skill set are well-suited for the situation. His dominant trait is pushing pace — the Dosunmu Dash — and putting pressure on the rim for the Wolves offense in both the half-court and semi-transition possessions, virtues that are both valuable and malleable with or without Ant. And it feels sustainable.
Over the past five games Ayo ranks 10th in the entire NBA for points scored in the paint, and third among non-bigs — obviously paint-centric leviathans like Giannis, Wemby and Zion are going to lead the league — behind just Scottie Barnes of Toronto and Ajay Mitchell of OKC. But even when you broaden the sample to the entire season, which started with Ayo coming off the bench, he ranks 14th and fifth among non-bigs behind Barnes, Tyrese Maxey, Dylan Harper and Amen Thompson. The Dash has something to do with this, as Ayo is seventh in the NBA in points scored off turnovers in the past five games, and 12th in the league overall for this season. Along with Jaden McDaniels (who is eighth), he has propelled the Wolves to third in the NBA in points scored off opponents’ turnovers through their first nine games of the season.
Ayo’s versatile plug-and-play skill set also makes him a good bridge for the weeks Ant is out. He can play on or off the ball in the backcourt, beside or instead of LaMelo or Bones Hyland. He is an efficient three-level scorer whose impressive accuracy thus far this season (51.3% from the field, 38.2% from behind the arc and 80% at the foul line) are in line with what he posted a year ago. He can guard point guards up through small wings, but does have a little trouble defending larger wings and power forwards. When it comes to rebounding, passing and team defense, he has no glaring weaknesses that need protection in terms of player rotation. And he is a team-first role player, who won’t pout or make waves with a change in status — he’ll just work harder to rebut it.
Ayo is not the only bright spot on the roster since Ant went down. McDaniels is equally reliable and with a higher individual ceiling, albeit less versatility.
Jaylen Clark has been his usual maniac self defensively, allowing Finch the freedom to play McDaniels off the ball against potent wing scorers, but also to spare Jaden the chore of bodying up frontcourt personnel — Clark bit that bullet when Gobert was out with back spasms against Wemby and the Spurs. Meanwhile, Finch made a leap of faith encouraging him to shoot more from distance, and Clark is over 40% from three-point range thus far, a boon that still feels like it could fade at any time. But not against the Rockets on Wednesday, as Clark hit a couple of clutch treys in the fourth quarter.
The pairing of veteran power forward Trey Lyles and neophyte big man Joan Beringer is a marvelous display of growth and mentorship, with Lyles doing a fantastic job of mitigating some of Beringer’s exuberant mistakes. The sample size is small but dramatic: In the 158 minutes Beringer has logged this season, the Wolves have given up 111 points per 100 possessions, but in the 82 of those minutes when Lyles is paired with him, the Wolves allow only 100 points per 100 possessions, without a huge dropoff in Beringer’s offensive production.
Bones Hyland is the opposite of Rudy Gobert, in that his successes are loud and his liabilities quiet in their damage. He can undeniably be a sparkplug, his assist-to-turnover ratio is better than 3-to-1, and his diligence on defense is demonstrated by his eight steals and four blocks in just 112 minutes of play. But Bones is frequently targeted and bullied by opponents and the Wolves have permitted an unacceptable 122.1 points per 100 possessions during those minutes.
Which brings us to Jonathan Kuminga, who continues to do the thankless dirty work at a level that compelled me to rave about him in my last column. He is the most pleasant surprise thus far of the Wolves 2026-27 season. I won’t repeat myself regarding the disciplined manner with which he has embraced his role — it’s why Finch recently remarked that the Wolves would be “lost without him” — but do want to highlight the eight points he scored in the final 2:37 of Wednesday’s game, a pair a clutch corner three-pointers sandwiched around a gritty putback in traffic under the hoop.
That’s Kuminga this season — able to be heroic when the situation warrants but otherwise fulfilling every bit of the fundamentals of his role. Of course there is a strong temptation to give his skills more runway, but having spent so much time honing his current value to a fine edge, the gamble of disrupting a good thing, either during Ant’s absence or the reversion to drudgery when Ant returns, feels like a careless risk on a currently sterling status quo.
Last but certainly not least is the play of LaMelo Ball, the logical “next man up” to the top of the Wolves pecking order. This too carries an element of risk. My gut assessment is that LaMelo doesn’t need any encouragement on how and when to dominate — he correctly regards himself as something of a unicorn, who, mostly for the better, follows his willful intuition. Putting him more overtly in the position of filling the void left by Ant would likely make the Wolves’ play more erratic — possibly better overall, in terms of wins and losses — but more turbulent for the teammates we have just discussed.
Ideally, LaMelo will have his cake and share it too, which is exactly what happened Wednesday night in Houston. He started strong, with eight points, two assists and a steal in the first period. But in the second and third quarters, he disappeared — scoreless in a combined 15:22 of play, with two assists against five turnovers. Fortunately, Ayo grabbed the baton, shooting 7-for-12 with four assists and zero turnovers in a robust 19:26 of action in those same two quarters.
It was taxing duty and Ayo wilted somewhat in the fourth quarter, missing his final five shots after making ten of his first fifteen. After a long rest, LaMelo entered the game with 8:14 left to play and the Rockets up by a point at 92-91. Houston responded by going small, pulling center Alperen Sengun, and targeting LaMelo — who’d done yeoman’s work guarding Jabari Smith earlier in the game — on defense by matching him up with Marcus Smart.
The gambit worked way too well. LaMelo committed three fouls in a 32-second span, which didn’t really put him in foul trouble this late in the game, but did put the Wolves in the penalty, meaning that Houston would shoot free throws on every whistle for the final 7:10 of the game.
Then the unicorn emerged. LaMelo took a feed from McDaniels and splashed a 26-foot trey to tie the game at 94. He drew a foul on Smart as he tossed a lob to Gobert and canned two free throws to tie it again at 96. Kuminga fed him for another 26-footer and the Wolves were up three. Sengun came back in, replacing Smart.
Having nailed a pair of long-range missiles, LaMelo created gravity out on the perimeter, sucking in another defender as he threaded his way into the lane before zipping a pass to Clark in the corner for a gutsy dime on a wide-open trey. Next counter punch was a pair of driving layups, extensions of his 6-foot, 7-inch frame while his foes tried to parse if he was kicking it out again. That’s twelve clutch points and a key dime in a mere four minutes.
It was then time for the aforementioned Kuminga heroics, balanced out by rugged team defense. Ball rewarded Gobert’s fourth block of the game by feeding him an alley-oop that stretched the lead to 11 points with 41 seconds left to play. The Rockets, who had won their previous four home games by an average of more than 15 points, fell to 7-2, a game ahead of the Wolves at 6-3.
This is the template: A torrid pace, ample ball movement, a baton passed to the hot hand, with an emphasis on who can best command the situation. Supposed role players like Kuminga and Clark are ready, willing and able to step up when called. The defense forced 22 turnovers and the Wolves capitalized to the tune of 33 points. That is a ballclub taking care of business, creating habits and cohesion that will continue to work when Any returns.
Even the schedule-makers are pitching in to the good vibes, with a whopping seven-game homestand over a fortnight that will enable Finch and his staff to tinker and tweak via an extensive run of practices without the disruption of travel.
In the And One newsletter, the surprising, sparkling defense of LaMelo Ball.
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