Let's point out at the beginning that every game of an 82-game season cannot be treated as a referendum on any single player or team.
To do so is exhausting and impractical just as much as it's inaccurate and unfair. It creates false narratives, or at least the chasing of narratives — whereby information that supports conclusions is more likely to be used and remembered that information that does not.
There's your backdrop for Monday's 114-109 Timberwolves overtime win over Boston, a masterpiece of grit that felt more like a playoff game in May than a regular-season game in early November.