The Timberwolves have their act together at the moment, but stop me if you've heard that before (like, say, at least three previous times already this season).

In their ebb and flow, they are on another modest upswing after winning their third consecutive game Thursday in Orlando. This is already their fourth winning streak of at least three games this season, a feat that would be more impressive if they didn't also have four losing streaks of at least three games.

They keep turning a corner straight into a crisis — almost always, for better or worse, of their own making. At times their defense has been dominant or Anthony Edwards has caught a heater or, now, a starting lineup change has given them a new edge. At others there have been serious questions about and losses resulting from Julius Randle's fit after the Karl-Anthony Towns trade ... or Rudy Gobert's defense ... or Ant solving double-teams.

It's a lot of drama for just 37 games, and the net result is a team very firmly stuck in the middle of an unforgiving conference filled with a lot of teams just like them. They're tied for seventh right now, but just six games separate the third-place team (Memphis) from the 12th-place team (Phoenix) as of Friday morning.

This is the lonesome, crowded West yet again (if I might borrow from Modest Mouse). It's been like this for as long as the Wolves have been recently relevant, but perhaps you forgot last year when Minnesota stayed largely above the fray and firmly in the top three all season.

What is their place in it this year? Can they rise up and be a top-six team that avoids the play-in, and perhaps even a top-four team that gets a home playoff series? Are they destined to live in the middle, resigned to the play-in like they were in the 2022 and 2023 postseason? Will they miss the playoffs entirely?

That is a great question, and one I tried to unpack on Friday's Daily Delivery podcast.

If you are optimistic, like Randle, perhaps you can see more highs than lows emerging as the season progresses.

"I think we're due for a good winning streak right now," Randle said after Thursday's 104-89 win over a battered Orlando squad. "We've had a tough schedule. I'm not making excuses obviously, but we played the best of the best, so there's going to be a little bit of that, but we're due for a winning streak, and hopefully that's the end of [the losing streaks]."

Saying it and doing it are two different things, of course. Before this three-game winning streak, the Wolves had a three-game losing streak. Before that, they had a three-game winning streak. And before that? Yep, a three-game losing streak.

The next three games, then, provide a perfect test. They're home Saturday against Memphis, a team the Wolves are trying to gain ground on in the West. Then it's a trip to Washington, one of the league's worst teams but a game that will demand focus nonetheless. And finally Golden State back at Target Center, a team the Wolves need to stay ahead of if they want to have a top-six spot.

We don't know what the Wolves are yet because they don't know what they are yet. But we'll all learn something in the next week.