A day after the Wolves ‘worst performance of the season’ according to interim head coach Sam Mitchell, Minnesota was back in the gym preparing for their game against Utah tomorrow night.
“Just a bad game for us, we didn’t do the things that we’ve been doing and you have nights like that,” Mitchell said. “It seemed like from the first play where we switched and we left (J.J) Redick and he hit a three, then we came down again and left Chris Paul there to shoot the three, it was just one of those nights.”
The Timberwolves put up 34 points in the first half in last night’s game and it just seemed to be like ‘one of those games’ which can be expected from an inexperienced team.
“The keywords are young and talented,” Mitchell said. “Karl’s (Anthony-Towns) a first-year player, Zach (LaVine) is basically a first-year player, didn’t play a lot last year and didn’t start in college or the NBA, and we’re asking these guys to do more than to just play basketball. It’s tough in 82 games with the size we give up and our guys take a physical beating every night. But I give our guys credit, they play hard and they compete.”
Despite an injury to Kevin Garnett and Nikola Pekovic’s lingering injury, the Wolves have been relatively healthy this season, which means a lot of minutes for the young guns. Minnesota has four players who have seen action in all 75 games this season (Andrew Wiggins with 74), which is a rarity in this era of basketball.
“That’s something they should be proud of,” Mitchell said. “Wiggins came into this league at 19-years-old, played 82 games last year. How many 19-year-olds do that? With the physical grind and the traveling. Towns, unless something happens, is going to play 82 games this year, he should be proud of that. It’s tough to play 82 games in this league with the schedule and the traveling.”
Since the Wolves are so young and inexperienced, Mitchell has opted to not rest anyone for the last stretch of games because according to him, this last part of the season is their playoff stretch.
“We have too much developing to do. If you play every game, you’re going to learn something,” Mitchell said.
The Timberwolves will travel to Utah tomorrow to take on the 37-38 Utah Jazz. After suffering arguably their worst loss of the season, Minnesota will look to come out with some extra tenacity in Friday night’s matchup.
“Especially after last night’s game, we definitely want to flush that one and Utah has been owning us all year, and they’re a young team like we are, so we have to go out with an edge early and get going,” Shabazz Muhammad said.
