With Jimmy Butler’s injury, the Minnesota Timberwolves are in a precarious situation – now the toughest stretch follows the whole season. Are Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins up to the challenge?
13 full seasons have entered the country since the Timberwolves were in the playoffs for the last time. At that time, in 2004, Minnesota still had the MVP of the league in Kevin Garnett and the veterans Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell in the squad. On the shoulders of this trio they even went to the Conference Finals, where they played against Shaq, Kobe and the Lakers final.
Since then there has not been a single postseason appearance for the Timberwolves. Not with KG, not with Al Jefferson, not with Kevin Love or Ricky Rubio – not even with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. Not even the Kings wait so long for a playoff; in the history of the NBA only the Clippers had to wait longer (15 seasons between 1976 and 1991).
Until a few days ago, everything looked as if the Wolves’ drought would come to an end this season – and even more so, as if the home advantage were feasible. For the first time since KG, Minnesota once again had an almost legitimate MVP candidate and two all-stars. Everything was fine in the land of wolves.
Until 24. February, at least. On that day we had to go to Houston – which is not a nice trip for any team in the league this season. The clear bankruptcy against the Rockets quickly became a minor matter in the Toyota Center from Wolves’ point of view, however, because the MVP candidate Jimmy Butler injured himself at the meniscus.
Although the diagnosis was not as bad as it looked at first, he was given a four to six-week break – four to six weeks, which is likely to determine the fate of the Wolves this season. The third seed means nothing at all in the Wild West in 2018. There are 4 games between place 3 and place 10.
Every defeat can therefore cost places, every victory can cause a leap “It is incredibly close. I haven’t experienced the race so closely yet,”said Jamal Crawford, for example, who was already in his 18th birthday. Every game has a big meaning now, but I think it’s more fun this way.”
Of course, you don’t want to contradict a seasoned veteran like J-Crossover. The close play-off race combined with Butler’s absence also means more pressure – especially for the two young stars of the team, Towns and Wiggins.
For much of the season, they could do their thing relatively unwaveringly in the slipstream of leader Butler, simply because he concealed many of their weaknesses. Towns himself recently called Butler the “best two-way player in the league” and admitted that the presence of the four-time all-star changed the game dynamics for everyone else on the field.
Butler was the third-best shooting guard of the season (after Andre Roberson and Victor Oladipo) according to Defensive Real Plus-Minus (ESPN), followed by Chris Paul, James Harden and Stephen Curry in fourth place overall RPM. With Butler on the court, the Wolves had a defensive rating of 105.3, which would correspond to 4th place in the league – since he played the usual absurd minutes (37.1 per game), the sample was correspondingly large.
Without butler, however, this is all a bit different. Towns has made great strides in this respect during the course of the season, but also because Butler always pointed out mistakes to him on the court. Wiggins, on the other hand, is still waiting for a development. According to defensive RPM, he occupies 83rd place among the Small Forwards. From 89.
But there can be no doubt that the two former No. 1 picks must now be the ones that set the tone. Tom Thibodeau can scold Taj Gibson as an “aggressive leader” on the pitch, but wiggins and above all towns must lead the way.
For him, the next few weeks are a perfect opportunity to show that the NBA-GMs were not wrong when they chose him as the player they would most like to start a team with in the annual survey over the last two years.
The first impressions without butler were not ideal. After the bankruptcy against Houston, the Bulls and Kings were beaten convincingly, but these are also two teams that have long since banned winning. In the two games after that, it defeated playoffs from Portland and Utah (both away) defeats.
Especially the game against Utah was a bit annoying from Towns’ point of view, because the Big Man was already ejected shortly before the halftime break – because of repeated nagging.”I have to be smarter,”he said afterwards.”That’s a pity for my team and that’s of course unprofessional.”.
Of course, it’s not necessary to demonize Towns for the action, especially since he’s only 22 years old and the scene in question was a bit harsh:”You just want to provoke me to pay a fine,”Thibodeau grinned when asked if the injection was legal after the game. But in the tight play-off race, such a scene hurts especially badly.
Especially as it won’t get any easier in the next few weeks. A look at the next six games reveals how precarious the situation is: The next two home games will take place against the Celtics and the Warriors (Sun, 8.30 p. m. on SPOX), after which the Wolves will have to play one after the other in Washington and at the Spurs. This is followed by home games against the rockets and the clippers, who are still knocking hard on the door to the playoffs.
Afterwards the schedule relaxes again, in the remaining ten games at least some tankers are waiting. But by then, Minnesota could have slipped when things were going badly. Jeff Teague, Crawford and Gibson are already familiar with playoff combat, but for Towns and Wiggins the coming weeks will be on foreign soil. That’s why they could have used butlers all the more.
“A few weeks ago, Damian Lillard recognized at ESPN that”he’s putting a new kind of hardship into her team,”a different attitude, a certain asshole mentality. He gives them the attitude that they are someone and that they are to be reckoned with. That’s what leaders do. He demands a lot from them.”
Butler will of course try to get involved from the stands. He took part in the curious game against jazz via Twitter, first praising Teague for unpacking a body slam against Ricky Rubio, and then warning Jae Crowder against messing with Thibodeau. Of course, he speaks a lot with his team mates and tries to influence them.
Of course, anyone who knows Butler knows that he is working hard on his comeback. For the marathon man of recent years, forecasts are more likely to be guideline values that have to be undercut than guaranteed downtimes. He is “bored to death”, he has recently been boasting about his compulsory break. Of course, he also knows that his team needs him.
The point is, especially in the case of knee injuries, the healing process is not always 100% predictable:”I want him to make the right decision first of all because I know this is a serious injury,” Gibson said to ESPN,”That’s why I ask myself the question:’ What if he doesn’t come back?’ We must also be prepared for the event that he is not available to us.
Butler has changed a lot in his first season with the Wolves, that’s for sure. Thibodeau has repeatedly stressed that Butler has changed the entire culture of the team, and Crawford has also reiterated the importance of the Swingman outside the court.
In the next few weeks, towns and wiggins will be able to show how much he has really dyed on them. Either they swim – or they go down.