Timberwolves at Jazz: What To Watch For

The Timberwolves head to Salt Lake City to take on the surging Utah Jazz, just 24 hours after suffering a tough loss in Portland.

Even after falling to the Trail Blazers in Portland on Thursday, Timberwolves still lead the Northwest Division. And, entering play on Friday night, the Wolves are also clinging to the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.

Minnesota is still an impressive 9-3 against their own division, although they’ve now split the season series against the Blazers, who happen to be just a half-game behind them in the standings. The Wolves have already won the season series against Oklahoma City and lead the series against Denver by a 2-0 margin with the final two games to played over the regular season’s final six days.

The Timberwolves also lead 2-0 in the series against the Jazz, having won once already in Salt Lake City. A win on Friday would secure the tiebreaker against Utah as well; shockingly enough, the Jazz are only five games behind the Wolves at this juncture.

So, what does Minnesota have to look forward to on Friday night.

An exceedingly difficult schedule challenge

Every team would be justified to complain about their schedule at some point during the season. But the Wolves have had the deck stacked against them in a unique way.

From the radio voice of the Wolves, Alan Horton:

That’s right — the most pre-All-Star break games in NBA history. Sure, the break came slightly later than usual and the season started a bit earlier, but still. That’s a lot of games before an extended break.

And then, this, also from Horton:

Here’s the explanation from ESPN on what a “Red Alert” game is; let’s just say it’s what has also been termed as a “schedule loss”.

Not only are the Wolves on the second night of a brutal back-to-back, but the Jazz have been resting for three days and sleeping in their own beds for a whopping 12 consecutive nights.

And compounding the above issues, consider that the Wolves will be without Jimmy Butler yet again, and Taj Gibson left Thursday night’s loss in Portland with a hip injury. After the game, Tom Thibodeau said he didn’t know how severe Gibson’s injury was.

This game isn’t a likely win for the Wolves, and that makes the standings situation even dicier.

The Wolves are No. 3 in the West…for now

As mentioned, the Wolves are a half-game up on Portland. They’re also a half-game up on San Antonio, and only one game ahead of Oklahoma City and the red-hot New Orleans Pelicans.

Strangely, the Spurs and Pellies are both idle tonight, so a loss would sink them into a three-way tie with the Blazers and Spurs, and a win from the Thunder would create a virtual four-way tie.

Things are getting interesting, folks, and it’s not the time to be facing at least another four weeks without your best player and superstar defender.

Keep an eye on the rotation

If Gibson is out, it will be interesting to see how the rotation is divided. With Shabazz Muhammad no longer with the team and Butler still out, we would likely see both Nemanja Bjelica and Gorgui Dieng in the starting lineup.

That would mean that Bjelica would surely shift over to play backup minutes at the four when Dieng rests or spells Karl-Anthony Towns at center. The situation should call for extra minute for Marcus Georges-Hunt on the wing — and truthfully, there aren’t many other options.

The Wolves did call up Justin Patton from the Iowa Wolves on Friday, which may be an indication that Gibson will be out on Friday and perhaps beyond. Along with Cole Aldrich, four of the Wolves 11 healthy players (Aaron Brooks was not available on Thursday due to a personal matter and his status for Friday is unknown as of this writing) are natural centers.

Roster balance was a question mark when the offseason wrapped up, and now with Butler out and Muhammad gone, the issue is rearing it’s ugly head. Let’s fully expect to see a career-high in minutes for Bjelica in this one.

Next: Jeff Teague got his mojo back

We’ll be back after the (late) conclusion of this one with a game wrap. See you then.