Minnesota Timberwolves: Winners and losers of preseason win over Warriors

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Golden State Warriors in their preseason opener on Saturday night in Oakland. Here’s what we learned.

The preseason opener is always somewhat of a mixed bag, and Saturday night’s tilt between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors was no exception — although the victory was nice.

The Timberwolves were, of course, without All-Star Jimmy Butler, who continues to sit out while awaiting a resolution to his trade request. While it is just preseason and training camp only kicked off on Tuesday of this week, it sure seemed as though a pall was hanging over the Wolves bench.

Tom Thibodeau may or may not be a dead man walking as head coach and president of basketball operations, but he was his unmistakably loud, gruff self just seconds into the game, and with that, the (pre)season was on its way.

(To be fair, Thibodeau actually sat on the bench far more than he did during any regular season game last year. I can’t remember back to last preseason, so it very well could be a preseason thing only. But still … it was strange to see.)

The Timberwolves starters held their own against the Warriors’ primary group throughout the first half, with the offense largely running through Karl-Anthony Towns and Derrick Rose. Rose was effective, shooting 6-of-10 from the field and scoring 16 points without turning the ball over.

Towns only attempted eight shots, largely from the post. His only 3-point attempt came on the out-of-timeout call with the baseline pindown screen that he was so effective on last season. Towns was good for one 3-pointer per game from the corner last year; this is certainly a play-call that we should all be treated to more often.

The Warriors surged during the middle of the second quarter and a late counter by the Wolves brought them within six at halftime.

The Warriors starters outplayed their counterparts early in the second half, and it took a late push from the Wolves’ reserves to take over the game.

We’ll get to the bench rotation in a moment, but let’s just say that it was a fun unit; Anthony Tolliver launched 10 (!) threes and rookie Josh Okogie was aggressive on both ends of the court. Luol Deng entered the game for the first time with only five minutes to play and was productive, scoring the Wolves’ final six points as they took and held the lead until the final buzzer.

Let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways from Saturday night’s game.