Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 takeaways from Wolves win over Trail Blazers
By Ben Beecken
The rotation and evenly distributed minutes
After the Wolves relied heavily on Karl-Anthony Towns on Wednesday and saw Covington play a whopping 41 minutes in his team debut with Saric only logging 20 minutes off the bench, things were much more balanced on Friday.
Covington played just 25 minutes, although his reduction was largely due to foul trouble. Derrick Rose was back after sitting out Wednesday’s game, which was part of it as well.
Saric played 27 minutes, which is much more in line with what he should be receiving. Andrew Wiggins was the only Wolf to score more than 17 points, as he put up 23 points on 21 shots. There were six Wolves players in double-figures, with Towns only managing 13 points and nine rebounds on the night.
With Rose’s return, rookie Josh Okogie was bumped out of the rotation despite playing well of late. Tom Thibodeau has said several times that he likes to limit his rotation to nine guys, which certainly makes sense. It’s rare that NBA teams expand beyond that, and especially not beyond 10 players.
Key offseason acquisition Anthony Tolliver, who shot better than 43 percent from beyond the arc last year with Detroit, received his second consecutive DNP-CD. He wasn’t all too thrilled about it the first time around, but at least he was probably expecting it on Saturday.
Thibodeau admitted after the game that they have 11 NBA-caliber rotation players, presumably lumping Okogie and Tolliver into the group of nine that played. It’s a good problem to have, of course, but also too bad that the rookie won’t be receiving consistent developmental minutes and Tolliver, who is a fantastic shooter and a valuable player, is also apparently not part of the rotation.
Of course, Rose has already missed two games due to soreness and at his current pace of playing heavy minutes — far more than he’s played in several seasons — it’s fair to assume that he’ll miss at least a handful of games, opening the door for Okogie to slide his way into the rotation.