4 reasons why Timberwolves fans can’t miss preseason finale

Reason II: The Timberwolves bench has earned some love

There is more to love about this team than just their starting five. The Minnesota Timberwolves bench has been incredible so far. To place it all into perspective, the bench has scored 64 points, 67 points, 47 points, and 56 points respectively in four preseason games.

To place this all into perspective, the Timberwolves bench has only been outscored once in the four preseason games so far, when the LA Clippers bench put up 48 points in the third contest, which was only one point better than the Timberwolves bench at 47.

More where that came from

To me, what makes this Timberwolves bench so special is the complexity of trying to determine who will be the scoring leader for the team off the bench in any given game. Players like Taurean Prince, Jaylen Nowell, Bryn Forbes, and even Luka Garza have had the hottest hand when appearing off the bench.

The craziest part of that is that the team has even more talent than that, as Nathan Knight, Jordan McLaughlin, and even Kyle Anderson will find themselves on the bench to start the season. Since the Timberwolves have not played starters Rudy Gobert or Karl-Anthony Towns much in the preseason to date, the team has had a greater-than-normal opportunity to give minutes to a number of players who are actively competing now for a chance to remain on the team’s roster.

Talented bench players are a great problem to have, but they will create headaches for the front office as decisions are made to whittle the roster down to 15 players, plus two two-way contracts. One such standout so far is backup center Luka Garza, whose 15-point outburst in just 12 minutes against the LA Lakers might go a long way to securing a spot on the Timberwolves roster.