For nearly the entire regular season, Chris Finch entrusted Bones Hyland with playing time. That surely wasn’t the expectation entering the season, but Bones usurped Rob Dillingham (later traded) in the rotation rather quickly.
It hasn’t been a great postseason for Hyland, though. It has now been three games since he has been a part of their rotation. With the Minnesota Timberwolves now having their backs against the wall, Game 6 could be a chance to reinsert Hyland on the floor to see if he can provide the spark that he gave the team so often this year.
Bones Hyland has been out of the rotation for the last three games
Bones played the last 3:08 of Game 5 in the Western Conference semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs. That was garbage time as the Wolves had no chance of a comeback. Hyland did not see game action at all in either Game 3 or 4.
In the first two games of the series, the 25-year-old missed all nine of his field goal attempts (five of which came from 3-point distance). That’s coming on the heels of a 6-game series against his former team, the Denver Nuggets, in which Hyland shot 41.7 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc. Not terrible, but well short of his accuracy in the regular season.
We have seen guys in this year’s postseason taken out (or barely in) the rotation, only to be put back in and play well.Â
Landry Shamet of the New York Knicks wasn’t playing meaningful minutes for a few games until OG Anunoby missed their past 2 contests. Shamet connected on six 3-pointers and was a plus-33 for the Knicks in the last 2 games as NY finished off a sweep of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Caris LeVert of the Detroit Pistons had 3 games in the opening round against the Orlando Magic, where he played less than 5 minutes. He scored 8 points in 13 minutes in Game 2 of their current series against the Cleveland Cavaliers before exploding for 24 in Game 4.
I would like to see Finch extend his rotation by one guy to 9 players for Game 6 with their season on the line. The Spurs have been going 10 deep (even if Harrison Barnes isn’t playing much at the moment).
Right now, Minnesota needs more scoring outside of Anthony Edwards, and Bones is more likely to provide that rather than others outside the rotation like Jaylen Clark and Kyle Anderson.
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