This was the win that the Minnesota Timberwolves needed.
The Wolves played everyone except Shabazz Muhammad in the 119-96 win. Marcus Georges-Hunt entered in the second quarter and played nearly 17 minutes, and Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 30 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks a night after Joel Embiid trolled him on Instagram.
Georges-Hunt, an undrafted second-year player out of Georgia Tech who has played in nine games total this season, mostly in garbage time, recorded five points and was plus-7 in 16:54 minutes on Thursday night.
Head coach Tom Thibodeau deployed him mostly to shut down Buddy Hield, Sacramento’s sharpshooter, making it the first time since Dec. 1 that Thibodeau has used more than eight players in his rotation.
“I wanted to see if we could get some minutes from him,” said Thibodeau. “Defensively, I was concerned about the matchup with Hield. It doesn’t take Buddy much to get going, when Fox got hurt, it changed their rotation a little bit.”
Kings rookie De’Aaron Fox left the game in the second quarter with a left quad contusion. By then the Wolves were on their way to a 64-55 halftime lead. Georges-Hunt said that he did not expect to get the minutes he played, but read the scouting report thoroughly and was prepared to play.
While a victory over the Kings (9-19) wasn’t a surprise, the win was important for a starting five that had been playing heavy minutes in an eight-man rotation. Butler led the Wolves with 35:33 played, scoring 21 points and dishing nine assists. Towns had 34:53, Andrew Wiggins had 33:49, Jeff Teague had 30:12 and Taj Gibson had 24:22.
Gorgui Dieng led the bench with 24:14.
Thibodeau said that Gibson and Dieng’s contributions would not show up on the stat sheet — Gibson had 12 points but was even in plus/minus, Dieng had four points and was plus-22 — but they were instrumental in shutting down Kings big man Zach Randolph.
“Taj and G had a battle going on with Zach Randolph, and he’s a load down there,” Thibodeau said. “Those are men battling. I thought that was critical for us.”
The locker room was goofy and cheerful after the win, as you can see in the video above, and Butler admitted that picking up a comfortable win was huge for this team. Not only do they remain at No. 4 in the West as of this publishing, but the starters didn’t have to play heavy minutes.
Towns had one of his most complete efforts on both ends of the floor.
He’s only the second player to do so, behind Kevin Garnett. He claims that Embiid’s diss on his Instagram account didn’t influence his play, calling it brotherly banter. But regardless of the motivation, he took advantage of a Kings team that was overwhelmed by his talents.
“He’s doing a lot better is right now is he’s moving around. If he’s stationary, it’s easy to get the help there,” said Thibodeau. “And he’s figuring that out now, so I think he’s got a good blend inside and outside.”
The Wolves won’t have many nights like this in a competitive Western Conference, but they need to take advantage of them when they do. Eventually Thibodeau will have to cut down on his starters’ minutes, but for the time behind, a night of rest might mean a couple more wins in the near future.
Listen to Wolves Wired!
