Timberwolves

12/3 PREGAME: Timberwolves Begin Winnable Stretch with Contest Against Clippers

Over the next seven games, the Minnesota Timberwolves play against six teams with losing records. They start this stretch Sunday night against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Starting off the season 4-0 – albeit against less-than-stellar opponents – it looked as though the Clippers were going to be okay despite the departure of Chris Paul and JJ Redick.

It became apparent soon after, however, that this was far from the case.

They went on to lose 11 of their following 12 games, giving up 100-plus points in 10 of those contests.

For what it’s worth, the Clippers did recover from that stretch, winning their next three games. But amidst their third win, things got bad again.

After previous injuries to Danilo Gallinari and Milos Teodosic had already happened, Blake Griffin injured his knee.

It was later announced that the Griffin injury wasn’t as bad as some feared.

Still, his sprained MCL will keep him out for 2 months and likely serve as the finishing touch on the worst season the Clippers have experienced in the Griffin era.

Later, rumors began to surface that the team might even be listening to trade offers for All-Star center DeAndre Jordan. The Timberwolves were even rumored to be one of the interested parties.

This starts a seven-game stretch for Minnesota where the best team they play, record-wise, is the Philadelphia 76ers. It’s an opportunity for them to pile on the wins, and prove they know they can’t play down to inferior competition. Considering the losses to Phoenix and the John Wall-less Wizards, it’s unclear that they do yet.

Final notes:

  • The Timberwolves assigned rookie center Justin Patton to the Iowa Wolves of the G League Sunday. Tom Thibodeau said at Sunday shootaround that he could play as soon as Friday, as long as he gets a couple practices in first.
  • Jimmy Butler has, more or less, re-learned how to score at an All-Star rate. Having Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns is going to make it near-impossible to score at a consistently high clip, but he’s still averaging 20.9 points per game in his last nine games, and shooting 48.3 percent from the field in that span.
  • Sunday’s game — which starts at 6 p.m., rather than the usual 7 p.m. time — is the first leg of a goofy back-to-back for the Wolves. After they finish up at the Target Center on Sunday, they fly all the way out to Memphis for a Monday night showdown with the Grizzlies. This makes for two back-to-back sets in less than a week for the Wolves. The Grizzlies, currently without Mike Conley, are fresh off the firing of head coach David Fizdale.

Listen to Tim on Wolves Wired!

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