- In an interview with Shams Charania of Stadium (Twitter video link), Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels says he thinks he’s the best defender in the NBA.
Karl-Anthony Towns provided an uplifting moment by returning from a long absence caused by a calf injury to help the Timberwolves defeat the Hawks on Wednesday, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. Towns received a thunderous ovation from the Minnesota crowd in his first appearance in roughly four months, then capped off the night by hitting two free throws to secure the victory.
“This is what movies are made of,” Towns said. “You come back, (52) games missing, sellout crowd, Target Center, and you get the ball with seven seconds left, no timeouts. You’ve got to make it. I mean, it doesn’t get better than that. … To be able to come up big for my teammates is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Towns’ return helped the Wolves climb back to .500 and move up to seventh in the crowded Western Conference playoff race. It also brought back the challenge of trying to effectively play him alongside Rudy Gobert, a combination that often seemed awkward before Towns got hurt.
“We’ve got to find a way to make the two-big lineup work,” coach Chris Finch said. “It has to be who we are in these last eight games. We have the flexibility to go a lot of different directions. But when a guy’s playing this well, he deserves to be out there in some form or fashion. It’s my job to figure it out.”
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- Timberwolves guard Jaylen Nowell is back in the lineup after missing 10 games with left knee tendinopathy, but the condition is likely to continue for the rest of the season, according to Chris Hine of The Star-Tribune. Nowell is attempting to manage the pain enough to get on the court, and he was able to return to action Monday. “It was slow and long. Just really tough,” Nowell said of the rehab process. “There were times it felt good, then would play on it for like five minutes and it wouldn’t feel good. We just kind of had to sit and do a lot of treatment. It was tough, just getting out there and watching the game, not playing. But glad to be back now.”
- Coach Mark Daigneault said the Thunder are “open-minded” about using Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in both games of back-to-backs for the rest of the season, tweets Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman. Oklahoma City faces the Clippers tonight and will stay in L.A. for Friday’s game against the Lakers.
- Nassir Little missed Wednesday’s game after entering concussion protocol, the Trail Blazers announced (via Twitter).
5:46pm: Coach Chris Finch confirms that Towns will play tonight with “some sort of limitations” on his minutes, tweets Timberwolves writer Dane Moore. Finch added that he had “no update” on Edwards’ status, which will likely be determined during warmups.
10:32am: Barring a setback in pregame warmups, Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns will return on Wednesday from a calf injury that has sidelined him for the last 51 games, according to reports from Shams Charania of The Athletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter links). Speaking to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, Towns confirmed the news.
“I’m super excited to get back out on the court and help my team because these next nine games are super important,” he said.
Charania first reported yesterday that Towns could be cleared to play on Wednesday vs. the Hawks. He also stated that Anthony Edwards (ankle sprain) might make his return against Atlanta, but Edwards’ status remains unclear. Both Towns and Edwards were listed by the Wolves as questionable for Wednesday’s contest.
Towns injured his calf on November 28 and reporting around the time of his injury suggested he would miss about four-to-six weeks. However, his recovery process has extended well beyond that, with the 27-year-old indicating this week that he experienced a “major setback” in January that essentially reset his rehab.
Towns was still adjusting to playing in the frontcourt alongside newcomer Rudy Gobert when he went down. His scoring average (20.8 PPG), rebounding rate (8.2 RPG), and three-point percentage (32.5%) were all career worsts or close to it, though he was still making 50.5% of his shots from the field and was thriving as a facilitator, with a career-best 5.3 assists per game.
With just nine games left in the season and the 36-37 Wolves in the midst of a tight playoff race (they currently hold the No. 9 seed in the West), Towns will have to get back up to speed quickly. He told Shelburne that he doesn’t expect to face major minute or role restrictions upon returning.
“I’m just trying to pick up where I left off,” Towns said. “I was telling my dad right before I got hurt, I felt the most complete as a player in my career. From defensive end, from offensive end, from a mental aspect, leadership aspect … I felt very complete.”
Following Wednesday’s matchup vs. Atlanta, the Wolves will finish the season with seven of their last eight contests against Western Conference teams, including a three-game road set in Golden State, Sacramento, and Phoenix starting this Sunday. They also have home games against the Lakers, Trail Blazers, and Pelicans on tap before the end of the regular season.
4:38pm: Towns and Edwards are listed as questionable to play on Wednesday, the team’s PR department tweets.
9:26am: There’s optimism that major reinforcements could be coming to the Timberwolves‘ lineup as soon as Wednesday, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). There’s a chance that both Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards could be back in action for that night’s contest vs. Atlanta, sources tell Charania.
As we relayed on Monday, head coach Chris Finch said that Towns’ return from a calf strain that has sidelined him since November 28 was “really, really close,” while president of basketball operations Tim Connelly classified KAT’s return as “imminent.” Charania’s reporting lines up with those statements.
As for Edwards, he has missed a couple games due to an ankle sprain that he sustained on Friday. However, he was initially listed as questionable for both of those contests before being ruled out, which was a signal that the sprain wasn’t as significant as feared. Finch said on Monday that the team was still evaluating Edwards’ “pain tolerance, range of movement, (and) stability,” noting that the 21-year-old “never thinks he’s hurt” and wants to be playing.
The 36-37 Timberwolves are right in the middle of a congested playoff race in the Western Conference. Currently the No. 8 seed, they’re only one game back of the No. 6 Warriors but also only have a one-game cushion on the No. 12 Pelicans. Obviously, getting Towns and Edwards back in their lineup would give the Wolves some additional firepower for the home stretch of the regular season.
Given that Towns has missed nearly four months of action and was still going through some growing pains alongside center Rudy Gobert in the early part of the season, it will be interesting to see how the Wolves handle his role when he returns. It’s a safe bet that Edwards will immediately return to the starting five once he’s cleared to play.
Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns has had a lengthy recovery from a Grade 3 calf strain that has kept him on the sidelines since November 28. However, he’s optimistic about being cleared to return soon, as he told Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
“I feel good there is a day (coming),” Towns said. “There’s a time. I’ve been in the darkness of the tunnel and trying to figure out where I’m going. It’s good to know that there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.”
According to Krawczynski, Towns said he had a “major setback” in late January, which essentially restarted the entire rehab process. The 27-year-old declined to go into detail about the setback, but he was unable to sit on the team’s bench during that time because he had to keep his leg elevated.
“I was standing up for 20 minutes, and my leg was done,” he said. “That was my first time trying it. I was thinking I could do it, and there was no way.”
As Krawczynski writes, this has been Towns’ longest absence of his career, and his first time dealing with a soft tissue injury, which can be tricky in the best of times. There’s also a risk of further injury to a lower extremity, like tearing the Achilles tendon or the ACL, if an athlete returns before the calf is fully healed. Town said his calf was “95 percent torn off,” making it even more of a risk.
“That was a very real possibility of happening if I went back on the court,” Towns said. “It was one of those things we were all worried about. As a competitor I was like, ‘Ah f— it, I’ll play. I can do it. I’ll figure it out.’ There was just no way with what I had that I could even attempt to do that.”
Towns told Krawczynski he wishes that he and the team had been more transparent about the injury, as fans have been understandably frustrated by how long he’s been out. However, his commitment to playing shouldn’t be questioned and he’s nearing his return, according to president of basketball operations Tim Connelly.
“We’re just really proud of how he’s approached rehab, and we’re extremely excited that his return is imminent,” Connelly said.
Here are a few more injury notes on the Wolves, per Chris Hine of The Star Tribune:
- Head coach Chris Finch provided an update on Anthony Edwards, who has been unable to work out or practice after spraining his ankle on Friday. “For sure there’s some relief,” Finch said when asked about the injury not being severe. “But you know Ant. Ant always wants to play. Never thinks he’s hurt. So, hopefully it is feeling better, which he says it is. In terms of pain tolerance, range of movement, stability, all those things, I think we’re still trying to figure out where that really is with him.”
- Finch also spoke briefly about Towns, Hine adds. “Feels really, really close,” Finch said of Towns’ potential return. “That’s all I can tell you. He’s looking good.” The Wolves have dropped five of six games and are barely clinging to a play-in spot, so the returns of Edwards and Towns could play a major factor in whether or not they’re able to make the postseason.
- As Hine writes, backup guard Jaylen Nowell was able to return to the lineup for Monday’s game in New York. The impending free agent had been out for the previous 10 games with left knee tendinopathy, missing nearly a month of action.
Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker was an overlooked piece in last month’s three-team blockbuster that sent D’Angelo Russell to Los Angeles and Mike Conley to Minnesota, but the former first-round pick believes he has benefited from the change of scenery he got as a result of that deal, according to Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca.
“I feel blessed to be in this organization,” Alexander-Walker said on Saturday. “I know what my role is and I’m getting a chance to play through mistakes, help my team by making winning plays. The way the West is, every game matters and it’s a great chance to grow as a player and person.”
As Grange observes, Alexander-Walker hasn’t been given a chance so far in his NBA career to establish any real continuity. The fourth-year guard is already playing for his third team and his sixth head coach since entering the NBA in 2019. He’ll be eligible for restricted free agency this summer, so it’s possible he’ll be playing for yet another team and coach later this year. But the Timberwolves have been impressed with what they’ve seen from the 24-year-old so far, according to head coach Chris Finch.
“We’ve been very pleased with Nickeil. We like him a lot,” Finch said. “Offensively he’s got a versatile game that we like. Defensively he’s really grown, as you would expect. That’s where I’ve seen the most growth since his rookie year, which is natural, but he enjoys defense, he takes the challenge. He’s got really good size, he’s very smart and now he’s putting the pieces together, like understanding game plan and his opponent’s tendencies and stuff like that.
“It’s crazy when you think that Nickeil has played for six coaches in four years,” Finch continued. “So he just needs to be able to be out there. We’ll put our arms around him and keep encouraging him and I think he’s going to be a really good player in this league.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards is already out of his walking boot and is moving around more after spraining his right ankle on Friday, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The swelling in Edwards’ ankle has also gone down, Charania adds. Edwards missed Saturday’s loss to Toronto, but is expected to be evaluated on a day-to-day basis going forward, so it’s possible his absence won’t last much longer.
- Denver has now lost five of its last six games, prompting star center Nikola Jokic to acknowledge that the Nuggets “need to be concerned” about their recent slide, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN. As Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports writes, it’s not unusual for top NBA teams to let their foot off the gas late in the season, but the Nuggets will need to rediscover their mojo soon rather than counting on flipping a switch once the postseason begins.
- Jazz players have appreciated Will Hardy‘s willingness to listen to their ideas and implement them if he finds merit in them, according to Sarah Todd of The Deseret News, who notes that Lauri Markkanen and Kelly Olynyk helped convince the first-year head coach to introduce more zone looks on defense. “I think he’s someone who you can approach and he’ll really take your suggestions into consideration,” Olynyk said. “You know, sometimes you go to a restaurant and you see a suggestion box and you never really know if those get read, but he’ll read every one of them. Gotta love it.”
The Timberwolves consider All-Star guard Anthony Edwards to be day-to-day with a sprained right ankle he suffered in Friday’s game, Marc Stein tweets.
In an interview with team broadcaster Alan Horton (Twitter link) coach Chris Finch said Edwards is in a walking boot, but the injury is “not as bad as initially feared.” He sat out tonight’s contest after being listed as questionable. More tests on the ankle will likely be conducted Sunday, tweets Chris Hine of The Star Tribune.
Edwards was injured in the first quarter Friday when he rolled the ankle after making a jump pass. He hadn’t missed a game before tonight and is the team’s leading scorer at 24.7 PPG. With 11 games remaining, a prolonged absence could be devastating for Minnesota’s playoff hopes. The Wolves are eighth in the tight Western Conference race, but are just one game ahead of 11th-place Utah.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- Finch admitted the Timberwolves will have to adjust their offense while Edwards is sidelined, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. Minnesota has a 109.6 offensive rating in its minutes with Edwards on the bench, which would rank last in the league. Rudy Gobert has been scoring more since the Wolves traded for Mike Conley, notes Krawczynski, who adds that Jaden McDaniels and Jordan McLaughlin appear ready to handle a larger role in the offense. “We still have other players who can put the ball in the bucket,” Finch said. “We’ll be less of an iso team. You lose Ant’s dynamic big-shot making. Of course, you lose everything he brings. … We’ll have to rely more on ball movement, more on body movement, pass-pass combinations, those types of things.”
- The reeling Nuggets held a team meeting this week after Tuesday’s loss at Toronto, per Mike Singer of The Denver Post. Denver remains on top of the Western Conference, but is dealing with a late-season slump, dropping five of its last six games. “Who do we want to be?’” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “We can’t keep losing like this, we didn’t start off like that. It’s not the time to be losing games that we’re supposed to be winning. It’s crunch time. … It was all about just who we want to be at the end of the season. ‘Do we want to be champions or we just wanna go home?’”
- Kelly Olynyk is valuable because he does so many underappreciated things, but the Jazz have to consider who will take over that role in the future, notes Sarah Todd of The Deseret News. Olynyk will turn 32 in April and has just a $3MM guarantee on next season’s contract.
Timberwolves guard/forward Anthony Edwards was unable to put weight on his right leg after sustaining a pretty gruesome looking right ankle sprain. He was helped off the floor and headed straight back to the locker room, tweets K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago.
Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News and SKOR North has the video (via Twitter). The injury occurred with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter of Minnesota’s road game at Chicago, with Edwards rolling his ankle after a cross-court jump pass.
Although Edwards was clearly in a lot of pain when the play occurred, the Wolves didn’t initially rule him out of the game. He was first listed as questionable before being downgraded to out (Twitter link).
A first-time All-Star in 2022/23, Edwards is having an excellent third season for the Wolves, averaging 25.0 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 4.5 APG and 1.6 SPG on .460/.369/.767 shooting. He has appeared in every game thus far (36.4 MPG).
Edwards potentially missing additional time beyond this game could have huge ramifications for both Minnesota and the Western Conference playoff race. The Wolves are currently 35-35, the No. 7 seed, but five teams are right on their heels in the standings — they only lead the Pelicans, the current No. 12 seed, by 1.5 games.
The former first overall pick will be eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer.
- A spokesperson for Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore told Josh Kosman of The New York Post this week that the duo is prepared to buy another 20% of the Timberwolves. “The money is in the bank and ready to be funded today,” the spokesperson said. There were reportedly some concerns in 2022 about A-Rod’s liquidity and some speculation that the plan for Rodriguez and Lore to assume majority control of the Wolves could be in trouble, but it remains on track. When they officially make this month’s payment, Rodriguez and Lore will control 40% of the Wolves — the plan is for them to exercise their option to increase their stake in the franchise to 80% by the end of 2023.
- While this season hasn’t played out quite how the Timberwolves hoped, their signing of Kyle Anderson has turned into one of the best free agent additions in team history, contends Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. As Krawczynski acknowledges, Minnesota doesn’t exactly have a long history of great free agent signings, but Anderson’s impact on this year’s club shouldn’t be understated.