NEW ORLEANS – If the Timberwolves’ 104-98 victory at New Orleans on Wednesday teaches anything, it’s don’t assume that this remade team is the one you used to know.
Don’t assume, either, after a 5-3 season start that coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau is happy.
“I’m never happy,” he said. “I’m never happy, OK? But it’s progress and that’s the important thing.”
A team that seemingly couldn’t win a close game a season ago now has won five times by persevering in the final minute. Their five victories have come by a total of 17 points.
On Wednesday, Jimmy Butler’s three-point play with 34.2 seconds left was the difference after the Wolves led by 12 points with 8:07 remaining and by six points with 4:16 left. They scored the game’s final six points — all of them by Butler — after the Pelicans tied the score twice in the final 2½ minutes.
Until the final minute, Butler missed the first four shots he attempted from the field in the fourth quarter. Then with the game in doubt, he faked former Bulls teammate E’Twaun Moore into the air, drew contact as Moore came back down, and made a 21-foot shot from the right side that drew the foul and a free throw, which he made.
The Pelicans never got so close again on a night when their tag team of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis together scored 59 points while Wolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns scored just two points mostly because of persistent foul trouble.
The Wolves also committed 22 turnovers and still won, thanks in good measure to what Thibodeau called Butler’s “great presence.”
“It’s crazy to me because I make the hard ones, but I cannot make wide-open jump shots to save my life right now,” Butler said. “But we win. That’s all I care about.”
That last one he made Wednesday is the same shot many of his teammates say he makes every time, whether it’s the final minute of a practice scrimmage or a real game.
Source: startribune