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Minnesota Timberwolves: Tom Thibodeau finally gave more minutes to his bench

By Collin Kottke

SHENZHEN, CHINA - OCTOBER 05: Head coach Tom Thibodeau of the Minnesota Timberwolves reacts during the game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors as part of 2017 NBA Global Games China at Universidade Center on October 5, 2017 in Shenzhen, China. (Photo by Zhong Zhi/Getty Images)
SHENZHEN, CHINA - OCTOBER 05: Head coach Tom Thibodeau of the Minnesota Timberwolves reacts during the game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors as part of 2017 NBA Global Games China at Universidade Center on October 5, 2017 in Shenzhen, China. (Photo by Zhong Zhi/Getty Images) /
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The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Sacramento Kings handedly on Thursday night and Tom Thibodeau actually gave some minutes to a member of his bench.

The Minnesota Timberwolves finally won a game convincingly on Thursday night with a 119-96 smacking of the Sacramento Kings. There are many things to talk about in the game, like how the Timberwolves’ big three all scored over 20 points including Karl-Anthony Towns scoring 30, but let’s focus on something that head coach Tom Thibodeau did in the ballgame. He actually played a new member of his bench.

Thibodeau has been playing with a very short bench this season. Gorgui Dieng, Tyus Jones and Jamal Crawford have been the only bench players getting consistent minutes of late. Shabazz Muhammad was in the regular rotation but has fallen out of favor and was the only healthy player not to hit the court on Thursday for the Wolves.  Nemanja Bjelica was also in the rotation before his foot sprain and that is what keeps holding him out now.

That still means that Thibodeau was not playing a good portion of his bench. That had become clear especially of late with the banishing of Muhammad and Bjelica’s lingering injury. Marcus Georges-Hunt finally got legitimate minutes and you could hear Timberwolves fans rejoice everywhere.

Georges-Hunt didn’t set Target Center on fire on Thursday night, but he did but up a respectable showing. He was on the floor for 17 minutes, the same as Crawford and a minute less than Jones off the bench, and scored five points in his time.

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The playing of Georges-Hunt isn’t going to dramatically change the Timberwolves directly, but it will help the team if his minutes continue going forward. The starters need to have their minutes reduced somewhat so they can survive the season and that’ll happen if Georges-Hunt can play 15 or so minutes a night. It’ll also help tremendously when Bjelica finally comes back from injury.

I don’t want to get my hopes up too much that Thibodeau has seen the light in some variety, but I do have my fingers crossed that the bench will start getting some more minutes moving forward. It resulted in a big win over Sacramento on Thursday night, it can help do the same throughout the rest of the season.

Next: What could the Twins starting lineup look like?

The Timberwolves play next on Saturday when they take on the Phoenix Suns at Target Center. It’ll be the first time all season that the Timberwolves wear their bright green jerseys.

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