The combination of Nemanja Bjelica's injury and Shabazz Muhammad's recent struggles have meant major minutes for healthy starters.
This isn't new, of course. But Bjelica's left midfoot sprain — he missed his ninth straight game in Sunday against Dallas at Target Center — and Muhammad being out of the rotation has prompted Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau to go with just eight men in recent games. Asked if he was comfortable with that going forward, he said, "Yup, yeah. And it will be situational with the other stuff.''
And that means minutes — lots of minutes — for the starters.
In the four games leading up to Sunday, Wolves guard Jimmy Butler led NBA players in average minutes (40.8). Andrew Wiggins was 11th (37.6), Karl-Anthony Towns 12th (37.4) and Taj Gibson 13th (37.3).
Butler, for example, has played 40 or more minutes in three of those games, averaging nearly 41 minutes a game in that stretch.
On Sunday, Butler played 41 minutes, Towns 38, Wiggins 36, and Jeff Teague 36 and Gibson 34.
"We'll see, we'll see,'' Thibodeau said when asked whether he'd like to get Butler's minutes down. "We're concerned with the wins. That's what we're concerned with.''
After the most recent game, a victory over the Clippers in Los Angeles, Butler noted that he'd have to talk to the coach about the minutes he was playing.
