Even with his knee in a lot of pain, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was still firing some zingers at assistant Micah Nori after the Wolves clinched their first-round series against Phoenix.
Nori filled in for Finch earlier in the season when Finch was too ill to coach a road game against Cleveland and again when Finch went out because of a ruptured right patellar tendon he suffered after a collision with point guard Mike Conley on Sunday.
Finch reminded Nori of that night in Ohio.
“Even after the game, he was blaming me for the Cleveland loss, which probably cost him the voting in the Coach of the Year,” Nori said of Finch, who finished third for that award. “To which I said, ‘Well anybody would do anything to get out of the last two minutes of a closeout game.’
“So his spirits were good.”
It wasn’t quite business as usual for the Wolves, but as close to it as possible, in the aftermath of Finch’s injury both then and now after he had surgery Wednesday.
Nori, who ran Wednesday’s practice, said the team still hopes to have Finch near or on the bench for Game 1 of the series against the Nuggets in Denver on Saturday. The Wolves are throwing around all sorts of scenarios, including moving some seats from the bench area to accommodate Finch’s leg, to having him up in a suite as a worst-case scenario.
But Nori mentioned Finch wanted to be down near the action and not have to send messages from afar.