SALT LAKE CITY – Already contentious enough after referees ejected three players and whistled five technical fouls and a Type 2 flagrant foul Friday night, the Timberwolves' 116-108 loss at Utah crossed over into something else when injured Wolves star Jimmy Butler from afar took to Twitter for the first time since 2016 to support his team.
And while coach Tom Thibodeau carefully measured his words afterward and ejected Wolves players Karl-Anthony Towns and Jeff Teague outright declined to talk, veteran forward Taj Gibson delighted in it all.
"Playoff basketball at its finest," Gibson said, six weeks before the playoff fields are set. "That's the way it was. That's the old kind of way. Four, five years ago, guys took it personal. We need controversy in the game. It makes players better, spices the game up, no more buddy-buddy stuff. It's just the time where win or go home. We're trying to do something special. I think it's good for our young guys."
Towns was ejected for the first time in his young career when he collected two technicals in the first half's final minute: The first for striking Jazz forward Jae Crowder with his forearm, the second after he repeatedly complained about the officiating.
Officiating crew chief Kane Fitzgerald told a media pool reporter afterward that Towns got the first technical for "the elbow to the face to Crowder" that was an automatic `T' and the second was for "continuous complaint. Three or four plays in a row he was complaining and a technical foul was given."
The Wolves were already shorthanded with Butler out these coming weeks and Gibson back in action after he left Thursday's game at Portland because of a hip contusion.
Towns' absence left them with little resistance to Jazz big man Rudy Gobert (26 points, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks) and Derrick Favors around both baskets even though Nemanja Bjelica played all but three minutes and Gibson played nearly 40 minutes on a hurting hip.
In one night, the Wolves fell from third place in the remarkably competitive Western Conference to six place by percentage points now that so little separates them from Portland, San Antonio and Oklahoma City.