{"id":106395,"date":"2024-11-11T16:46:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T21:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=106395"},"modified":"2024-11-11T16:46:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T21:46:37","slug":"benched-4x-dpoy-timberwolves-star-reflects-on-late-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/11\/benched-4x-dpoy-timberwolves-star-reflects-on-late-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Benched 4x DPOY Timberwolves Star Reflects On Late Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves fell to a\u00a0<\/span>Jimmy Butler<\/span><\/a>-void\u00a0<\/span>Miami Heat<\/span><\/a>\u00a0by one point Sunday evening in a low-scoring 95-94 loss. It was a much-needed victory for the Heat but an inexcusable loss for the Timberwolves. Things got controversial, though, when head coach\u00a0<\/span>Chris Finch<\/span><\/a>\u00a0took Timberwolves star\u00a0<\/span>Rudy Gobert<\/span><\/a>\u00a0out of the game late in the fourth quarter. After the game, the 4x DPOY star spoke with reporters and expressed his surprise and disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benched 4x DPOY Timberwolves Star Reflects On Late Loss<\/h2>\n

Timberwolves Star Rudy Gobert Surprised by Late Game Benching<\/h3>\n

There were less than ten seconds left on the game clock, and\u00a0<\/span>Minnesota<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was ahead by two points. Gobert had been yanked by then, and\u00a0<\/span>Nickeil\u00a0Alexander-Walker<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was left to defend Miami’s last-chance basket for the go-ahead. It was Alexander-Walker that Miami’s\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Jovic<\/span><\/a>\u00a0scored on, plus the And-1, to send the Heat onto a single-point win. As he has experienced many times during his time in Minnesota, Gobert was left to watch everything unfold from the bench.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn’t that\u00a0<\/span>Gobert<\/span><\/a>\u00a0played a terrible game despite only scoring seven points. He pulled down 13 rebounds, blocked two shots, and contributed one steal in 32 minutes. Could he have shot more? He could have; he only attempted four shots in the entire game. But it was his defense that was on display. Yet, coach Finch thought the Timberwolves chances were higher in the final dying seconds with Gobert out. Following the game,\u00a0<\/span>Gobert spoke with reporters<\/span><\/a> about why his team fell short while admitting he was surprised by the benching.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure. For sure. I mean, I\u2019m pretty good on that end of the floor. I live for those moments. That\u2019s what I do best. I was frustrated for sure, but decisions. You know, when the coach makes decisions, we live with that.” Gobert continued, “Of course I would have loved being on the court on that play but we lost the game before that…we were in a position to win.”<\/em><\/p>\n

It certainly was a move on Finch’s part that didn’t make much sense, given that Gobert’s strengths are on the defensive end. If Finch had pulled Gobert before a game-ending offensive possession, that’s another story. Nevertheless,\u00a0<\/span>Finch admitted his error<\/span><\/a>\u00a0regarding the game’s final seconds and play calling at the end of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get it right. Tonight, coming down the stretch, I didn\u2019t get it right. I told you guys that we weren\u2019t always going to get it right, but yeah, if I had to go back and do it over, I\u2019d certainly do it differently.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rudy’s Presence Can Be Tricky At Times<\/h3>\n

There’s no denying that Gobert’s greatest strength and basketball asset is defensively, hence his four Defensive Player of the Year awards. His size, rebounding abilities, and rim protection are a few of the reasons Minnesota traded for him. On the flip side, Gobert’s greatest deficiencies come on the other end of the floor. Offensively speaking, he can become a deterrent and point of emphasis of attack for opposing teams. Several times in last year’s playoffs, Finch subbed Gobert out in place of a more offensive threat-like player, but that normally happened when the Timberwolves were about to execute an offensive possession, not defend in a defensive possession.<\/p>\n

Having Gobert certainly has advantages and disadvantages and can become a balancing act for coaches. This time around, against the Heat, his coach removed Gobert’s advantage. The move possibly cost the Timberwolves a chance to defend a game-winning shot and secure a win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves fell to a\u00a0Jimmy Butler-void\u00a0Miami Heat\u00a0by one point Sunday evening in a low-scoring 95-94 loss. It was a much-needed victory for the Heat but an inexcusable loss for the Timberwolves. Things got controversial, though, when head coach\u00a0Chris Finch\u00a0took Timberwolves star\u00a0Rudy Gobert\u00a0out of the game late in the fourth quarter. After the game, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":106407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1608,62],"tags":[4181,142,947,4515,394],"class_list":["post-106395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-timberwolves","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-chris-finch","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","tag-nikola-jovic","tag-rudy-gobert"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}