Wolves at Bucks: Dress Rehearsal

Wolves at Bucks

7:00pm CST

FS North

Finally, we’re almost there. The Timberwolves play their final tune up game tonight in Milwaukee.

It’s hard to say what to expect in any preseason game, but we should have a better idea tonight as Minnesota will likely treat this as a dress rehearsal of sorts.

I’d expect KAT to play somewhere around 30 minutes, and I’d hope he doesn’t play any more than that. Give me three quarters of real basketball with Towns and I’ll be pleased.

On a larger level, we should expect to see more of the same. The Wolves are going to continue to try to push the pace, but it’ll be interesting to see how successful they’re going to be in doing so. Against the Pacers, they met some resistance and they weren’t able to play quite as fast.

With that, I wouldn’t expect the three point attempts to slow down. The Wolves are all-in on this culture and philosophy change. In the long run, they’ll be better off because of it. As Eric stated earlier in the week, it’s going to be ugly at first, but in the long run it should pay off.

I’d like to see the defense improve. I need something to suggest that the change in defensive scheme is going to work out. If there’s anything left that I’d like to see from the preseason version of the Wolves, it’s this. It’s going to be a fun season offensively, but man, the defense just needs to be at least average. Another terrible season defensively would make for a long, long winter.

The other thing I’ll have my eye on is Robert Covington’s rebounding. Obviously, taking much from one preseason game is foolish, but RoCo’s 19 rebounds against Indiana was astounding. I’m skeptical of how the Wolves can handle the boards with Covington at the four, but that was an incredibly encouraging sign. The Wolves need Covington to be an asset on the glass.

The other obvious thing to watch is Jarrett Culver. He has looked promising thus far, and I am really intrigued to see if he’s going to take on more and more ball-handling responsibilities as the season wears on. Culver being a legit wing initiator changes a lot for the future outlook of the Wolves franchise.

Last, but certainly not least, let’s hope and pray for no injuries tonight. Losing players to injury always sucks, but losing a player in the preseason is devastating. This goes for both teams. Nobody wants to see a team lose a player because of some preseason action.