Celtics at Wolves: Back at It

Celtics at Wolves
7:00 pm CST
FS North

What’s up fam? After more than a week off, the Wolves return to action tonight, hosting the Celtics at Target Center. The run in to the finish of the season begins without Karl-Anthony Towns, who will miss time with an injured wrist.

That probably means bad things in terms of wins and losses, but it also means more attention for the new roster. We’ll be watching a lot of D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Juancho Hernangomez, and others integrate and hopefully perform well enough to sustain hope that this is the beginning of something good. It’s disappointing that Towns won’t be out there getting reps with these guys, but it should still be worth watching.

Of course the last few weeks of an NBA season can lead to some bizarre results, with teams meeting who have wildly different agendas. Teams both good and bad begin resting players more, either for playoffs or ping pong balls, while others are desperate to win as much as possible to either get in to the post-season or improve their seeding.

I’m hopeful that, even without Towns, the Wolves manage a decent run in, no matter what it does for their lottery chances. It’s important that this group start changing the culture, and have something positive to hold onto heading into the summer.

Of course, tonight is a tough one, with the Celtics in town. The Cs will be without Kemba Walker tonight, but have plenty of other talent available. They currently sit third in the Eastern Conference, and are top five in both offensive and defensive rating in the NBA. After a somewhat disappointing 2018-19 season, the Celtics have rebounded behind two young stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who are both averaging over 20 a night and shooting it well from three point range.

Like the Wolves, the Celtics tend to play small, starting Brown at the four and 6’8” Daniel Theis at center. Despite this, they’ve been a solid rebounding team all season, and are holding opponents to the fifth lowest eFG percentage in the league. The Wolves will need a big shooting night from all over the court to keep up with them.

Basketball is back.

Expected Lineups

Celtics

Marcus Smart
Gordon Hayward
Jayson Tatum
Jaylen Brown
Daniel Theis

Wolves

D’Angelo Russell
Malik Beasley
Josh Okogie
Juan Hernangomez
Naz Reid

Our friends over at Celtics Blog have the Cs news. Be excellent.