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Jimmy Butler carried a simple message to his Minnesota Timberwolves teammates in the eve of the regular season opener.
“Don’t worry about Thibs. I got him.” Jimmy Butler told Shams Charania of The Athletic. “Just hoop, I told them, and I think that I can get Thibs to relax a little bit.”
The Timberwolves struggled through the preseason, winning only one game and playing a sluggish, stagnant game that would only produce nightmares in the regular season — the result of commander-in-chief Thibodeau serving up a boot-camp-like regime during the team's training camp.
So Butler committed to shouldering another load, that of his like-minded head coach.
“He’s never going to say anything about offense as long as you go down there and play with effort on the defensive end and get a couple stops,” added Jimmy Butler. “It’s whenever you’re not getting stops when he starts yelling.”
“I think Thibs has calmed down a lot, and guys are playing with effort. It’s never about offense. We’re always going to score enough points. It’s all about getting stops.”
The Timberwolves have three highly-talented scorers in Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Butler — enough to put sufficient points on the board to contend with any of the Western Conference powerhouses.
“Thibs didn’t exert as much energy as he always does the past few weeks,” said Jimmy Butler. He needs to do that more: Sit down, take the load off and trust your guys to get a W.”
Minnesota started the season 0-1 after a narrow 112-108 loss to the short-handed San Antonio Spurs, but it'll be up to Butler and his teammates to get back their footing and keep their coach on a silent seat for the near future.
