FIRED AFTER BIG WIN
Editor: Jun Lomibao • mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph
MB D C e Associated Press
INNEAPOLIS—The Minnesota Timberwolves had just posted their fourth-largest margin of victory of the season, and Tom Thibodeau looked and sounded satisfied on Sunday as the demanding and intense coach used his postgame news conference to praise the attitude and energy with which his team had just played.
Minutes later, Thibodeau was fired.
Halfway into his third season with Minnesota that began in turmoil surrounding the eventual trade of All-Star Jimmy Butler, Thibodeau’s final game was a 108-86 victory over the LeBron Jamesless Los Angeles Lakers.
Assistant Coach Ryan Saunders, who is 32, was named interim head coach for the remainder of the season. Scott Layden will stay as the general manager, assuming oversight of the roster. Thibodeau was also the president of basketball operations, with full authority over personnel decisions.
“We would like to thank Tom for his efforts and wish him all the best,” Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said in a statement released by the team. “These decisions are never easy to make, but we felt them necessary to move our organization forward.”
Though the timing of the move after a big win was unusual, the 60-year-old Thibodeau’s status was tenuous after the rocky start created largely by the way Butler forced his way out after such a strong debut season in 2017-2018 helped the Timberwolves return to the playoffs after a 13-year absence.
Taylor told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that he didn’t blame Thibodeau for Butler’s discontent, but the owner said he believed the team was underachieving.
“Let’s see if this change will make a difference,” Taylor said in his interview with the newspaper.
Saunders is the son of the late Flip Saunders, who’s by far the winningest coach in club history. Beginning with the firing of Saunders in 2005, the dismissal of Thibodeau was the 10th time the Wolves have changed head coaches in 14 years.
Thibodeau finished 97-107 with the Wolves, who barely reached the postseason last spring, needing to beat Denver in overtime at home in the 82nd and final game. They were beaten by Houston in five games in the first round. Butler pushed the organization into a corner when his stance that he wouldn’t sign a new contract with the team became public two weeks before training camp began.
The insistence of Thibodeau and Layden to hang on to Butler as long as possible, shrugging off the distraction as simply part of life in the league, backfired as Butler protected his health by playing in only select games.
The Wolves started 4-9, and after a winless five-game road trip, the awkwardness was too much for even Thibodeau and Layden to ignore. Butler was sent to Philadelphia in a package that brought Robert Covington and Dario Saric, two promising players who’ve fit relatively well in the rotation.
The Wolves are only 15-12 since the Butler deal, though, in a Western Conference that is as stacked as ever.
With Taylor’s commitment to maximum-salary contracts for both Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, there’s no more room for patience with a franchise that has had to start over so many times since Kevin Garnett led the Wolves to the Western Conference finals in 2004. The most recent setback was the death of the beloved Saunders, who served as coach and president of basketball operations in the 2014-2015 season before his death from cancer.
Saunders engineered the 2014 trade that landed Wiggins from Cleveland, and the following year, he drafted Towns with the first overall pick. Ryan Saunders joined the organization that same summer. He served five seasons as an assistant coach with Washington prior to that. Bradley Beal, meanwhile, scored 25 points to help Washington beat Oklahoma City, 116-98.
Otto Porter had 20 points, six rebounds and five assists, Jeff Green scored 16 points and Tomas Satoransky added 15 for the Wizards.
Danny Green scored 15 points and Fred VanVleet had 12 as the Raptors returned from a victory in Milwaukee on Saturday to win their fifth straight at home.
Powell made 10 of 12 shots and scored 11 points in the final quarter.
“He was really good tonight,” Nurse said. Green matched his season high with five threepointers, and Toronto hit 17 of 33 from long range, one shy of its season best.
“They were the aggressors all night long,” Pacers Coach Nate McMillan said. “We never really established that we could stop them.”
It was the fifth time this season the Raptors have faced a team that had won at least five straight games. Toronto is now 3-2 in such encounters, also beating Miami on December 26 and Milwaukee on Saturday.
“Hopefully this will be an eye-opener for us, and realize we’ve got a lot of work to do if we want to get to where we want to be,” Indiana’s Victor Oladipo said.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 21 points, Domantas Sabonis had 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Oladipo scored 16 points for Indiana. The Pacers have lost five straight and 14 of the past 16 against the Raptors.
Thaddeus Young scored 14 points, and
Darren Collison had 11.
Indiana has won 13 of its past 16, losing twice to Toronto and once to Cleveland in that span. The Raptors rallied from a 17-point deficit to beat the Pacers 99-96 on December 19.
“This is a tough place to play,” McMillan said. “They make it a tough place to play, and we haven’t had success here in a number of years.”
Both teams shot better than 60 percent in the first quarter, but the Raptors made six of nine attempts from three-point range to lead 37-35.
Powell scored 10 points in the second, and Toronto led 70-63 at halftime. Ibaka had 10 in the third as the Raptors took a 96-84 edge into the final quarter.
“Everybody was wide open tonight,” McMillan said.
MRussell Westbrook had 22 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists for his 12th triple-double of the season and the 116th of his career. Paul George scored 20 points, and Jerami Grant added 17 for the Thunder. The had won three in a row.
In Chicago, D’Angelo Russell scored 28 points, DeMarre Carroll had 20 and Brooklyn beat Chicago, 117-100, for its third straight victory.
Jarrett Allen added 19 points and six rebounds to help the Nets improve to 12-3 in their last 15 games, matching their best 15-game stretch since moving to Brooklyn in 2012.
Zach LaVine had 27 points for Chicago, and Bobby Portis scored 17 in 20 minutes off the bench after missing seven games with a sprained right ankle.
Tobias Harris scored 28 points, and Los Angeles overcame a slow start to beat Orlando, 106-96, at home.
Lou Williams added 17 points, and Danilo Gallinari and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each had 13. The Clippers have won 11 consecutive games against the Magic, a streak that goes back to the 2013-2014 season.
Nikola Vucevic had 16 points and 24 rebounds for Orlando. In Atlanta, Trae Young scored 19 points, John Collins had 13 points and 13 rebounds, and Atlanta defeated Miami, 106-82 to snap a three-game skid.
Young received a big compliment when the game ended, as 12time All-Star Dwyane Wade, who is retiring after the season, took his jersey off at halfcourt and made a swap with the Atlanta rookie. Derrick Jones Jr. led Miami with 14 points.
Kemba Walker scored 18 of his 29 points in the final four-and-ahalf minutes—including a halfcourt heave when he was trying to run out the clock—and Charlotte handed Phoenix its sixth straight loss, 119-113.
Tony Parker added 20 points, and Willy Hernangomez and Marvin Williams 16 for the Hornets.
TJ Warren had 23 points, Josh Jackson 22 and Deandre Ayton 19 for Phoenix. Devin Booker left the game with back spasms in the second quarter and did not return. ILAN—American basketball player Mike James says he was racially profiled by Milan police, who pointed guns at him and two friends after being stopped on the street—a claim that police deny. James, an African-American who plays for Olimpia Milano, tweeted, “Me and my friends Just profiled by the police smh [shaking my head] it happens even in Europe.”
James added, “Police stopped me and my two friends in the midst of 50 people walking. Got out they car with guns in hand talking about show me ID smh.”
A spokesman for Milan’s Carabinieri paramilitary police told The Associated Press (AP) on Sunday that racial profiling had no role in the “routine check.” The spokesman, who asked not to be identified as per usual procedures, said that one of the three Carabinieri officers who stopped James was carrying a M12 submachine gun, and the other two officers had pistols on their belts, but no weapons were pointed during the check.
“[The M12 is] a weapon that we’ve been using for years, and people here are used to seeing us with them,” the police spokesman said.
“Evidently, there was a misunderstanding involving this guy who perhaps isn’t used to these kinds of checks.
“We asked him for his documents, and once they were checked, everyone dispersed,” the spokesman added. “For us, it wasn’t even a check worth reporting. It was an absolutely calm situation without any problems.”
The police spokesman said that the check occurred on a residential street outside Milan’s city center on Saturday.
Asked about James’s claim that he and his friends were singled out among 50 people, the police spokesman said that “50 people may have passed during the entire check,” adding that “that day, those three officers must have stopped 50 people in all.”
Random checks of pedestrians by police in Italy appear to be less frequent than occasional random checks of drivers of vehicles for anti-terrorism and other security controls.
There was no immediate reply to a request sent by the AP to Olimpia Milano asking to speak to James.
The 28-year-old James previously played in the National Basketball Association briefly for the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans. AP