Minnesota faces Butler, Philly for first time since breakup

MINNEAPOLIS >> About two months after Jimmy Butler initiated their breakup, the Minnesota Timberwolves are going to pay him a visit.

Just one week after the ouster of basketball boss Tom Thibodeau , the Timberwolves have enough of their own issues to work through. They did their best to downplay the significance of Tuesday’s game at Philadelphia that will pit them against Butler for the first time since the trade , but there are sure to be some raw emotions that night. The question is whether they’ll stay bottled up.

“Philly’s a really good team, one of the best teams in the East, so I feel like it’ll be a great battle,” Wolves guard Andrew Wiggins said Monday after practice, adding: “Jimmy, every game he plays hard. So it’s not like he’s going to play harder.”

The energy that Butler brought, of course, was never in doubt. The problem was how disruptive his presence became, after he requested a trade.

Thibodeau tried to hang on to his hand-picked locker-room leader as long as he could, until owner Glen Taylor pushed for a resolution that came Nov. 10 with the deal that sent him to the 76ers in a package that brought forwards Robert Covington and Dario Saric in return.

“I had a good relationship,” Wiggins said. “He was older so he tried to teach me a lot, both sides of the floor. I just learned a lot, his approach to the game and how he brought intensity and things to every game. He was a good teammate, very unselfish.”