rear Thursday’s win against the Raptors., the Timberwolves moved up two spots in the Western Conference from 9th to 7th. This is the unstable west of the season. Even one game can have a big impact on a team’s standings.
A good week or a bad week can cause your team’s standings to skyrocket or plummet.
The Wolves came out Friday as the fifth seed, 1.5 games behind Dallas, while Sacramento and New Orleans tied for the third seed, four games behind. They have a chance to keep going up over the next few days with two matches against the worst team in the league, Houston.
The Wolves’ main goal, which has Karl-Anthony Towns out with a right calf injury, was, as manager Chris Finch said before Thursday’s game, “to keep his head off the water.”
The Wolves have done just enough to make it in the standings while waiting for Towns’ return, but the date is still unknown.
Towns vented his frustrations over it, offering some clarity about the nature of his injury in comments he made on his Twitch platform after Thursday’s game. Since then, he has not made much public comment about his injury.
However, Towns revealed he had a grade 3 calf strain. This was a serious injury that would take him over two months to recover, and not a serious grade 2 strain.
“It wasn’t grade 2 [strain]unfortunately never made it to Grade 2.” Townes said in his livestream“I prayed to Almighty God that it was a grade 2, but I knew it wasn’t. It was a grade 3.”
Townes took issue with a reported timetable of four to six weeks to give fans “false hope” that he might return sooner than expected.
“I wish it was four to six weeks. I knew it wouldn’t be four to six weeks,” Towns said. “The team was trying to go 4-6. There was nothing I could do about the injury I got. It’s a very serious injury. I don’t know if they were trying to give the fans false hope or what. I do not understand” “
The 4-6 week timetable is based on ESPN’s report citing sources that Towns could be back in that time. It was also used in the headline of the work.
That timetable was never publicly provided by the team. team, In a news release after Towns ran more tests After the injury, Towns said he would be sidelined “indefinitely.” When asked multiple times about Towns’ recovery, Finch reiterated that he never provided a firm timetable for Towns’ return, often taking weeks.
The Star Tribune first reported He said one potential timetable for the return could be four to six weeks, but the timetable was not clear.
Fans reached out to Towns on social media to grab a time slot of four to six weeks. It seemed to irritate Towns, who speculated about how the pieces of information were distributed. He said he had just finished having his MRI when the news began to hit. He reiterated that the time slot never came from him.
“It wasn’t fair to everyone,” Townes said. “And more importantly, try not to be a selfish tip, but it wasn’t fair to me for me to walk into the room. [after his MRI] One wasn’t accurate, but two were already unfair to me wanting to play.
“I love playing basketball. I love doing what I do. It’s not fair to give false hope, I just want to put it to rest.’ I’ve seen a lot of people say that. “
Nonetheless, Townes said his recovery is going well and he looks forward to returning anytime.
“I’m getting better. Everything is going well. It’s going really well,” Townes said. “It’s just getting better. It takes time. This is a very real injury. Serious. But it could have been worse.”
