Rockets at Timberwolves - Part 1: The Losening

Minnesota Timberwolves (10-34) vs. Houston Rockets (12-31), Friday, March 26th 2021, 7:00 p.m. CDT

Location: Target Center, Minneapolis MN

TV: AT&T SportsNet

Radio: SportsTalk790

Online: Rockets App

Timberwolves SB Nation Blog: Canis Hoopus

Projected Starting Lineups

Wuffs: Rickey Rubio, Someone, Anthony Edwards, Jared VanDerBilt, Karl-Anthony Towns

Rickets: John Wall, Sterling Brown, Danuel House Jr., Jae’Sean Tate, Christian Wood

Health & Safety:

Timberwolves: Josh Okogie (protocol), D’Angelo Russell (leg)

Rockets: Dante Exum: out (BDE), Kevin Porter Jr. (quad), David Nwaba (wrist), Victor Oladipo (Heat Prostration), Eric Gordon: (groined)

It’s yet another New Look Rockets. There have been so many this season, and none of them good, for widely varying reasons. This seems like a Must Lose series for both teams, but be aware, Minnesota didn’t want to be this bad. They really didn’t. That could play right into the Rockets non-rebounding hands!

The Rockets didn’t want to be terrible either, but James Harden took that choice out of their hands. Now it seems clear that they do, indeed, want to be bad, or if not that exactly, have no choice but to be awful. So they’re leaning in.

Now the Rockets feature only one inefficient chucker starting at guard, and that should improve things a bit. Maybe. It depends on whether or not John Wall is aiming to take 30 shots, and not pass to Christian Wood. Hopefully that won’t be the case.

In any case, Victor Oladipo won’t be attempting to drive past opponents, failing, and stopping in front of the rim to put up some weird hook shoot or something. I won’t miss that. I’ll never miss that.

Will future Rockets Cornerstones Kelly Olynyk and Avery Bradley be available? It’s unclear, but perhaps! Honestly, at the right price, Olynyk (despite being a player I don’t like very much) could be a perfectly serviceable back up 4 or 5 for Christian Wood. He can space the floor a bit, so the Rockets offense doesn’t have to change when he’s in the game, which can only be a good thing.