Behind The Bench: Are The Timberwolves The Sassiest Team In The NBA?

Comedian and New Orleans comedy theater founder Chris Trew is a New Orleans Pelicans fan who has a single season ticket directly behind the visitors’ bench inside New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center, where he intently listens to and interacts with the opposing team’s players and coaches. He will be documenting his experiences here for us in a regular column called, Behind the Bench. The Pelicans’ opponent in this column: the Minnesota Timberwolves, who visited on Wednesday, November 29th.

Watch Chris’ talk show, Trew To The Game, with the Pelicans right here.

The Timberwolves arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday coming off a loss all the way up in Minnesota the night before. With Tom Thibodeau running up the minutes for his starters the previous night and the Pelicans coming off a three-day rest, this felt like a schedule win. Alvin Gentry downplayed it in pre-game interviews, but the New Orleans fanbase did the opposite.

All of that confidence went out the window the second Anthony Davis got ejected. He had never been ejected in a game prior to that, much like the Minnesota FitBits had never committed a single foul the entire game, according to the Timberwolves assistant coaches.

The Smoothie King Center blew the hell up with a “REFS YOU SUCK” chant that was as loud as anything I’ve ever heard in the Center or in any Smoothie King, and that’s saying a lot. In college we used to bring our own booze to Smoothie King and get our friend who worked there to blend it up with smoothies. One day a blender exploded, and while nobody got hurt, my friend stopped blending up booze for us. Unrelated, sort of.

You know how there’s a kid on the bus that is fine, is barely cool enough, but somehow is allowed to hang out with the popular kids? He’s treated with the bare minimum of attention but laughs too hard at everyone’s jokes, tries too hard to tag along, talks too loudly like he’s talking to himself and maybe that’s because he is? That’s Cole Aldrich. The cool kids are Jimmy Butler, Jimmy Butler, and Jimmy Butler.

Every game, the visiting players get distracted by something off court. A lot of times it’s the dance team (both Pelicans Dance Team and Pelicans Senior Dance Team), sometimes it’s a Saints player in the crowd. Tonight the distraction award went to this clip of DeMarcus Cousins describing Titanic.

The T-Wolves had a good laugh, a different kind of laugh than the laughs they would throw in our faces when the eventual blowout was confirmed. The Pelicans couldn’t hang with the T-Wolves without Davis, and the game got away from them. Despite Darius Miller’s best efforts, it subsequently stayed away for good.

Before the game started, I had asked Jeff Teague if the team was tired from the night before, and he said “I don’t know,” which was for sure less convincing than “no,” or “hell no,” or just ignoring me.

An assistant coach who overheard this conversation later turned around and said to me, “They look awake now.” I applauded him waiting for an opportunity to respond to me (this is a good trash-talk approach for a game that lasts over two hours) but I didn’t ask if they were asleep, I asked if they were tired.

Coach and I got into a friendly semantics debate that ended with me conceding and saying “I’m just trying to have some fun, coach.” He nodded, signaling we were cool (this was never really in question, though), and later he let a woman rub the back of his head because he said that every time she did this, his team made a play. This coach also mocked Tony Allen’s “No. 1” hand gesture after he missed an easy layup.

One guy who made plays all night without logging a single minute of game time was Jeff Teague. I’ve learned that players will get on their feet and block your view if they have the energy and feel like it’ll shut you up. It’s the ultimate older sibling move. They aren’t breaking any rule, and the more a fan complains, the longer they’ll stand in your way. I’ve tried to tell people in my section if you want them to sit down, that the last thing you should yell at them is to sit down.

I’ve seen players tease and terrorize fans with this technique, although none for longer than Jeff Teague. He was probably on his feet as long as any player who actually handled the ball, and at one point a ref almost handed him the ball for an inbounds pass. He kept turning around and mouthing “You mad” at the fans who were absolutely letting Teague into their head. The “SIT DOWN” chant wasn’t nearly as big as the previous “REFS YOU SUCK” chant, but both brought joy to the Minnesota bench, which seemed to really enjoy playing the heel tonight.

Right behind Teague on the bad guy radar was Karl-Anthony Towns, who still didn’t score as many points as the ejected Anthony Davis. With the Pelicans’ centerpiece and KAT Crusher in the locker room, Towns must have felt like he could act out, as he did a little antagonizing of his own.

Unfortunately the “you mad” and “look he’s mad” brand of trash talk is extremely low grade. “You mad” is absolutely the new “I know you are but what am I”; a bland quip, an ineffective insult, used only by those who don’t know what else to say.

I’ll give Towns this — at the end of the game he was hollering hard for Wiggins to get the ball, as the dude had 28 points and was shooting lights-out. Towns was all over the place with enthusiasm, and when Wiggins left the game two shy of Karl-Anthony’s preferred destination, Karl couldn’t wait to tell “Wiggs” how much he wanted him to have 30.

So yeah, while the young Wolves are full of sass and probably more entitled than they should be, it’s moments like that that are so charming, they almost erase the rest. Almost.

You can follow his in-game interactions live on Twitter at @ChrisTrew.

Watch Chris’ talk show, Trew To The Game, with the Pelicans right here.