The Timberwolves will continue their West Coast road trip with a visit to Portland on Sunday night to take on the Blazers as Minnesota looks to get back to .500 on the season, but they’ll have to do so without one of their top players once again.
Jimmy Butler will sit out his third game of the season for “precautionary rest” as Tom Thibodeau informed the media in Portland.
https://twitter.com/highkin/status/1059159187412799488
Minnesota forward Jimmy Butler will not play tonight against Portland “due to precautionary rest.”
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) November 4, 2018
The Timberwolves are 1-1 in their two prior games without Butler, losing by four in Dallas and beating Utah by three in Minnesota last Wednesday. Every Butler absence brings about rumblings over his future, as his trade request still looms over everything in Minnesota.
He’s insisted these absences are all part of planned rest that’s coordinated with the team due to him missing most of camp, while there were reports this was part of the “next step” in his plan to apply further pressure to the team to trade him. The entire situation is a mess, but in the meantime they’ll have to hope that Karl-Anthony Towns can step up again in his absence, and maybe they’ll get another monster performance out of Derrick Rose. Most importantly, they’ll have to figure out how to defend on the perimeter in Butler’s absence against Portland’s stout backcourt, as the Blazers are yet to be held under 100 points this season.
