Sam Mitchell benched T’Wolves stars for second half for lack of effort

Minnesota Timberwolves interim coach Sam Mitchell is not going to tolerate a second-rate effort from his young team.

During Minnesota’s game Saturday night at Milwaukee, Mitchell yanked his three biggest names – Ricky Rubio, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl-Anthony Towns – early in the second half and didn’t bring them back for the rest of the night.

Why? Well, Mitchell explained in his postgame remarks, which lasted all of thirty seconds and did not involve taking questions.

“I thought the guys who played in the second half played hard,” Mitchell said, via Kent Youngblood of the Star Tribune. “Played together, played with a type of intensity and energy we needed to. I thought some of the guys in the first group didn’t play that way. And they have to understand, every single night you have to earn it. You don’t get to sleepwalk your way through 20, 25 minutes of the game and then decide you gotta play. So the guys that didn’t play in the second half, after we pulled ’em out, hopefully they understand that there’s two sides on the court. You have to play both sides.”

Two of the players involved were asked about the decision, and both were rather terse in their responses. Towns simply praised the guys who did play. Wiggins defended his play.

“If that’s his plan, that’s his plan,” Wiggins said. “I played hard.”

Minnesota is an extremely young team and there will be growing pains like this. Rubio has been around for a while, but he’s still only 25, while Towns and Wiggins are 20 and 21, respectively. Perhaps this isn’t the first issue with Rubio, as the Wolves have reportedly been willing to move him this season.