Short bench takes a bite out of the young Wolves

After they played seven games in 11 days, including four in five nights ending Tuesday, the Timberwolves now play three times in the next week.

And just in time, too.

It is March and 65 games into the season, the Wolves took Wednesday off before they fly away Thursday on a four-game, nine-day trip that will take them to Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Memphis and Houston.

"We need to get some rest," Wolves interim head coach Sam Mitchell said. "Our guys are tired."

Mitchell offers Tuesday's 116-91 loss to a San Antonio team missing its head coach and three star players as proof that his team, despite its young legs, is undermanned and undersized.

Big men Nemanja Bjelica, Kevin Garnett and Nikola Pekovic have been out injured since at least last month's All-Star break, veterans Andre Miller and Kevin Martin were bought out of their contracts and released and the Wolves filled just one of those two open roster spots so far by signing D-League center Greg Smith.

Mitchell spoke last week about signing an athletic wing player to fill that 15th and final roster spot. But nearly a week later, the Wolves haven't yet done so.

By chance and by choice, the Wolves have asked 20-somethings Karl-Antony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine to carry most of the burden by playing increased minutes to counter a depleted bench and by playing against older, stronger opponents.

"Yeah, but that's what you want," LaVine said when asked if the minutes are piling up on his team's young rising stars. "You want minutes. You just have to have your body ready for that. It's tough, but that's what every player wants. You just get to that point where you know the minutes are coming and you know how to handle it with your body.

"I'm good. You all know I'm an athlete. I'm straight. I'm good. I've been taking my ice baths. I can still run. I can still jump. I'm OK."

His right shoulder, taped for Tuesday's game, might be another matter.

"I don't know about that," he said when asked after Tuesday's game about it. "My shoulder is a little messed up. I'm all right. I'm not a big complainer. I'm OK."

"Zach is, what, 185 pounds and Andrew's 203 and they're pushing on guys who are 30, 40 pounds heavier than they are," Mitchell said. "People just don't understand. I've had to play bigger guys night in and night out and it just drains you. The effort it takes to push against a guy when you're giving up 40, 50 pounds, people have no idea what it does to you and I played at 230. … But they're competing every night and they're learning how to fight."

Now they also collectively have to learn how to be consistent as well.

"I think we're going to be fine, I think we're going to be good," Towns said. "We're a young team. We're very athletic. As you can see, we have nights when we just cannot miss the ball with 68 percent [shooting in Saturday's victory over Brooklyn] or we can have nights where we're shooting 40 percent. We just have to find a medium."