ORLANDO – Before the season began, the Timberwolves took a team trip to the Bahamas, a time for them to come together and bond as a team.
There is no time for a trip to the Bahamas during the season, but there was a convenient destination on the schedule to do some team bonding: Miami.
Before their game against the Heat on Wednesday, the Wolves took in some time at the beach, played a little football and got some time away from the court as a team.
"You go to a city like Miami, you go and try to have as much fun as you can, because the weather is nice, the scenery is nice," guard D'Angelo Russell said. "We did a team event. I think it played a major part in our chemistry growing. We were on the beach together and [did] just a few activities — football — to get the camaraderie flowing."
Some NBA teams come down with a case of the Miami flu, when the nightlife can get the best of them. Instead, Miami brought out the best in these Wolves as they completed a double-digit comeback to beat the playoff-bound Heat. This four-game trip has been a time for team bonding, with veteran James Johnson leading the way in organizing the team activities in Miami, where he played for parts of three seasons.
At the start of this trip, the Wolves also watched Saturday night's WBC heavyweight championship fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.
"You spend time together, spend every day together, that's going to help," forward Juancho Hernangomez said. "Especially on the road when we are kind of alone and we can enjoy and [get] to know each other. I think it's really important to know each other off and on the court, see what the people like on and off the court and just build a relationship."
Having a road trip can facilitate that a little easier for a team than a series of home games, since you spend most moments together traveling, bussing to and from practices, shootarounds and games and spending time in hotels with each other instead of your separate homes and apartments. It's a necessary step for what is essentially a new team.
"A lot of things that you would do in August, things you do throughout the summer and during summer league and into training camp and preseason, these guys are trying to fit in, in a week," coach Ryan Saunders said.
Rolling it forward
Helping with camaraderie was the fact that the Wolves pulled off one of their most thrilling victories of the season — for either iteration of the team. At the heart of that was the block Russell had on former Wolves star Jimmy Butler.
"I thought right there you saw how we all had each other's back," Russell said. "The first guy may have gotten beat, but you had two, three other guys ready to rotate and make a winning play."
In the first game of the season, Saunders pointed to an offensive rebound Treveon Graham had in an overtime victory over Brooklyn as the kind of mentality he wanted to the Wolves to have. Russell's block could be similar to that.
"I think it's more of a mentality, a not-give-up mentality," Saunders said. "Not quitting on plays. A multiple effort and extra effort mentality, especially on the defensive end. We know that is something we need to get better at as a group."
No update on Crabbe
Saunders said he wasn't sure when forward Allen Crabbe would rejoin the team. Crabbe, acquired last month from Atlanta for Jeff Teague and Graham, has missed the past four games for personal reasons.
