The Timberwolves had a late scratch for their game against the San Antonio Spurs: coach Chris Finch.
Finch missed the Wolves’ game on Sunday night, Jan. 11, because of an illness, the team said, with assistant Micah Nori taking over head coaching duties at Target Center. Nori said Finch was at the coaches’ meeting, but his illness got worse throughout the day. Finch stayed away from the team in case he was contagious.
“He just said to just be ready,” Nori said of what Finch told him. “I don’t want to speculate, but maybe a little bit of flu or whatever it may be. Hopefully he’ll be OK.”
Nori is no stranger to taking over for Finch. He took over for a sick Finch two seasons ago for a game at Cleveland, and he relieved Finch after Finch was ejected twice in his NBA coaching career, including once earlier this season against Oklahoma City.
Nori was also the standing coach on the sideline when Finch ruptured a patellar tendon in the first round of the 2024 playoffs and sat behind the bench the rest of that postseason.
Nori, who typically handles the rotations in addition to late-game play-calls, said he wasn’t going to put much of his own individual stamp on the game with Finch out.
“You don’t want to disrupt [the players’] routine,” Nori said. “... I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel as far as running different things and that type of stuff. So, everything will be what we’ve already got in.
“Nothing much is really going to change at all, and I hope it doesn’t because for the most part we got a good thing going. The guys know what they’re doing, what’s expected of them, and the worst thing they need is for someone like myself to come in and put a stamp on things that’s not necessary, for sure.”
