Tuesday night at Target Center, the Timberwolves began their ninth back-to-back games of the season when they played host to Charlotte. On Wednesday at home, Minnesota will face Toronto before the All-Star break. Over their first eight back-to-backs, the Wolves were 5-3 on the front end of those games and 3-5 on the back end, including losses in three consecutive and four of their past five follow-up games.
Back-to-backs are tough, of course. Especially when there is travel between the games.
Still, after winning two of their first three back ends of back-to-backs this season, the Wolves have struggled. Not that coach Chris Finch feels there is a need to change his approach in any way.
"Not really," he said somewhat jokingly. "You just try to win the first one, try to win the second one."
After the break, the Wolves have four more back-to-backs scheduled: two home games against Memphis and Philadelphia on Feb. 24-25, at Cleveland and home vs. Golden State on Feb. 28-March 1, at Oklahoma City and home vs. Portland on March 3-4 and away games at Orlando and Miami on March 11-12.
So why have the Wolves recently struggled to close out back-to-backs?
"We've been on the road a lot lately," forward Jarred Vanderbilt said, noting the past three back ends were all on the road. "I think it's all a mind-set thing. We're close to the All-Star break. Everyone's feeding into, 'I'm tired, I'm hurt,' all that. Especially on back-to-backs. It's easy to make a lot of excuses: 'We played a game, we just traveled.' Or, 'I just got banged up a little the night before.' The biggest thing is for us not to let those excuses creep in."
The good news is both Tuesday and Wednesday's games were at home, requiring no travel. "I know we've got an All-Star break coming up and everybody's looking forward to it. We need to lock in on these next couple games before we get there," Vanderbilt said.