DALLAS – Timberwolves newcomer Lorenzo Brown played 47 minutes and 55 seconds in Saturday's home loss to Cleveland because his team had no other healthy point guards available.
By Monday's game at Dallas, Wolves coach Flip Saunders had some options.
He got Ricky Rubio back and in the starting lineup after 42 games away because of a severely sprained left ankle and backup Mo Williams returned after he had missed three games because of a hip pointer.
"It changes everything," Saunders said.
It allowed Saunders to start Rubio and bring Williams off the bench and Brown as a third point guard while rookie Zach LaVine sat out again because of an ankle he sprained Friday at Philadelphia.
Saunders used the phrase "work in progress" to describe the process of integrating Rubio along with newly added Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Martin into a lineup that forged ahead since November without them.
Saunders intended to limit Rubio to 20 minutes of action or fewer on Monday, while Williams had no restrictions in his first game back in a week. Williams injured his hip trying to fight through a screen at Atlanta on Jan. 25 and went 1-for-10 the next night in Oklahoma City trying to play with it.
"I was better letting it heal. I wasn't actually helping the team trying to play through it," Williams said.