(Brace Hemmelgarn/USA Today Sports)
At the beginning of the regular season, the Minnesota Timberwolves seemed like one of those sleeper teams to keep an eye on when it came to the top teams in the Western Conference. While the absence of Kevin Love–who broke his hand at the beginning of January against the Denver Nuggets–certainly hasn’t made things easier for the Wolves, they can at least be hopeful with the fact their star forward’s recent surgery on his broken hand should have him back on the court some time in March.
With the way things have played out over the last two weeks, it’s clear how valuable Love is to Minnesota’s lineup considering the team has lost five of their last six games since Love went down with the injury on January 3. In fact, the Timberwolves still had a winning record at the time before Love went down–so there’s no reason to eliminate the possibility of playoffs just yet.
As long as Love returns to his old dominant self when he does get healthy enough to play again, Minnesota could easily make a late run at the playoffs considering he’s been a double double machine throughout his entire career. At the moment the Timberwolves are only three games back of the final spot in the Western Conference–so anything is possible once Love returns to the lineup.
Until then, the Timberwolves will just have to figure out a way to get out of their recent slump and manage to win enough games to at least stay in the playoff hunt.
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