It was a painful night for the Minnesota Timberwolves — the lost in heartbreaking fashion, fans were booted out of the arena, and Kevin Love publicly called out a pair of teammates. Per the AP:
“We can’t have two guys sitting at the end of the bench that play good minutes just sitting there and not getting up during timeouts,” Love said, referring to the poor body language exhibited by veterans J.J. Barea and Dante Cunningham in the fourth quarter. “We all need to be in this together. That kind of (ticks) me off. We’re supposed to be a team.”
“It’s two guys that we expect more from them,” Love said. “I think they expect more from themselves. I’m not trying to single anybody out and I don’t want to make it bigger than it is, but it’s just a team that we needed to beat tonight and we needed everybody in there, even guys that didn’t play any minutes. We need to have a team and a bench that’s really in it together.”
Love didn’t call out either player by name, but one look at the end of the bench at any point in the fourth quarter made the targets of his ire obvious. Barea and Cunningham both were gone by the time Love made his comments. But it’s likely not going to sit well, especially with Barea, who took exception earlier this month when Love criticized the struggles of the second unit.
