The Timberwolves’ 117-89 victory Sunday afternoon didn’t have the same kind of comeback drama and scene of setting that their December in Chicago victory did, but it nonetheless made their new coach Tom Thibodeau undefeated in a two-game season sweep over a Bulls franchise he once coached.
Thibodeau went back to Chicago where he coached five seasons and his Wolves team delivered him victory after they started the game trailing 26-6.
On Sunday, he showed his former team no mercy, keeping starters Karl-Anthony Towns Ricky Rubio and Andrew Wiggins on the floor until three minutes or fewer remained even though his team still led by 25 points or more.
On Sunday, a depleted Bulls team briefly led 2-0 before the Wolves ran away with the game, leading by 26 points before halftime and by 30 in the fourth quarter after the Bulls made the obligatory comeback attempt.
Sunday’s victory put Friday’s uninspired 122-106 home loss to New Orleans behind them and in came in front of the first announced home sellout crowd (19,356), a good number of them Bulls’ fans.
It helped the Wolves that the Bulls did not play without four injured or ill players, including All-=Star Jimmy Butler and superstar Dwyane Wade.
Butler missed his fourth game in the last five because of a bruised heel and Wade did not play after he fell on both wrists in Friday’s loss at Phoenix and couldn’t bend his right shooting wrist before Sunday’s matinee start.
Reserve forward Nikola Mirotic also didn’t play because of back spasms.
The Wolves, meanwhile, only played without starting shooting guard Zach LaVine, who’s out of the season after tearing the ACL in his knee two weeks ago.
After the game, Thibodeau sought out Butler and the two hugged while Thibodeau also greeted at midcourt Bulls guard Doug McDermott, whom he coached in Chicago.
The Bulls started Jerian Grant and Michael Carter-Williams in their backcourt instead and not that unexpectedly fell behind bigly early on the final day of a six-game trip that started 12 days earlier in Oklahoma.
It only seemed like “35 days ago,” according to Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg, the former Wolves player and front-office executive.
The Wolves led 19-5 and 31-12 before the game was little more than nine minutes old. They had lapped the Bulls by the end of the first quarter – 34-17 – and stretched their lead to 45-19 by early in the second quarter before Chicago finally pushed back.
The Bulls scored 13 of the first half’s final 17 points to get within 57-40 at intermission and they trailed by as few as 13 points late in the third quarter before the Wolves’ 9-3 run that ended the quarter regained a lead as big as 21 points.
The Bulls never got closer than 16 points again and by as many as 30 in the fourth quarter.
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