Rudy Gobert’s tenure with the Minnesota Timberwolves is not going as planned. It may have hit a low point on Saturday.
In the second quarter of the Timberwolves’ game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday, Gobert received a flagrant foul of 2 after a run-in with Thunder winger Kenrich Williams.
The kerfuffle started when Gobert tripped over a fallen Williams while jumping for a rebound. Gobert fell to the ground himself, at which point Williams spread his legs to get up and run down the field. Gobert responded by clearly extending his legs to trip Williams.
Williams reacted as one would expect, and soon a crowd was trying to break up a lopsided scramble match.
Result of the game: an expulsion for Gobert and a technical foul for Williams. Williams made one of two free throws, while D’Angelo Russell made only one free throw for Tech.
Gobert left the game with six points on 3-of-3 shooting with four rebounds in nine minutes played. He entered Saturday averaging 13.6 points on 64.5 percent shooting from the field, 11.8 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.
The Timberwolves bet big on Gobert this summer, trading four first-round picks, a pick trade and a slew of players for the three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. It was hoped that Gobert and Minnesota star Karl-Anthony Towns might be the few big men to co-exist on the court, but the result so far has been an 11-11 record and a ninth-place finish in the Western Conference before this weekend.
Towns is currently out for several weeks with a calf injury. That was supposed to give Gobert a bit more room to operate, but the Timberwolves ended up having to figure out how to navigate without either on Saturday.
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