When the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Chicago Bulls meet on Friday night in a preseason matchup, both teams will be suffering from injuries to star players.
The Bulls lost point guard Derrick Rose, the 2010-2011 NBA MVP, to a torn ACL injury in last year's playoffs and the Timberwolves recently lost forward Kevin Love to a hand injury. Rose has been rehabbing for months and will be out at least until December.
Fortunately for the Timberwolves, Love will only miss six to eight weeks and will not require surgery for his injury.
"Although I'm disappointed that this injury happened, I will work extremely hard to stay in shape and return to the court as quickly as possible," Love said to the Associated Press.
Love has been one of the best players in the league the past few seasons, and the Wolves will sorely miss his size and skills in the paint. He has averaged a double-double over the past three years and last season he posted his career-best stats, averaging 26 points and 13.3 rebounds per game. In the 2010-11 season, he led the NBA in rebounding, averaging 15.2 per game and also had the longest consecutive double-double streak since 1976 with 53 games.
The Timberwolves are already dealing with an injury to point guard Ricky Rubio, who tore an ACL in his knee and will be out until December.
The team has added a number of veterans in the offseason, including Brandon Roy, Andrei Kirilenko and Dante Cunningham, and has a number of talented young stars in Derrick Williams and Chase Budinger.
Last season the team was ranked near the bottom of the league in assists and points allowed per game, but did extremely well on offense, scoring 97.9 points per game. The team was also ranked 5th in rebounds, but most likely will slip from that spot without Love.
The Timberwolves have gone 3-1 so far this postseason, while the Bulls have struggled to a 2-2 record without Rose. The team will look to advance to the NBA Finals a year after making it to the Eastern Conference Finals.
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