The Timberwolves won 16 more regular-season games than the year previously and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2004. The latter is an achievement owner Glen Taylor expected his team, eliminated in the playoffs by Houston, would reach when it traded for All-Star Jimmy Butler last summer and signed several veteran free agents, including two other starters.
“I thought with the changes we made, the people we brought in, the sacrifices we made in moving some young, potential people, that we needed to be in the playoffs,” Taylor said Friday, two days after his team lost a first-round playoff series to Houston in five games.