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After collision with Mike Conley, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch suffers ruptured tendon

jace frederick, pioneer press
·4 min read

PHOENIX — The Timberwolves were moments from clinching their first series sweep in franchise history Sunday at the Suns’ Footprint Arena, but while the closing minutes ended in celebration, they didn’t come without a major bump in the road.

Or, rather, a collision.

Mike Conley was dribbling up the floor late when Phoenix guard Devin Booker gave him a bump and sent Conley flying toward the Wolves’ bench. Conley fell directly into Minnesota coach Chris Finch.

Finch fell to the floor and grabbed at his leg before being helped away from the court with what the team called a ruptured right patellar tendon.

“I didn’t see him, honestly, at first,” Conley said. “I was just trying to push the ball up the floor and Book hip checked me out of bounds, and when I saw him it was too late,”

Conley added: “I was trying to grab him. Knocked over, hit his head, and I think his foot got stuck. So it was just bad timing. … Prayers up for him, I’m sure he’ll be fine. We’ll do it for him and we’ll keep moving.”

After the game ended, players made their way into the medical room to see their coach.

“He’s obviously in great spirits, and so are the guys,” said Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori, who served as acting head coach in Finch’s absence.

“He didn’t wanna see me at first,” Conley joked. “I walked in and he started to run away. He just tried to shoo me away.”

Anthony Edwards was clearly upset by the injury, perhaps because it was a product of a Booker bump.

“I was mad as hell. I was mad. Because it’s not even something I want to talk about. I was (ticked) off,” Edwards said. “But we had to finish the game, win the game. But for sure, I was mad as hell.”

Minnesota did finish with Nori steering the ship. The assistant coach successfully executed end-of-game scenarios that included an inbounds play resulting in a bucket, offense-defense substitutions and key timeouts.

“At the end of the day, everything, the way Finchy does things and the way we’ve done things all season long, everybody has their roles and everybody just has each other’s backs, if you will,” Nori said. “I know it sounds cliché and corny, but it’s next man up, even with the coaching staff.”

“I would never say business as usual,” he added, “because Finchy does a phenomenal job, but we’re just trying to carry over what he’s been doing.”

That could be the case moving forward, as well. No treatment plans have been announced yet for Finch, but it’s logical to assume he’ll need surgery. Minnesota’s next series will start Saturday or next Monday. Will Finch be able to start that series on the front row of the bench? It feels unlikely. But he’ll certainly have a heavy hand in any schematic and rotational decisions.

“One thing about Finchy, he’s as tough as they come. He will find any way he possibly can to be out there in any shape or fashion,” Nori told KFXN-FM 100.3 on Monday. “Thankfully, it wasn’t his mind. It wasn’t a head injury, obviously. Legs are fixable. He’s still just as sharp and is able to do what he needs to do to put us in position to be successful.”

But Nori will likely need to take on a bigger role.

“I hope that he is able to go about in a normal way, whether he has a leg brace or something, so he can do what he needs to do,” Nori said on KFXN. “A worst-case scenario that I need to be prepared for is that he would have to sit maybe behind the bench with his leg, crutches or whatever. Essentially, he would be the maestro pulling the puppet strings, and I would be Pinocchio — the frontman. But he would tell me what to do and what to say.”

“Unless there comes a time when I act like I don’t hear him and I want to try something,” Nori joked. “If you see me standing at midcourt for an elongated period of time, that means that I’m in trouble and I’m trying to get out of earshot from him.”

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