Timberwolves wing Kyle Anderson spoke with reporters about the incident involving Rudy Gobert for the first time since the center swung at him in the team’s regular season finale on Sunday.
Gobert, who was suspended by the team for the franchise’s Tuesday night play-in game against the Lakers, punched Anderson in the chest during a timeout in Sunday’s win over the Pelicans.
Anderson explained that he was not happy with the fan response to the altercation, especially as the team looks to quickly move forward and focus on the task at hand.
“We definitely hashed it out,” Anderson told reporters during shootaround on Tuesday. “That happens all the time in sports. I feel like people are acting like they’ve never seen it before. We’re grown men. We’re able to put it behind us. We both want to win. We spoke about it that night and just seeing how everything is playing out is kind of lame, honestly. We’re teammates at the end of the day. I don’t want it to be a Kyle vs. Rudy thing. That’s never the case. I always got my teammates’ back and we moved on.”
Anderson, Gobert and the rest of the Timberwolves will need to move on quickly and focus on blocking out the outside noise as they prepare for Tuesday’s game against the Lakers. A win would secure Minnesota with the No. 7 seed in the West, while a loss would push the team to the brink of elimination from playoff contention.
If the Timberwolves lose Tuesday, they will play the loser of the Thunder vs. Pelicans game on Wednesday night to determine who gets the No. 8 seed and a first-round playoff series against the top-seeded Nuggets.
