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Timberwolves’ Mike Conley, working through wrist ailment, not worried about early shooting struggles – Twin Cities

Timberwolves’ Mike Conley, working through wrist ailment, not worried about early shooting struggles – Twin Cities

The Timberwolves’ guards play a mini-game after practice with the organization’s on-unit shot analysis tool that measures the arc of a shot and the degree and location at which it enters the hoop.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker rushed to Mike Conley after Thursday’s practice to inform the ground general that he made a “perfect” shot, according to the machine’s parameters.

Cute. Conley noted that he himself had made two in a row even earlier, a nearly impossible feat.

“Hopefully it will translate into the game now,” Conley said.

The veteran is well aware of his shooting struggles through four games — hitting just 27 percent of his 3-point attempts and 23 percent of his field goals overall.

Frankly, slow starts are no stranger to Conley.

October is the only month in his career where the point guard has struggled to shoot. He is a 38% shooter from the field in October, including 33% from deep. It’s the only month of the season where he’s shooting south of 42% from the field and under 37% on 3s.

But an additional cause for this year’s early struggles is easy to spot.

Conley suffered a wrist injury — a torn ligament that’s still loose and has never been put back in place — years ago that never really healed, and in the offseason, it resurfaced and caused lingering issues .

“I was depressed. I haven’t played golf all summer. I wasn’t able to. I was in and out of casts and braces and stuff like that, just trying to calm down,” Conley said. “I didn’t really touch a ball until before training camp.”

He said the surgery needed to completely fix the problem is “complex” and not something he will entertain until his career is over.

“When I’m 50, I’m going to have surgery,” Conley said. “Not right now.”

Conley’s wrist is often taped. He noted that the wrist is not something that gets worse with overuse, adding that the pain has since disappeared and efforts have focused on restoring strength to the wrist.

“There are times when I’ll pull it, I’ll think, ‘Ah, that’s good,’ and it’ll be two feet long,” Conley said. “So you just try to figure out how to evaluate the differences and keep working through that as the season goes on. I’m not worried about it, I’ve been through it before. It’s going to be ugly for a week or so and then we’ll figure it out.”

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said Conley is just dealing with stiffness, adding that so far he hasn’t seen any negative side effects of the illness during Conley’s time in Minnesota.

“I’m sure it affects his hitting to some extent. All his photos look good. It looks like they’re going to fall,” Finch said. “There was a lot of shaking, but that’s really the only thing I kind of noticed.”

Indeed, Conley went 2 for 6 against Dallas on Thursday. All four misses were boardouts.

“I’m not worried about it,” Finch said. “In terms of rotation, I feel like I’m taking him out every four minutes, so it’s not good. So I have to try to find a way to maybe extend some of the runs so they can be played more on a beat. But yes, it will be fine.

“His summer hasn’t been the same with the wrist and everything, so he hasn’t been able to have his normal training and pre-season stuff. So he’s just playing catch up right now.”