{"id":853987,"date":"2026-09-20T04:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/853987\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T04:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:46:36","slug":"wolves-notes-finch-beringer-ball-kuminga-prigioni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/853987\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolves Notes: Finch, Beringer, Ball, Kuminga, Prigioni"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Naz Reid<\/a> no longer on the roster, the Timberwolves will rely more than ever on Joan Beringer<\/a> to handle the backup center role. Coach Chris Finch talks about the importance of the 19-year-old big man in the latest installment of his interview with Britt Robson of MinnPost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to realize, as with all young players, there is going to be inconsistency,\u201d Finch said. \u201cThe way I\u2019m looking at it, is it self-imposed inconsistency or is it just young-player-growth inconsistency? I think with Joan you are certainly going to have the latter. The former \u2014 he plays so hard, he\u2019s got incredible balance and energy. He\u2019s got to figure out the balance of retaining the effort while regulating wanting to go after everything all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fouls. He always ends up on the ground, you know? And oftentimes takes himself out of position by being overly aggressive. But learning to dial that back is better than the other way around, trying to ramp somebody up all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beringer, the 17th pick in the 2025 draft, was brought along slowly last season, averaging 7.9 minutes in 40 games. Finch admits that his ability to handle expanded playing time will have a huge bearing on the team\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gives us great confidence is that when he had chances last year \u2014 and he could have had more if we weren\u2019t constructed the way we were constructed \u2014 he met the moment most of the time,\u201d Finch added. \u201cWhen he failed to meet the moment is when he had too much opportunity, like when I had to start him.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more on the Timberwolves:<\/p>\n

Trading for LaMelo Ball<\/a> and signing Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> in free agency added a lot of athleticism to the starting lineup, and Finch told Robson that he plans to adjust his strategy to maximize that advantage. \u201cI could see us being more purposeful with our combinations,\u201d he said. \u201cPutting (Anthony Edwards<\/a>) with people in a two-man game, and things like that. I think we\u2019ve got more flexibility there now. Having the point guard we have now gives us the chance to get back to using Anthony a little bit more strategically in certain situations that we couldn\u2019t do last year. Anyway, defensively, I want us to increasingly use our physicality, ball-pressure, all the things that we have wanted to do.\u201d
\nFinch calls last season \u201csuper frustrating\u201d and says the team \u201cunderachieved\u201d for most of the year, which led to a second-round playoff exit. He regrets a late-season switch to replace veteran point guard Mike Conley<\/a> with Donte DiVincenzo<\/a> in the starting lineup, telling Robson that it took a physical toll on Edwards and a mental toll on Conley, who departed this summer in free agency. He adds that the atmosphere surrounding the team often wasn\u2019t good. \u201cWe didn\u2019t play with any kind of joy at times,\u201d Finch said. \u201cWe\u2019d come in and out of moods \u2014 we\u2019ve talked about before. And we\u2019ve got to find a way to fight that if that remains in our personality, you know?\u201d
\nThe Wolves also experienced a major change on the sidelines as lead assistant Micah Nori became Portland\u2019s new head coach. Pablo Prigioni is taking over that role, and Finch explains how his responsibilities will be different from what Nori used to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Naz Reid no longer on the roster, the Timberwolves will rely more than ever on Joan Beringer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[31513,158985,29271,6422,25179,311443,136088,355,24888,99],"class_list":["post-853987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-chris-finch","tag-joan-beringer","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-lamelo-ball","tag-micah-nori","tag-mike-conley","tag-nba","tag-pablo-prigioni","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}