Joan Beringer was excellent in his first meaningful minutes for Minnesota on Tuesday in Milwaukee, tallying 13 points and five rebounds in 30 minutes on a night where the Wolves were without a suspended Rudy Gobert.
The 19-year-old rookie center was a defensive deterrent in the paint and a relentless pursuer of the basketball both on the glass and the floor.
“The effort we got from Joan … was spectacular,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters after the game. “Just kept a number of plays alive, tip-ins around the basket, just energy plays, hustle plays, challenged everything, loose balls. Everything was contested.”
All the little things, and exactly what Minnesota wants the Frenchman to bring to the court. It’s what Finch seemingly admires most about Beringer in his first season with the Timberwolves — he stars in his role.
“Seeing him play with so much excitement and activity, he knows who he is as a player,” Finch told Paul Allen this week on KFXN-FM 100.3. “And I always say this as a young player, figuring out who you are, and sticking to that and that being your foundation as you move forward. … playing to your strengths, and really leaning into them, and doing it over and over again with great energy is a way to get on the floor as a young player.”
It’s what Beringer showed in mop-up duty in the games leading up to Gobert’s one-game suspension, which informed Finch and Co. that the center was ready for some run. He probably wasn’t ready at the season’s outset. Forget his age, Beringer is still relatively new to basketball in general. He didn’t pick up the sport until his teenage years.
The raw talent and athleticism has been on display since his first Summer League game, but seasoning is required to achieve at the highest level. He received some of that during a three-game stint with the club’s G-League team in Iowa in mid-December.
Beringer said that stretch helped him “a lot” as he got more reps in an environment that somewhat mirrored the NBA’s levels of speed and physicality. When the center returned to Minnesota, Finch saw a player who was more composed and sure of how to use his boundless energy within the context of the game.
The extended minutes — Beringer averaged 30 per game over his final two games with Iowa — also improved his wind, which allows the big man to play his style of basketball for longer stints.
“He just really needed to go play to settle into this phase of life,” Finch said.
And now he has. And his strong performance in his first real crack with the Timberwolves has given the coaching staff something to “ponder.” But Minnesota’s roster still makes rotational permanency unlikely for the rookie.
Naz Reid, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert eat up the Timberwolves’ big man minutes. Gobert’s suspension marked the first game any of those three have missed through the halfway point of the campaign.
On the surface, there simply aren’t minutes available for Beringer. It shouldn’t be a surprise if the center doesn’t see action Friday night in Houston.
Finch plans to try to find ways to sneak him onto the court, which could include some time for Reid at the small forward spot, something Minnesota has dabbled with in the past.
“People are going to have to sacrifice minutes,” Finch said. “But if he plays like this, then we should be benefiting from everybody. We’ll step by step this, but since draft night, we’ve long believed in this kid. So, this is just the beginning.”
But Finch also noted he can’t promise 20 minutes a night for Beringer, or even that the center will play on a game-to-game basis. The reality is, Minnesota’s roster is too good for such a guarantee and the Wolves have settled into a nice rotation that’s produced a good stretch of play.
So, maybe the coach can find his rookie a short stint here or there. But that won’t be enough to get Beringer the playing time the still fairly raw center needs to continue to progress as a player.
“You’ve got to play games, man. There’s no substitute for playing games. When you’re 19 years old and in the prime of your learning and development of your career, you’ve got to play games,” Finch said. “We’ll keep him up here (in Minnesota) for the time being, but he’s probably not done going back to Iowa.”
