Minnesota’s Kyle Anderson leaves Game 1 vs. Suns with hip pointer

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kyle Anderson exited his team’s 120-95 Game 1 victory over the Phoenix Suns at the Target Center on Saturday with a hip pointer injury and was ruled out.

Anderson came out less than two minutes into the second quarter after he had played five minutes off the bench. In the five minutes, Anderson made one shot and committed two fouls.

With his two points and 19 others, the Minnesota bench outscored Phoenix’s 21-6 in the half and 32-14 in the game. Royce O’Neale was the only Suns player to score off the bench until Frank Vogel pulled his rotation in the final minutes.

Anderson played 79 games in the regular season for Minneosta, averaging 6.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game on 46% shooting.

Without the 6-foot-9, 230-pound Anderson available, the T-Wolves don’t have as much length to bank on, but they still have Karl-Anthony Towns (7-foot), Rudy Gobert (7-foot-1), Naz Reid (6-foot-9) and Jaden McDaniels (6-foot-9) all featured in the rotation.

It was that length that helped Minnesota build a 27-14 rebounding advantage over Phoenix in the first half, while Gobert led the way with nine boards. Those advantages became 52-28 for the rebounding margin as Gobert finished with 16.

Towns led his team in first-half scoring with 13 points on seven shots while Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant paced Suns scorers for the game with 31 points on 17 shots.