A bright spot amid Minnesota’s struggles in its first home loss of the season Friday against Sacramento, which all but extinguished the Timberwolves’ in-season tournament hopes, was the play of Troy Brown Jr.

The veteran wing, signed at the start of free agency in July, played 25 minutes, scoring 10 points and, more importantly, grabbing seven rebounds. He was all over the floor, making a slew of hustle plays at pivotal points.

“I was proud of Troy tonight. He did a great job of immediately coming in the game and changing the way we were playing just from his effort alone,” veteran Timberwolves guard Mike Conley said. “He didn’t have to score a bucket, he didn’t have to do anything other than be on the floor and be himself, and him getting offensive rebounds, extra possessions just picked up our whole energy as a team. We need more of that. We need more guys to come and do that, especially on nights like tonight.”

Frankly, Minnesota needs more of anything from its bench this season. The Timberwolves’ starting lineup has been fairly dominant this season. But the lowest net ratings — how the team performs when you’re on the floor — all belong to the reserves.

Naz Reid certainly has had moments, and Kyle Anderson is a constant stabilizer. Nickeil Alexander-Walker remains one of the team’s best perimeter defenders and is growing into a point guard option off the bench.

But Shake Milton has struggled mightily. And Brown’s minutes have been sporadic, at best. Frankly, the second unit often seems to lack much identity or direction. Perhaps that’s due to the blended, ever-changing lineups. Maybe it’s because the Timberwolves lack a true second point guard with Jordan McLaughlin out with injury.

The injuries to McLaughlin and Jaden McDaniels — the latter forced Alexander-Walker into the starting lineup — have exposed the weaknesses in the secondary lineups. There aren’t the same quality of defenders coming off the bench, and the offense struggles to find any sort of flow outside of transition opportunities.

One way to make up for those deficiencies is simply through effort. If you can force an extra stop or nab a loose ball, other errors become less consequential. If you play hard enough, you can simply muck up the bench minutes and stem the tide until the starters return to action. That would be an improvement over what’s currently transpiring.

Frankly, any time Anthony Edwards isn’t on the floor, Minnesota has struggled.

“I think our scoring drops a little bit. I’ve been trying to stagger him and KAT a little bit more,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said of the non-Edwards minutes. “But something that’s been kind of up and down for us is our bench production. Right now we’re struggling a little bit with it. But I also believe that our defense kind of dropped off, too, more than anything else.”

Perhaps Brown can be a band-aid. He wasn’t a member of the rotation at the start of the regular season. But injuries have thrust him into more duty. He has the body to be a capable defender, can hit an outside shot and showed Friday that he can bring value simply through making all of the little plays.

“Sometimes I feel like that’s what the team needs, just a little spark,” Brown said. “I was glad to come in and help make a difference (again Sacramento). That’s all you need sometimes. Sometimes you just need a little energy, a little pump up, get a couple stops and we’re right back in it.”

Brown’s opportunities have come because of injuries, but such is life for a 10th or 11th man on an NBA roster. Your chances won’t be consistent, but they’ll come. You just don’t know when. But when opportunity knocks, you’d better be ready to answer.

“I just feel like at this point it’s part of my job, it’s part of being a professional,” Brown said. “I just try to keep an open mindset, optimistic, especially around these guys when we’re winning. You just gotta stay with it, gotta love the game and keep going at it every day. … Sometimes with guys that aren’t playing, we get down on ourselves or we think it’s for a reason or whatever. It’s just one of those things where you’ve got to wait for your time and stay optimistic.”

If he continues to play the way he did Friday, serving as a potential solution to the bench deficiencies, rather than furthering the problems, those opportunities could become more abundant in short order.

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