The electricity crackled through Target Center in the moments leading up to Game 3, a long-suffering basketball community letting loose with a volume fueled by three days’ worth of national conversation suggesting that their Minnesota Timberwolves were suddenly the team to beat in the NBA playoffs.
They had the Denver Nuggets on the ropes and this was supposed to be a celebration of the Wolves’ arrival. Maybe all the Michael Jordan comparisons and championship forecasts were a little too much for the Wolves to handle. The Timberwolves have been the talk of the league all week, maybe for the first time in franchise history. The Nuggets had been left for dead. Both teams responded accordingly in Denver’s 117-90 wipeout on Friday night, a major buzzkill for a team and market that had been waiting so long for a moment like this.
“Just cause we’ve won a couple of games in a row does not mean that we have any room to relax and get comfortable,” Timberwolves guard Mike Conley said. “Our guys know that. Maybe a loss here and there will help even that out and get us back to the back-against-the-wall mentality and not all the praise and things that have happened over the last three days that we’re not accustomed to.”
Every time a television was turned on or a podcast was downloaded this week, someone was singing the Timberwolves’ praises. Anthony Edwards was featured on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” More and more media were arriving in the Twin Cities to cover this fun, new upstart with the smashmout defense and the self-assured swagger.
They earned as much with a dominant 6-0 start to the playoffs. The lovefest had reached such a crescendo that the Nuggets spliced together more than two minutes worth of video clips of analysts saying this series was over, that the champs were getting swept out of the playoffs and the Wolves were steamrolling toward a championship.
Part of the climb to the top involves handling the increased attention that comes with it. What followed in Game 3 was the flattest performance of the playoffs for the Wolves. They trailed by as many as 34 points. They were outrebounded 40-32. They blocked just three shots and shot an abysmal 30 percent from 3-point range in the loss that turned what looked like a runaway for the Wolves into a series.
“I think this humbles us, this game, a little bit,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, who scored 14 points and only took seven shots in the game. “It shows that you can’t just expect the same results because we’ve had those results that we’ve been wanting and looking for for six games in the playoffs.”
The Wolves needed to be humbled and the champions needed to wake up. Both happened in the long, three-day break between Games 2 and 3. Jamal Murray, who looked so flummoxed in the first two games while playing on a gimpy calf, was rejuvenated on Friday night. He was booed mercilessly after his tantrum in Game 2 somehow did not merit a suspension, but the extended time off appeared to do him some good. He scored 24 points on 11-of-21 shooting and did not look nearly as bothered by the Wolves’ perimeter defense as he did the previous two games.
Certified bucket getter pic.twitter.com/X2tIbgTCLw
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) May 11, 2024
The Wolves’ strategy of putting Towns on Nikola Jokić and letting Rudy Gobert roam off of Aaron Gordon has worked well in the regular season and the first two games of the series. But Gordon came through when the Nuggets needed him most on Friday night, going 3 of 4 from 3-point range with Gobert sagging way off of him. He hit a pair of them in the first five minutes of Denver’s 37-point third quarter that all but put the game away and sucked the life out of what was a charged-up Target Center crowd.
The defense that was so dominating in the first two games of this series, the ferociousness that earned the Wolves so many flowers this week, just wasn’t there in Game 3. Part of the reason is the game was called tighter than the first two, with Tony Brothers’ crew not allowing the same physicality that was a hallmark of Games 1 and 2 in Denver.
Jaden McDaniels was in foul trouble for much of the game, picking up his fourth foul less than five minutes into the third quarter. There were some questionable calls, for sure, but the Wolves did reach and poke and prod, as they have done for so much of the season. It just so happens that this crew had a different approach with the whistle, which required the Wolves to adjust.
“We don’t blame the refs and think that’s why we lost this game,” Conley said. “We know better than that. But we put it on us and, at the end of the day, I think we’ll be better from it.”
The Nuggets ramped up their defensive energy as well, on the perimeter at least. Jokić seemed largely indifferent to defending in the paint, but Denver’s perimeter did a nice job of limiting the opportunities for Edwards and Towns to drive to the basket. After averaging 35.0 points in the first two games, Edwards scored just 19 on Friday night with five turnovers. He seemed oddly passive, with eight of his 15 shots coming from 3-point range despite Jokić not showing much interest at all in protecting the paint.
DISHIN’ OUT DIMES. 🪙 pic.twitter.com/YhbbEuQ9ct
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) May 11, 2024
“I’ll take the blame for this loss,” Edwards said. “I came out with no energy at all. I can’t afford to do that for my team. I let my team down, coaches down, fans down. I’ll be ready Sunday.”
The Wolves shot 43 percent from the field, including 10 of 33 from 3-point range and missed a whole bunch of layups and bunnies to dig themselves a hole far too big to overcome. Conley scored just 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting with three turnovers. Gobert had six points, four rebounds and no blocks in his return after missing Game 2 for the birth of his son. Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid, the two bench players who give Minnesota such a big edge over Denver’s subs in the series, combined to shoot 4 of 12 and 1 of 6 from 3.
The frustration that was on the faces of the Nuggets in the first two games shifted to Minnesota. Reid picked up a technical foul after missing a layup late in the third quarter and Alexander-Walker and Kyle Anderson both got into it with Brothers with the game out of reach in the fourth quarter.
Alexander-Walker believed Jokić should have been called for an illegal screen. A few plays earlier, NAW hurt his left shoulder. It was stinging again when Jokić hit him with what NAW felt was a moving screen. He did not believe it was a dirty play, but the pain in his shoulder and probably the lopsided scoreboard sent him off.
“I just got heated in the moment, getting hurt, trying to play hard,” he said. “Should’ve had a better conversation.”
It was an uncharacteristic performance and a dangerous one for the Wolves. They have injected belief and purpose into a team that had little of either after that wipeout in Game 2.
“I thought we’d be better,” coach Chris Finch said. “We talked all season about being a mature team and mature teams have to handle success. Three days between games. How do you prepare? Back home. Lots of distractions. Need to lock in.”
There will be fatalists in Minnesota who believe this is the beginning of a collapse. That decades of failure from its teams mean another gut punch of a loss is coming. But these Wolves will lean on the connection and reputation that they have formed this season. They have proven to be a resilient team, one that has not lost three in a row all season and only lost two straight four times. The Wolves are 10-0 this season — regular season and playoffs — in games immediately following a double-digit loss.
After the game, there was no panic in the Timberwolves locker room, only disappointment in the effort they gave in front of a terrific home crowd. The tone of the attention they will receive after this game will certainly be different from earlier this week. Maybe that’s a good thing.
“I like the fact that they punched tonight, and we didn’t punch back. That’s the thing about basketball — that’s fun,” Edwards said. “We love to compete. It should be very competitive Sunday, and we’re going to be here for it.”
(Photo of Tony Brothers and Kyle Anderson: David Berding / Getty Images)
