DENVER — There’s no more waiting for your turn in today’s NBA, and there’s no more suffering a team must endure before reaching elite status.
Windows open and close faster than anyone would expect, so when an opportunity arises, you might as well take it.
And the Minnesota Timberwolves shook off nerves, first-half lethargy and even two decades of generational ineptitude to not only establish themselves as a bona fide championship contender, but to shake off the defending champion Denver Nuggets – on their home floor in a Game 7, and soon back from a 20-point deficit to do so.
The Nuggets know that feeling, they were the championship stalkers last spring, shaking off curses and injuries to ultimately snatch the title away from the traditional NBA powers.
That ultimate feeling is the feeling the Timberwolves hope to have – which is also a feeling of exhaustion, of frustration, the feeling that says that as a champion you have 82 more games to play before you embark on the two-month journey in the hope of to win back. another title.
The Wolves want it now, without all the devastating heartbreak that comes with a championship road.
“It’s the playoffs, we lost last year,” Karl-Anthony Towns said, referring to last year’s first-round loss to these Nuggets.
“We’ve lost the last two years,” Anthony Edwards said, a nod to their first-round loss to Memphis in 2022.
Towns continued, “How much more do we have to lose? We have been losing for twenty years!”
Maybe not much more.
It was the takeover of Rudy Gobert that initiated this turnaround, an ambitious move by the way. And Gobert’s 9-1-1 jumper off the shot clock was the karmic moment that let everyone know it was Minny’s night.
For the sixth year in a row, the NBA will not have a returning champion, and for the first time in modern NBA history, the NBA Final Four will not feature a current or former Most Valuable Player.
The Timberwolves came to Ball Arena and won for the third time in this series, advancing to the Western Conference finals with a 98-90 victory on Sunday night, the most unlikely finale of the most unlikely series.
The Timberwolves will have home field advantage against the Dallas Mavericks when the series kicks off Wednesday night.
It was all there, the flushed look on Nuggets coach Michael Malone’s face, the fatigue dripping from his voice as if he’d played 48 minutes and suddenly couldn’t make a shot.
It was all there, the cheering in the room behind him as he spoke at his press conference – it was almost cruel. Because it was the Timberwolves’ locker room, where all the hooting and hollering was the moment it certainly deserved.
After initially being caustic, Malone composed himself. These Timberwolves are built to beat these Nuggets, and while history says a team has to suffer a little more before taking over, in today’s league the takeover doesn’t take that long.
“I’m not an excuse maker, the better team won,” said Malone. “Last year we played a lot of basketball until June. We had to play our key guys during Game 82 to secure the second seed. Last season’s run, and when we came back mentally, emotionally and physically, our guys were gassed. They gave me everything I could ask for.”
Champions ridiculed the challengers. From Magic to Isiah to Michael, to Shaq and Kobe, to Steph and KD, it became common to repeat. If you win one, set your watch for the same time next June.
Now June doesn’t belong to anyone. You can borrow June, but when the lease expires you will be abruptly evicted – even if you have the best player in the world in Nikola Jokić, even if you have the best non-All Star in Jamal Murray.
“So much has been placed on their shoulders,” Malone said. “We expect that Nikola and Jamal will continue to pull rabbits out of their hats and that someone else will have to give them some help. We just had trouble getting shots. They are a very good defense.”
The duo carried the Nuggets as far as they could, especially Murray on his injured calf. When Murray left, all was right with the world in the first half. He and Jokić combined to score 69 of the Nuggets points, but they couldn’t find help elsewhere. Jokić had 34 with 19 rebounds, but it didn’t feel like a signature Jokić game.
And now he has to cook.
But despite the Timberwolves’ electrifying comeback, which held the champions to 37 second-half points as they ran them down, looked them in the eye and ran past them, it wasn’t about a team choking or too came up short.
This was about the two best basketball teams battling it out for two weeks and then playing a classic seventh game that brought with it all the emotions, fears and doubts they should have.
The halftime message from the Timberwolves’ locker room was simple.
“Calm down,” Mike Conley said.
The 15-point halftime deficit would be the largest to be overcome in Game 7 history. And the history of this series said that comebacks were not possible, with all the blowouts. But this is a different NBA, a different Minnesota team — and somewhere along the way they came to realize what seemed obvious a week ago.
They are the better team, if only they could handle the moments.
Then the moments came, in waves.
Edwards, in the middle of a 6-on-24 night, went wild in the open floor and guarded Murray, swiping and cajoling, like an annoying little brother, until he pried the ball away and got layups and dunks.
Then Karl-Anthony Towns, who guarded Jokić admirably and played well enough offensively to keep the Wolves within striking distance – both doing all he could and not doing too much at once – using his size when getting to the basket.
Malone knew he couldn’t explode Edwards for a 40 ball, so he loaded up and challenged Towns to beat them.
And then you look up and suddenly the game goes from 58-38 at 10:50 to nine minutes later, when the Timberwolves completed a 21-3 run that left everyone’s palms sweaty and their cheeks tight.
You have to play the percentages, both on the floor and on the balance.
That’s what makes sustainability so difficult to achieve in today’s NBA, because you can’t really add to the championship core while rewarding the players who brought you your ring. The Nuggets played just six tough minutes for the boys, with Christian Braun playing 19 off the bench.
Typically, teams add vets to the back end, willing to take on smaller roles in the hopes of claiming a title, but in this brave new world of luxury tax bumps, the mechanisms for finding a seventh or eighth man – or the one you have – to keep – tangible. impossible.
Malone vows the Nuggets will come back, and that’s to be expected. Tim Duncan’s Spurs never repeated themselves, suffered some devastating losses on their journey, and even some embarrassing ones, but still came back for more – and it’s worth noting that Malone considers that five-championship stretch from 1999 to 2014 a dynasty .
“You go all the way through training camp and then it comes to an abrupt halt,” Malone said. “And that hurts. So use that feeling of motivation to come back a better player. We won it last year. Teams in the West regrouped and restructured. How are we going to beat the champions? And the teams got better.”
Bruce Brown, a key member of last year’s run, is elsewhere, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope should get a raise after this season if he opts out.
These two are grinders, and the Wolves have adopted that identity — especially Jaden McDaniels (23 points) and Edwards, who marveled at his 2-for-10 performance from 3 in a way only he can. But as the Wolves roared back, one of those triples ended the third quarter and made it a one-point game.
The latter, following an open-court steal from Conley, essentially turned out the lights at Ball Arena by giving his team a 10-point lead with 3:07 remaining.
But there was Edwards, complimenting Towns next to him on stage.
“He made the right plays tonight. He only made fourteen shots, always super efficient,” Edwards said. “He carried us tonight, every time we needed a bucket he was there for us. He made the right plays every time.”
Edwards is the undisputed leader, even if he is not the seasoned vet. One of the reasons Gobert was brought to Minnesota was because Towns was more of an offensive player than the other end.
And despite Edwards’ place in the hierarchy, Towns has carried the losing side more than anyone wearing a Timberwolves jersey.
“I definitely had a moment,” Towns said. “I waited nine years. I talked about wanting to win and do something special for this organization and all the failures and things that didn’t work out, and the disappointment that comes with that. Celebrate the victories in this moment alone. I’ve seen it all, seen it all.”
“(Expletive) them nine years,” Edwards said.
That could just as well have been said in the locker room at half-time and after the game.
The Wolves have shaken off the old label and now wear a new label: as favorites, but not for long.
