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Denver cruises in Game 3 to hand Timberwolves first postseason defeat

jace frederick, pioneer press
·5 min read

You’re not going to sweep your way through the playoffs. No one has — nor likely ever will — go 16-0 en route to an NBA title.

Eventually, you run into an opponent that shoots the ball extremely well for a night or gets every bounce to fall its way.

Or — as was the case with Minnesota on Friday — sometimes you’ll lay a goose egg, as was the case in the Wolves’ 117-90 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 3 at Target Center. Minnesota leads the series 2-1.

“I said it before the game, for us to beat a team like the Denver Nuggets, the defending champions, you’re going to have to play better in Game 3 than you did in Game 1 and Game 2,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We just didn’t do that tonight and we got to be better. We got to be better next game, for sure.”

For the first time in these playoffs, Minnesota was not the aggressor. It didn’t set any type of tone. It wasn’t the hardest-playing team on the floor. It didn’t move the ball nor bodies.

Minnesota looked far more like the team that got blitzed in its regular season finale by Phoenix than the one that KO’d each of its opponents in its first six playoff contests.

Minnesota committed 16 turnovers while shooting just 44 percent from the field. Anthony Edwards led the way with just 19 points. No one else scored more than 14.

“Just sluggish. Slow pace up and down the floor. Wasn’t where we needed it to be, where it has been all postseason. Decision making wasn’t there. Just general movement, activity wasn’t there,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “Thought then we tried to shoot our way after one pass when the game was still there for us. We didn’t want to work very hard for our offense and got a little bit lazy and we missed those shots. We did miss a lot of layups early. Generally when you’re doing that, you’re not playing in the right mindset. Not a lot of good things on either end of the floor, really.”

Game 4 is set for 7 p.m. Sunday in Minneapolis. That contest is suddenly imperative. The series is now guaranteed to head back to Denver for a Game 5, the question is whether it will do so at 2-2 or with Minnesota sporting a shot to clinch the series.

The Target Center crowd will surely be rocking for that one, as it was at the start of Game 3 on Friday. The building was jumping prior to the pregame tip. Loud chants of “Wolves in four” echoed through the arena during the team’s pregame hype video.

But the roars were muted throughout the ensuing 48 minutes of gameplay. There wasn’t much to cheer for. Denver was up eight after the first quarter and never looked back from there.

Denver led by 15 at the break and 27 after three.

Jamal Murray — who was awful in the first two games in Denver, both with his play and response to adversity — was the best player on the floor Friday. The guard finished with 25 points on 11-for-21 shooting, hitting a number of tough shots that rendered Minnesota’s generally shutdown defense moot while also tallying five assists and three steals.

Nikola Jokic tacked on 24 points, 14 points and nine assists.

Minnesota’s offense was non-existent. Through the first two games, the Wolves moved brilliantly without the ball and shared the rock, which led to a number of easy looks.

On Friday, there was no perimeter movement. Denver’s defensive intensity was heightened in what was effectively a must-win game for the Nuggets, but Minnesota made Denver’s job easy.

Friday marked the worst Minnesota has played against the defending champs all season. The Wolves started to unravel late, piling up technical fouls in a complete role reversal from Game 2.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was upset about a no call late, so the guard got into the official’s face to get a technical foul, then punched a chair on his way to the tunnel. He did return to the bench for the game’s closing minutes. But Alexander-Walker was in clear shoulder pain in the locker room.

Minnesota’s task now is to make sure it looks far more like the team it has been all postseason on Sunday than the one that flopped on Friday. Because if both teams compete and execute at the level they did in Game 3, the Nuggets will win every time.

Perhaps Minnesota’s urgency was lowered after handling the Nuggets twice in Denver and returning home with endless amounts of local and national praise. The Nuggets looked dead in Game 2. Perhaps the Wolves thought they’d roll over.

They should’ve known better. There is no excuse for such a mentality on Sunday.

“We’ve been doing a great job of finding ways to win, especially in Phoenix and here. And you’re playing the defending champions. I think this humbles us, this game, a little bit. 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,” Towns said. “So it’s a great humbling experience, I think, for our team. To understand that this is not easy. Just because we’ve been fortunate to find ourselves on the winning end for six straight playoff games don’t mean that the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the 10th is going to be the same result.

“I think this is a great humbling experience for us and the defending champions definitely gave us that experience and it’s going to make us hungrier, I think it’s going to make us a better team, I think it’s going to show how connected we are and it’s good for us. It’s good for us, for sure.”

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