KAT says Timberwolves are doing playoffs 'the Minnesota way'

Here in his ninth NBA season — playing for his fifth coach, failing three times to advance — former No. 1 overall draft pick Karl-Anthony Towns finally has reached the NBA playoffs' second round.

He and his teammates are there facing the defending champions in a Western Conference semifinals best-of-seven series that starts Saturday in Denver.

"It's only just right," Towns said Thursday. "Do it the Minnesota way: Take the toughest path to get to a championship."

It's a long time coming.

The Wolves had a losing record and missed the playoffs in five of his first six NBA seasons. Tom Thibodeau coached them to a first-round playoff exit in 2018 and Chris Finch has done so the last two seasons against Denver and Memphis.

"I'm extremely happy, I couldn't be happier for us. I couldn't be happier for this organization," Towns said. "Selfishily, just personally, I'm just happy that I've finally got to that second round."

This time, the Wolves won a playoff series for the first time in 20 years by sweeping a Phoenix team loaded with scorers Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker that had swept them in three regular season games this year.

"We played a tremendous, explosive, highly offensive team in Phoenix, who is really good and had our number all year," Towns said. "And we found a way to win."

Now they move on to the Nuggets, who beat them in five games in last season's first round. Denver won the first three games in a seeding of the 1-8 teams before losing Game 4 at Target Center.

The teams split the season series 2-2, with the Nuggets winning most recently 116-107 in Denver on April 10 with the conference's top seeding into the playoffs on the line.

Denver beat play-in tournament team the Los Angeles Lakers in five games. But even with soon-to-be three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic delivering two triple-doubles in the series, the Nuggets needed two buzzer-beaters by Jamal Murray — the first two in the final five seconds of the same series in league history — to advance.

It's a meeting of the second-seeded Nuggets and third-seeded Wolves in a three-way race with top-seeded Oklahoma City determined on the regular season's final day.

"Now we've got to go against guys who are playing at an extremely high level, an extremely disciplined level they just showed against the Lakers," Towns said. "They have that championship pedigree. We have to go there and find a way. The first two games, go through without the home-court advantage this time around. We've just got to play our best. We've got to stay disciplined, emotionally disciplined in the game and find a way to win."

Towns arrives in the second round for the first time, transformed into a roaming, defensive-minded power forward to Rudy Gobert's anchoring center. He defended Durant — a small forward in a power-forward position — out on the floor for much of that Phoenix series. This time, he'll likely guard Jokic at times, as will a list that includes Gobert, Naz Reid and possibly Kyle Anderson.

"Be just like Roy Jones," he said, referring to the boxer who won world titles in four weight classes from welterweight to heavyweight. "Go out there and find a way."

On Thursday, Towns was asked if he's a center for this series.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "I can be a center one moment. I can sub in and be a power forward the next moment. I can be a small forward in three big-man lineups. Whatever it takes, I'm willing to do."

Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori said Towns' defense on Durant allowed them to limit Beal with Anthony Edwards defending.

"On the defensive side, that's where it has been good," said Nori, who'll coach the Wolves if surgically repaired head coach Finch can't. "And offensively, we're just so lucky to have both Naz and KAT because they're essentially smalls the way they shoot the three. We've been able to play both bigs even when teams go small at both ends of the floor."

Towns has played 20 playoff games in his nine NBA seasons. Saturday will be his next step toward a championship.

"All the ups and downs and trials and tribulations and ebbs and flows that have come being here for nine years," he said," I'm just happy to have one of those years when the light shines a little bit more than usual."