The Minnesota Timberwolves, led by Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, overpowered the Denver Nuggets on Monday night in a stunningly efficient 106-80 thrashing of the reigning but reeling NBA champions.
“We’ve had some really good defensive efforts this year,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said after his team took a surprising 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semi-finals. “That has to be right up there with the best of them.”
The Wolves held Denver to an ugly 29-of-83 shooting night, without their best defender, center Rudy Gobert, who was back in Minneapolis for the birth of his son.
Gobert’s fingerprints were all over this defensive showing, though, Finch said. “Rudy’s driven the defensive culture here. I think it’s a testament to his impact, his presence and what he’s infused into the team of how important defense is and how great it can be when we play it,” Finch said. “That aside, we expect to win no matter who’s with us and who’s not.”
Towns and Edwards both scored 27 points as the Wolves improved to 6-0 in the playoffs and gave themselves a chance to close out the Nuggets with two wins back in Minneapolis.
The TNT camera shows Nuggets star Jamal Murray throwing a heat pack from the bench right into game action on the floor before a T-Wolves bucket. ⁉️ pic.twitter.com/btZp6dbtZR
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So flustered were the Nuggets by the second quarter that coach Michael Malone berated an official, and point guard Jamal Murray threw a heat pack on to the court in frustration as Towns was about to score on a layup. Malone said he had no idea it was Murray who tossed the heat pack, saying, “I knew a heating pack was on the floor, but it was not in my field of vision.”
Nor did the officials see him throw it, added crew chief Marc Davis. “We weren’t aware it had come from the bench. If we would have been aware it came from the bench, we could have reviewed it under the hostile act trigger. The penalty would have been a technical foul,” Davis said.
Finch said he knew only that the heat pack had come from the Nuggets’ bench. “We tried to impress upon [the officials] that there’s probably not many fans in the building that have a heat pack. So, it probably had to come from the bench, which they found logical,” Finch said. “But yeah, it’s inexcusable and dangerous.”
Murray, who has shot 9 for 32 in this series, left Ball Arena without comment for the second straight game. He is likely to be fined by the NBA for his actions.
Aaron Gordon led Denver with 20 points, Nikola Jokić had 16 points and 16 rebounds but their third-leading scorer was sub Justin Holliday with 13 points. Murray scored eight points on 3-of-18 shooting. Kyle Anderson replaced Gobert in the starting lineup for the Timberwolves, and had eight assists and nine rebounds. Reserves Naz Reid and Nickeil Alexander-Walker both scored 14.
During a 43-18 first-half flourish by Minnesota, the Nuggets grew so frustrated that Malone ran way out on to the court and got in Davis’ face for an extended blowup during a timeout but avoided a technical.
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“Although Coach Malone was visibly upset about both his team and the officials, I did not hear him say anything unsportsmanlike that warranted a technical foul,” Davis said.
Frustrated by their slow starts – the Nuggets have trailed by double digits in six of their seven playoff games and by nine in the other – Malone challenged his team to get off to a strong start. Only Gordon heeded his coach’s call, scoring 13 quick points, including a three-pointer that brought the Nuggets to 18-17 late in the first quarter.
Things unraveled for Denver after that. Trailing 61-35 at the break, the Nuggets’ 26-point half-time deficit was Denver’s largest in a home playoff game in franchise history. The Nuggets, who lost consecutive games just once during the season, find themselves needing to beat Edwards and company four times in five tries to advance to the Western Conference finals again.
Edwards, for one, expects to see a different Nuggets team at Target Center this weekend. “It worked in our favor tonight, man. That’s all that was,” he said. “We made shots. They didn’t. That’s the defending champs over there. So, they’re not going to come out and play like that again in Game 3.”
In Monday’s other game, Jalen Brunson scored 43 points, becoming just the fourth player in NBA history with four straight 40-point games in the postseason, and the New York Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers 121-117 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals. Brunson had 21 in the fourth quarter, rallying the Knicks after they trailed by nine early in the period. He joined Hall of Famers Jerry West, who had six consecutive 40-point games in the postseason, and Michael Jordan and Bernard King, who both had four. Donte DiVincenzo hit the tiebreaking three-pointer with 40 seconds remaining and scored 25 for the Knicks. Myles Turner led the Pacers with 23 points.
