Initial thoughts from the Nuggets’ 114-108 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of their Western Conference playoff series:
1. We’ll see ya Tuesday. Or not. OK, guess we will. Anthony Edwards? Magic. Get him away from Rudy Gobert and Karl Anthony-Towns, the kid might win a ring someday. But not this year. Not with this Minnesota team. And not against these Nuggets. Not after what we saw Sunday night. With 2:37 left and the Target Center hopping, the 1 seed trailed by 12. With 12.7 seconds on the clock, the game was tied. Denver, buried by Timberwolves fans, the TNT broadcast crew and Twitter at large, put on a 12-0 run over 2:23 to turn Game 4 into a nail-biter. What made it even more impressive, given how Denver had scored just six points in the fourth quarter with 6:16 left in the stanza. Then again, these are the T-Pups, and ask LeBron James and the Lakers how well Minnesota closes postseason games. Still, Sunday’s result means Denver has still never won four straight in any series in their NBA Playoffs history. The Nuggets have won three in a row six different times, with half of those (Minnesota in ’23; Utah in 2020; Clippers in 2020) coming in the last four postseasons.
2. Et tu, Austin Rivers? Hey, remember when old friend Austin Rivers and, heck, pretty much most of the Minnesota bench, were non-factors in this series? Yeah, that came to a crashing halt Sunday. After getting almost hilariously outplayed by the likes of Bruce Brown and Christian Braun for the first three games, the T-Pups reserves got their mojo back in a win-or-go-home tilt. With 9:24 left in the contest, Minnesota’s bench had outscored the Nuggets’ backups, 22-9. Rivers, the former Nuggets guard, had accounted for five of those points in just eight minutes of action. Context: Before Sunday, Rivers had appeared in only two of the first three games of the series, logging 22 minutes, and just three points along the way.
3. Nuggets shocker: No love from Shaq, Barkley at the half. What does the world outside Denver and the Twin Cities think of this series? No shock: Not much. The Nuggets led by four at the half despite the Joker only playing 14 minutes in the first two quarters. But Turner Sports analyst Charles Barkley joked at halftime that the tilt was “boring” and that he was watching the NHL playoffs instead of Game 4. And Shaquille O’Neal accused the Nuggets of not being “engaged” early on, save for Jokic. “If (the Nuggets) would have, in the words of Clark Kellogg, ‘spurtability,’ they would put this team away,” Barkley added. “Because Minnesota wants to quit.” O’Neal and Barkley praised Jokic throughout. And at least the latter didn’t refer to Denver as “soft,” which is what he called the Wolves. So there’s that.
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.
