DENVER — There are two days off between Games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference quarterfinals. The good news for the Minnesota Timberwolves is they will have an extra day to get some much-needed rest and reset following a challenging week. The bad news is it is an extra day for Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert and the rest of the team to take withering criticism for an embarrassing performance in Game 1 on Sunday night. And it will be deserved.
All of the reasons league observers have derided the Timberwolves over the past few years were fully on display in a 109-80 loss to the Denver Nuggets. Towns had another playoff stinker, adding fuel to those who doubt he can be a No. 1 option on a winning team.
Rudy Gobert looked slow and ineffective, giving more cannon fodder to those who believe he has been exposed in the playoffs.
Even Anthony Edwards, largely respected for his talent, fire and sense of the moment, was woefully off of his game.
Two days prior, the Timberwolves put together perhaps their best game of the season in a Play-In victory over Oklahoma City that made them back-to-back playoff participants for the first time since 2003 and ’04. They followed it up with perhaps their worst game of the season, a mistake-prone clankfest that was a dud of a capper on what was a weekend filled with thrilling NBA basketball.
“I feel like we played a regular season game and it’s a playoff game,” said Kyle Anderson, who had 11 points and shot a rare air ball on a corner 3-pointer.
As everything does with the Timberwolves these days, it all starts up front with Towns and Gobert. Wolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, lured to Minnesota from Denver last summer, spent all of the team’s available draft capital and some pretty good players, including Rookie of the Year finalist Walker Kessler, to unite Towns and Gobert. Connelly, and all of the key decision makers in the organization, believed adding an elite rebounder and rim protector was exactly what they needed to take the next step after an unexpected run to the playoffs last season.
The first season with Gobert has been underwhelming at best and hard to watch at worst, with his new teammates struggling to acclimate to his unique skill set. It has looked very good at times, including in the romp over OKC on Friday. But too often this season Gobert has looked slow and tentative, which is what we saw on Sunday night in Denver. He had eight points, 13 rebounds and two blocks, was routinely late getting down the floor to keep up with Denver’s transition offense, which outscored Minnesota 16-3.
Gobert has been dealing with a back issue for more than a week and said that the discomfort was limiting his ability to get back down the court to slow the fast break or to close out on 3-point shooters.
“It’s not great. Not great,” Gobert said of his back. “But I knew tonight was going to be tough because after what I did the last game. We only had one day of traveling and coming back tonight and play, so I knew it was going to be tough. Next game will be better.”
Gobert was terrific against the Thunder on Friday, putting up 21 points and 10 rebounds in the Wolves’ romp. But the Nuggets have a much more imposing front line than the undersized Thunder. Against the two-time MVP Nikola Jokić, Gobert was no match. The Nuggets outscored the Timberwolves by 28 points in Gobert’s 26 minutes on the court.
“I think that it’s never easy to play here when the altitude hits you in the first quarter,” Gobert said. “But we got to fight through that.”
Towns entered the game with an uneven playoff history. He has had some very big games, including in Games 1, 4 and 5 against Memphis last season. But he also has struggled in big moments, including his 6-of-19 showing in the series finale last season. Fairly or unfairly, the overall lack of team success has made him a target for those who believe he cannot be trusted in big moments.
Towns missed nine of his 11 shots while the game actually mattered, going 0 of 6 from 3 and even 0 of 2 at the free-throw line in the first three quarters. He finished with 11 points on 5-of-15 shooting with 10 rebounds and four turnovers. He was 1 of 7 from deep and those two missed free throws, a head-scratching performance after showing so many signs of progress down the stretch.
“Shot felt good, honestly. It felt good,” Towns said with a mature shrug of his shoulders. “It was one of those nights it just wasn’t going. I took good shots, staying aggressive. S— happens. Move on, flush the game. I’m a hell of a shooter. I know that, believe that, know it. Proved it. So I just gotta go out there and just make the shots next game.”
That is exactly the kind of response a game like this demands. There is no time to panic. This cannot shake their confidence. They need only look to their series against Memphis last season for an example of how quickly things can turn. The Timberwolves went into Memphis for Game 1 last season and dominated the Grizzlies, only to lose four of the next five games to drop the series.
“I’ve been in a series where we beat OKC by 40 the first game and end up losing the series,” Anderson said, referring to a 2016 matchup between San Antonio and Oklahoma City in which the Spurs opened with a 32-point win, but eventually lost to Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Thunder, 4-2. “It happens. Come back ready to play and be ready to go.”
The optics of this one, however, are hard to shake. The Timberwolves walked into the series opener at Ball Arena believing they were more dangerous than your average No. 8 seed. With Towns, Edwards and Gobert, the Wolves believe their high-end talent can matchup with Denver’s, but it was no contest in Game 1.
Jokić only had 13 points in the opener, but he still controlled the game as he always does. He had 14 rebounds and six assists, feeding Jamal Murray (24 points), Michael Porter Jr. (18) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (15) for open 3s.
The Wolves shot 37 percent from the field, 30 percent from 3-point range and 52 percent from the foul line, a putrid display that allowed the Nuggets to get out and run, which is where they are at their best.
The Wolves hung tough early, trailing by three points after one quarter and 11 at halftime. But the Nuggets busted it wide open in the third quarter. Denver outscored Minnesota 32-14 in the period. The Wolves came out of the break knowing they needed to make a move to get back in the game, but Towns was particularly off. He missed a great look at a 3-pointer, then turned the ball over twice in a row with bad passes that were meant for Gobert. Another missed 3 a few minutes later and the Nuggets were up 17 and rolling toward the win.
“I think early in the game, shot selection was an issue for him and everybody else,” coach Chris Finch said. “And then when he had some clean looks, he just couldn’t get them to go in.”
By the end of the third quarter, the Nuggets were actively clowning the Wolves, throwing lob passes to 57-year-old DeAndre Jordan for giggles and letting it fly from 3 with no hesitation.
The Timberwolves had no answers. Shots clanked one after another, Gobert got boat-raced down the floor and Edwards couldn’t get a rhythm. He led the team with 18 points, but made only 6 of 15 shots and grabbed a mere two rebounds. He only played 3:21 in the decisive third quarter because he picked up his fourth foul. He also had a bad turnover out of a timeout and fouled Porter on a 3-point shot, which extended Denver’s lead to 19 points.
Now the Wolves have two days to figure this thing out. Anderson and Gobert said the hectic previous week, which included Gobert getting suspended for punching Anderson, flying to Los Angeles for a tense Play-In loss to the Lakers on Wednesday and then coming back home for the Play-In finale, did wear the team out a little bit. But Anderson said that wasn’t an excuse for how poorly they played.
“We’ve had a long, tough week,” Anderson said. “That’s no excuse. We came out expecting to win the game. We just have to get some rest, watch film, adjust and get ready for Game 2.”
Against the talented, disciplined Nuggets, and facing Jokic’s superior skill set and intellect, that could be easier said than done.
There are so many ties between these two organizations that a current of tension can’t help but ripple through this matchup. The Timberwolves lured Connelly away from Denver last summer with a big offer, which didn’t sit well with some in the Nuggets organization.
Nuggets vice-chairman Josh Kroenke said last summer that the Timberwolves, led by owners-in-waiting Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, came “in the side door” to recruit Connelly. He called the Wolves a “desperate club willing to pay an exorbitant price for an executive.”
The Nuggets pivoted, elevating Calvin Booth to lead their front office. Booth spent four seasons in the Wolves’ front office as director of player personnel before leaving for Denver in 2017. The Nuggets also have former Timberwolves head coach Ryan Saunders and former assistant coach David Adelman on Michael Malone’s staff.
“They had a long week preparing for us and they got ready,” Towns said. “You could tell on the court they knew our plays, knew what they were doing. So we’ve just got to come back for Game 2. It’s a series. Just move on, flush it, get ready.”
On the Minnesota side, Finch was a top assistant to Malone in Denver and assistant Micah Nori was an assistant with the Nuggets as well. The teams are also in the same Northwest Division, so they play each other four times a year.
The Nuggets quietly gritted their teeth earlier in the season when the Wolves beat them in the first matchup of the year, their fourth straight win in the rivalry, extending back to last season. The Wolves had the good fortune of catching the Nuggets on the second night of a back-to-back or at the end of a long trip several times during the winning streak, including a 30-point wipeout in Minnesota on Feb. 5 in which the Nuggets sat four starters on the back end of a tough back-to-back with Atlanta. The Nuggets caught the Wolves in Denver two nights later, and with a full day of rest they throttled Minnesota by 34 points. Message sent.
On Sunday night even Anderson, a player who is supposed to be a calming influence on the Wolves, lost his cool. He was assessed a Flagrant-1 foul for a completely unnecessary confrontation with Christian Braun, a rookie who showed more composure than the ninth-year pro. Anderson’s elbow got up near Braun.
“Nothing too crazy. He’s a good player. I was obviously a little frustrated,” Anderson said. “We shook hands. It’s all in competitive nature. I like his game. He’s a good player.”
It was an immature performance all around from the Timberwolves, and now they have to wear it until Game 2 on Wednesday.
“There was times where we just had guys take tough shots for no reason, bypass the easy play for a harder play, leading to tough situations, leading to turnovers,” Mike Conley said.
Gobert is going to hear all about how his teams fall off when playoff time arrives and the opponent has multiple days to game plan for him. Towns is going to hear all about how he is incapable of rising to the occasion in the biggest moments. Both players can point to big games in postseasons of the past to rebut those charges, but there is not much they can say when the criticism focuses specifically on Game 1 against Denver.
This series is far from over. So much can happen from one game to the next that there is no reason for the Wolves to feel lost in the moment. But they do have to realize that this is not the regular season anymore. The playoffs have started and if the Timberwolves don’t like what they are hearing or the narratives foisted upon them, they are the only ones who can change it.
“We’ve got a long way to go before we’re where this team is,” Connelly said on Sunday morning.
And they only have a short amount of time to get there.
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(Photo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Nikola Jokić: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
