The Timberwolves Built To Dismantle The Nuggets, But Will It Work?

I’ve been following the Minnesota Timberwolves since the team was born in 1989, and I can tell you that this is the best team the Timberwolves have ever assembled outside of a few Kevin Garnett years.

Clearly, the NBA’s most interesting second-round series appears to have been written by the NFL scriptwriters. They’ve given us the Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves matchup, full of fascinating storylines.

At the center of the story is Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly, the architect of the Denver Nuggets. Connelly drafted Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and made the Aaron Gordon trade. In Jokic’s second year, he was coached by current Timberwolves head coach and assistant coach Chris Finch and Micah Nori, who were offensive coordinators for the Nuggets in 2016.

After Connelly moved to Minnesota, he made a blockbuster trade to bring Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves, giving up four first-round draft picks and a variety of rotation players. The deal was considered to be a historically bad trade at the time after the Timberwolves struggled out of the gate last season. Later in the season, he traded for Mike Conley, and since then, the Gobert trade, once considered so horrific, is now viewed as the trade that propelled the Timberwolves to their best season in over 20 years.

Strategically, the idea behind bringing Gobert in was to anchor the defense and slow down big men like Jokic. While the rest of the league swayed towards offense, Connelly and head coach Chris Finch had the team focus on defense first. It just took the team a little while to buy in, and after last year's first-round exit against the Nuggets, the team decided that they had the right pieces in place, but they needed to make some additional adjustments to how they played defense. 

In Gobert's first season with the Timberwolves, Finch essentially had Gobert and non-Gobert defenses. This sounds basic, but the Timberwolves played two different defense styles last year. Entering training camp this year, Finch scraped the Gobert defense rotation and focused on one style. This strategy proved right, as the Timberwolves finished the regular season with the number-one-ranked defense in the NBA.

Last summer, the Timberwolves' rising superstar Anthony Edwards played for USA Basketball at the FIBA World Cup; Edwards was a standout amongst the young up-and-coming NBA players, including Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Haliburton, and Austin Reaves.

Anthony Edward's play has improved since last summer. The young 22-year-old finished the regular season averaging 25.9 points per game and has become the team leader; unlike many young offensive juggernauts, he prides himself on playing defense. Another thing about Edwards is that he doesn’t mind being coached hard by Finch. 

Now throw in a healthy Karl Anthony Towns, a feisty Jayden McDaniels, the steady leadership of veteran Mike Conley, Gobert anchoring the defense, and the NBA’s 6th-man of the year Naz Reid and the Timberwolves absolutely have a team that is now capable of taking down the Nuggets in a seven-game series. 

The question is whether the Timberwolves' defense will be able to slow down Nikola Jokic. Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gorden? All provide unique challenges and are certainly capable of dominating a game. It’s unlikely that Jokic and Murray will have any poor performances during the series, so the Timberwolves will have to figure out how to keep Gorden off the rim and not allow Porter Jr. to have too many open looks.  

Ultimately, both teams will make major adjustments throughout each game. If the Timberwolves win this series, it will likely be because Finch prevents large leads from materializing and wins the adjustment war. 

So, while the Timberwolves, on paper, have the right depth to win the series, it will ultimately come down to in-game adjustments, preventing Nuggets runs, and slowing down Michael Porter Jr. If they can do all of that, then yes, they can take down the champions.