Minnesota Timberwolves rally to knock defending champion Denver Nuggets out of NBA play-offs
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Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards celebrating with a fan after making a three-point basket.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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LOS ANGELES – The Minnesota Timberwolves authored a stunning second-half comeback to beat the Denver Nuggets 98-90 on May 19, knocking the defending champions out of the National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs.
It marked the fifth straight season that the reigning champions failed to reach the conference finals.
“The teams are more hungry, better, (more) talented than last year,” Denver star Nikola Jokic said of the difficulty of repeating, even in a season in which he scooped a third Most Valuable Player award.
“Everybody gets better. Everybody wants to beat us, probably.”
The Timberwolves followed up a 45-point Game 6 victory with an epic comeback from 20 points down in the third quarter to win their best-of-seven series 4-3 and book a Western Conference Finals clash with the Dallas Mavericks.
Karl-Anthony Towns scored 23 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Jaden McDaniels added 23 points as the Timberwolves overcame a 15-point half-time deficit – the largest comeback in a Game 7 in NBA play-off history.
“I think our poise was the most (important) thing,” Anthony Edwards told broadcaster TNT after he shook off his early struggles to score 12 of his 16 points in the second half at Ball Arena.
The Timberwolves are headed to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 20 years. Minnesota won Game 7 against the Sacramento Kings in a second-round play-off series in 2004 to reach the conference finals.
“I don’t think they understand what they just did, getting to the Western Conference Finals,” Mike Conley, whose only other trip to the third round came with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2013, said about his young teammates. “It’s a great opportunity; don’t take it for granted.”
The Nuggets went cold as Edwards and the Timberwolves cut the deficit to one point going into the final quarter, then took the lead for good on a driving layup by Rudy Gobert early in the fourth.
“They were scoring. They had a lot of offensive rebounds,” said Jokic, who scored 14 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter.
“We had a lot of wide-open looks, but that’s what happens. Sometimes you make shots, sometimes you miss shots, and today we missed a lot of good shots. But that’s not just on us. They played some good defence.”
Jamal Murray scored 35 points for Denver, but had just 11 in the second half.
“It’s tough when you get the looks you want and you don’t make them. I felt like we got the shots we wanted and the opportunities were there,” Murray said.
However, Jokic said he would not buy into the notion that the defeat felt worse because the Nuggets should have won.
“I don’t believe in that. I think the team who win are the better team,” the Serbian star said.
Meanwhile, the Indiana Pacers put on a shooting clinic to throttle the New York Knicks 130-109 on May 19 and book an Eastern Conference Finals showdown with the top-seeded Boston Celtics.
The Pacers won their second straight game – and their first on the road in the series – to complete a 4-3 triumph at Madison Square Garden, where their stunning offensive display silenced the crowd and sent them into the conference finals for the first time in a decade.
Tyrese Haliburton scored 26 points, while Pascal Siakam and Andrew Nembhard added 20 apiece. Six Pacers players scored in double figures as Indiana connected on an NBA play-off record 67.1 per cent of their shots. AFP, REUTERS
