LOS ANGELES – The Minnesota Timberwolves’ trust in one another was plain to see in their impressive 106-99 National Basketball Association (NBA) victory over defending champions Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of their Western Conference semi-final series on May 4.
Anthony Edwards shone in particular, scoring a play-off career-high 43 points at Ball Arena. The guard made 17 of 29 shots from the floor, three of seven from three-point range, and all six free throws for his third career 40-point play-off game.
“The whole team, we trust each other. It doesn’t matter down the stretch who takes the shot. My teammates trust me in every position in critical moments in the game. I try to come through for them,” said the 22-year-old, after Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, which continues on May 6 in Denver.
“He has done a good job of finding us late in games and giving us confidence,” Mike Conley said of Edwards, nicknamed “Ant-Man”.
Karl-Anthony Towns tallied 20 points, Naz Reid scored 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, Conley had 14 points and 10 assists and Rudy Gobert grabbed 13 rebounds for Minnesota, who pulled away to begin the post-season 5-0.
“They are defending champs, they’re a hard team to beat. Great team. They got great players. They got the best player in the league with Nikola Jokic, they got the best closer with Jamal Murray, the best three-point shooter with Michael Porter Jr. So, it is tough to beat this team,” Edwards said of the Nuggets.
“It’s tough here. The altitude, their team, the crowd. I’m proud of my teammates. They came out and fought super hard.”
Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jokic had 32 points, nine assists and eight rebounds, while Porter added 20 and Murray finished with 17, all in the second half, for the Nuggets.
Denver are trailing in a play-off series for the first time since losing to the Golden State Warriors in the first round in 2022.
NBA Sixth Man of the Year Reid scored the first 10 Minnesota points in an 18-7 run to break an 84-84 deadlock, as the Wolves’ dominant finish helped secure the win.
Reid hit a pair of three-pointers, converted a lay-up and dunked an Edwards miss to give Minnesota a 94-88 lead with four minutes and 20 seconds left.
Jokic converted a three-point play, but the Timberwolves started to put the game away. Gobert made a lay-up and banked in a 13-footer and Edwards sank two free throws. Porter committed an offensive foul, and Edwards’ 14-foot fadeaway made it 102-91 with 1min 36sec left.
Jokic’s three-pointer cut Denver’s deficit to 102-96 with 62 seconds to go, but the Timberwolves closed it out.
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, who underwent surgery on May 1 to repair a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee, was seated a row behind the players in order to guide his club, even though assistant Micah Nori passed along most of his instructions.
“It went well in a not-ideal situation. It went as smooth as it possibly could have,” Nori said. “Even though he’s up a lot during games, he’s not calling a lot of plays. He was great. We don’t want to make it clunky, was the term he used, and we did a good job of that.”
A disgruntled Michael Malone said of his Nuggets side: “There’s a lot we can clean up and get better at and we’re going to have to. Played no defence in the third and you can’t just trade baskets with that team. There’s a lot that we’ll look at in the film and try and clean up.”
Off the court, Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell was fined US$25,000 (S$33,700) by the NBA on May 4 for verbally abusing a game official. Russell yelled at the official just after the Lakers were eliminated from the NBA play-offs with a 108-106 loss at Denver on April 29.
The Lakers were unhappy about two contact plays that were not whistled for fouls in the final seconds of the defeat, which gave the defending champions a 4-1 victory in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series.
The NBA’s report on plays in the last two minutes of contests said that no call being made was the proper decision in both instances. AFP, REUTERS
