MINNEAPOLIS — Before the torn tendons and bruised bones, before the lineups and matchups and counters were thrown into a blender that seemingly favored the Nuggets, the story of this series could be reduced to a fairly simple showdown.
It was never really Joker vs. Ant.
It was always Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray vs. Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels.
By Game 6, the two best offensive players remaining in the war of attrition resided in Denver. But the two best defenders in the series were the last men standing. Both play for the Timberwolves, winners of a 110-98 Game 6 shocker to send the Nuggets packing Thursday night — Gobert standing tall between Jokic and glory, McDaniels staying glued to the hip of Murray.
Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Ayo Dosunmu and Kyle Anderson were all sidelined by various injuries and ailments. It did not matter. The Timberwolves advanced to face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round. And with a 4-2 series loss, Denver was eliminated in the first round of the NBA Playoffs for the first time since 2022, a time when Murray was unable to play due to a torn ACL.
Murray was never his All-NBA self with the season on the line. The best year of his career ended with a 4-for-17 shooting performance in Minnesota. He was contained to 12 points. Jokic provided a monster performance in the third quarter to give his team hope, but his slow start also contributed to the hole the Nuggets dug. His fizzle-out of a finish helped guarantee their fate. He finished with 28 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists on 11 of 19 shooting, completing one of the least efficient playoff series he’s ever played.
McDaniels, who cut through the Nuggets’ egos early in the series with fearless words and a smug grin, got the last laugh. He scored 30 points, including a pull-up midrange jumper with a minute remaining to put Minnesota up by 7. Terrence Shannon Jr. added 24 points.
The team constructed by former Nuggets executive Tim Connelly has ended its season twice in the last three years.
Cam Johnson kept Denver’s season on life support for the first half. He had started feasting on Mike Conley and the Timberwolves in Game 5, when they no longer had Edwards to throw at him. As Jokic and Murray struggled early in Game 6, his downhill scoring continued to buoy them. So did his outside shooting. He confidently buried a deep 3-pointer over Gobert in the first quarter, bringing a swagger to the Twin Cities that nobody else could seem to muster.
He had 15 points and seven rebounds at halftime. Jokic and Murray had 15 points combined at a 7-for-20 shooting clip.
McDaniels held onto Murray for dear life — often literally clasping his jersey — as the Nuggets tried to run him off every conceivable screen. They couldn’t generate space for him. He couldn’t shake free of McDaniels himself, either. He was unsure of himself off the dribble. When he finally got free for a handoff, courtesy of an off-ball screen from Christian Braun, he got to the cup but couldn’t finish a runner. He was too out of rhythm.
Uncertainty defined Braun’s night as well. It characterized his entire series. He pulled the ball out of the paint several times, not wanting to test his ability to explode off a bum ankle. He was held to three points on four shots in 27 minutes.
The Wolves chanted “DE-FENSE” as they paraded back to their locker room to celebrate.
When the Nuggets tried to increase their physicality on offense, they were punished several times with illegal screen calls — which Timberwolves coach Chris Finch had lobbied for after Game 5.
“When you play against high-level defensive players, there’s gonna be times you have to (do) a little extra to get somebody open,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said pregame. “And as long as you’re staying within the guidelines of what’s somewhat legal, I think you’re OK. Because obviously, Gobert does what he does. So I think all is fair in this series.”
Tensions between rivals boiled over at the end of Game 4, when Jokic took exception to a garbage-time layup McDaniels scored with 1.3 seconds remaining. A sequel skirmish occurred early in the fourth quarter of Game 6, when feisty young Wolves guard Jaylen Clark lightly shoved Jokic in the back and Jokic retaliated more aggressively. Naz Reid nearly escalated the exchange into a brawl, but the parties were ultimately separated enough to avoid ejections. Jokic, Reid and Clark all picked up technical fouls.
Desperate for answers, Adelman went back to Tyus Jones, Denver’s 15th man, who was quietly impactful in Game 5. He handled the ball for most of the fourth quarter in pick-and-rolls with Jokic, facilitating a handful of key shots to whittle an eight-point deficit to one.
Then the Nuggets burned themselves with a bad rotation in help defense. They left Reid wide open in the corner. He buried a clutch shot. Minnesota pushed it back out to 8.
Forced to throw stuff at the wall, Finch found a winning lineup late in the series by going ultra-big, with Reid at the three, Randle at the four and Gobert anchoring at center — a move as unexpected and as effective as Adelman putting the ball in Jones’ hands with the season on the line.
The Wolves bullied Denver with offensive rebounds throughout the night, even when bruising backup center Jonas Valanciunas was on the floor. Jokic stayed in the game to start the fourth quarter as Adelman felt the margin for error was narrow enough that his star player couldn’t be lent a breather.
The Nuggets fell to 11-7 in the Jokic era when facing elimination in the playoffs. They’ve never won a true road elimination game — with a full house of opposing fans — in his career. Their other losses were in 2022 at Golden State and in Game 7 at Oklahoma City last year.
