Nuggets-Wolves Has Delivered on Its Promise in Almost Every Way (2024)

Cue the Zaza Pachulia clip—the second-round clash of the titans, pitting the defending champion Denver Nuggets against the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves, is going to a Game 7, baby!

The Nuggets looked like they might complete their colossal comeback on Thursday night, racing out to a 9-2 lead in Game 6 in Minnesota. Then the Wolves called a timeout and responded with a 20-0 run, and the 115-70 win was essentially wrapped up midway through the first quarter; Minnesota led by 17 points after the first, 19 at halftime, 25 after three quarters, and 45 by the final buzzer. (The Wolves even one-upped that initial run in the fourth quarter, with a 24-0 stretch in garbage time.)

Behind 27 points from apparent soothsayer Anthony Edwards, 21 from Jaden McDaniels, and a home crowd hopped up on playoff adrenaline, the Wolves dominated the Nuggets, who scored the fewest points in franchise playoff history. And now this playoff matchup has delivered on its promise, going the distance and setting up the most important game of the 2024 postseason thus far.

The beauty of a Game 7—the clichéd “best two words in sports”—is that it combines narrative and strategic drama. By this point in a series, at the culmination of two consecutive weeks of head-to-head battles, the two teams know each other’s every move, countermove, and counter to the counter. The Nuggets know how Minnesota will position Rudy Gobert and defend the Nikola Jokic–Jamal Murray two-man game, and the Timberwolves know that Denver will shade extra attention toward Edwards. Both teams know which role players the other will leave open (McDaniels on one side, every Nuggets reserve on the other).

Beyond the obvious question of whether Jokic or Edwards will shine brighter in Game 7, the series’ outcome may hinge on the performance of a secondary star. In Game 6, Murray scored just 10 points on 4-for-18 shooting, a near-perfect replica of his eight-point, 3-for-18 effort in Game 2. Given extra rest days, Murray rebounded from that disaster with aplomb in Game 3; the Nuggets need him to do the same once more, also with an extra rest day, in Game 7.

Despite late-game heroics against the Lakers in the first round, Murray has struggled to score efficiently throughout this postseason. His true shooting percentage in these playoffs is only 45.8 percent because he’s both been inaccurate from the field (39 percent, 31 on 3s) and barely reached the free throw line (21 attempts in 11 games). For context, every other high-volume shooter in this postseason has a true shooting percentage of 52 percent or better.

Murray’s performance looks even worse against the broader arc of NBA history. In the 3-point era, 569 players have attempted at least 200 shots in a postseason, and Murray ranks in the bottom 10 in TS% in that group. Relative to the league average (because scoring efficiency has increased over time), Murray ranks third worst in that giant sample.

(As an aside, on the other end of the leaderboard, there are eight instances in the 3-point era when a high-volume shooter posted a TS% at least 20 percent above average. And three of those instances belong to Kevin Durant: for the 2012 Thunder, 2017 Warriors, and 2019 Warriors.)

Murray isn’t the only player who’s been up and down in this series, which is part and parcel of a topsy-turvy battle full of momentum swings. McDaniels made three 3-pointers in Game 6 after making just two combined across the first five games. Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns have both bounced back from terrible shooting nights. On the other bench, so have Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Michael Porter Jr., while Aaron Gordon has looked merely solid in some games and like Kobe Bryant in others.

All of that uncertainty will be put to the test in Game 7, which comes with massive stakes. (By definition, so do all Game 7s—but there are still levels separating a second-round Game 7 between two legitimate title contenders and, say, a first-round Game 7 between the young Magic and injured Cavaliers.)

If the Nuggets advance, they’ll become only the sixth team in league history to come back to win a series despite losing the first two games at home—and, more broadly, they’ll extend their quest to repeat as champions despite uneven play in the first two rounds. (The Nuggets have been outscored in the playoffs so far; even their vaunted starting lineup has a negative point differential.) If the Timberwolves advance, they’ll raise Edwards’s star profile even higher, become the favorites to reach the Finals for the first time—and guarantee six different champions in six seasons, tying the longest such streak in NBA history.

One missing element is preventing this series from reaching the status of a true classic, however—at least so far. Nuggets-Timberwolves has been rich in narratives and discourse, populated by ascendant heroes and bumbling villains, ferocious defensive highlights and flying heat packs. It’s had memorable individual moments, like the alternating takeovers from Edwards and Jokic. But it hasn’t had any late-game tension yet, as all six contests have been decided before crunch time; there hasn’t been a single possession in the last five minutes in which a trailing team could tie or take the lead.

This series has already provided almost everything else from an entertainment standpoint. Let’s all hope that final part will come on Sunday in Denver.