Defending NBA champion Nuggets reeling after Timberwolves blowout

The Minnesota Timberwolves, led by Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, overpowered the Denver Nuggets on Monday night in a stunningly efficient game. 106-80 beating of the reigning but faltering NBA champions.

“We made some really good defensive efforts this year,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said after his team took a surprising 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals. “That has to be among the best of them.”

The Wolves held Denver to an ugly 29-of-83 shooting night without their best defenseman, center Rudy Gobert, who was back in Minneapolis for the birth of his son.

However, Gobert’s fingerprints were all over this defensive display, Finch said. ‘Rudy has driven the defensive culture here. I think it’s a testament to his impact, his presence and what he brought to the team, how important defense is and how great it can be when we play it,” Finch said. “Apart from that, we expect to win regardless of who is with us and who is not.”

Towns and Edwards both scored 27 points as the Wolves improved to 6-0 in the playoffs and gave themselves a chance to close out the Nuggets with two wins in Minneapolis.

The Nuggets were so nervous in the second quarter that coach Michael Malone berated a referee, and point guard Jamal Murray threw a heat pack on the court in frustration as Towns was about to score on a layup. Malone said he had no idea it was Murray who threw the heating pack, saying, “I knew there was a heating pack on the ground, but it was not in my line of sight.”

The officials didn’t see him throw either, crew chief Marc Davis added. “We didn’t know it came from the bank. If we had been aware that it came from the court, we could have assessed it under the trigger of hostile action. The penalty would have been a technical foul,” Davis said.

Finch said all he knew was that the heat pack came from the Nuggets’ bench. “We tried to make an impression [the officials] that there are probably not many fans in the building with a heat pack. So it probably had to come from the bank, which made sense to them,” Finch said. “But yes, it is unforgivable and dangerous.”

Murray, who has shot 9 for 32 in this series, left Ball Arena without comment for the second straight game. He will likely be fined by the NBA for his actions.

Aaron Gordon led Denver with 20 points, Nikola Jokić had 16 points and 16 rebounds, but their third top scorer was substitute Justin Holliday with 13 points. Murray scored eight points on 3-of-18 shooting. Kyle Anderson replaced Gobert in the starting lineup for the Timberwolves and had eight assists and nine rebounds. Reserves Naz Reid and Nickeil Alexander-Walker both scored 14.

During a 43-18 first-half flourish over Minnesota, the Nuggets became so frustrated that Malone ran far downfield and got into Davis’ face for a long burst during a timeout but avoided a technical.

“Although Coach Malone was visibly upset with both his team and the officials, I did not hear him say anything unsportsmanlike that would warrant a technical foul,” Davis said.

Frustrated with their slow start – the Nuggets trailed by double digits in six of their seven playoff games and by nine in the other nine – Malone challenged his team to get off to a strong start. Only Gordon heeded his coach’s call and quickly scored thirteen points, including a three-pointer that put the Nuggets up 18-17 late in the first quarter.

Then things unraveled for Denver. Trailing 61–35 at halftime, the Nuggets’ 26-point halftime deficit was Denver’s largest in a home game in franchise history. The Nuggets, who have lost just one straight game on the season, must defeat Edwards and company four times in five tries to advance to the Western Conference finals again.

Edwards, for example, expects to see a different Nuggets team at Target Center this weekend. “It worked in our favor tonight, man. That was it,” he said. “We made recordings. They didn’t. Those are the defending champions right there. So they won’t play like that again in Game 3.”