DENVER — While praising his team for getting this far in a season fraught with adversity, Tim Connelly, president of Timberwolves, offered an unintentional preview of what was to come in his team’s first playoff game against the Nuggets on Sunday night .
“We still have a long way to go before we get to where this team is,” said Connelly of Wolves’ shootaround.
Based on the result, that was undercut. The Wolves looked lifeless and discouraged in a 109-80 bludgeoning against the Western Conference top seed.
Denver blew up the game in a terrible 32-14 third quarter for the eighth-ranked Wolves, who saw just about anything that could go wrong in a playoff game go wrong. After a roller-coaster week of two play-in games and lots of travel, the Wolves looked like a team in need of both literally and figuratively catching their breath, which is harder at altitude.
“I feel like we played a regular season game and it’s a playoff game,” said forward Kyle Anderson.
Even for a regular season game, what Wolves put down on Sunday would have been an eyesore.
“Much more physical than we were,” said coach Chris Finch. “They played with more pace and power, they kicked our ass in every category you can think of.”
It was a particularly tough night for Karl-Anthony Towns, who failed to find a shot in his worst game in a long time. It continued a trend of Towns’ inconsistent performances in playoff basketball. He shot just 5-to-15 for 11 points, with most of his buckets landing in fourth-quarter garbage time when Finch left him behind for a while to try to find some sort of offensive rhythm.
Towns reiterated a theme from the dressing room after the game: Wolves need to move on quickly and not dwell on it too much.
“Shot felt good, honestly. It felt good,” Towns said. “It was one of those nights when things just didn’t work out. I made good shots and stayed aggressive. … Go ahead, flush the game. I’m a damn good shot. I know that, believe that, know that. proved it. So I just have to go out there and just take the shots in the next game.
Rudy Gobert, who said his sore back was still bothering him, looked a shadow of his former self and Wolves’ offense couldn’t work as Gobert and Towns shared the floor. Gobert had eight points and 13 rebounds.
“It’s not great. Not great,” Gobert said over his back. “But I knew it was going to be tough tonight because of what I did in the last game [Friday night’s play-in rout of New Orleans]. We only had one day to travel and come back and play tonight so I knew it was going to be tough. The next game will be better.”
Anthony Edwards just shot 6-for-15 for 18 points. That came on a night when the Wolves did an otherwise solid job, limiting two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic with 13 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Jamal Murray led Denver with 24 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
Denver hit 41% of their three-pointers, with many makes coming in rotation. Gobert said the Wolves needed to examine this area of their game.
“Just turn around and run,” Gobert said. “We don’t have time to look at each other. We don’t have time to look at the officers. We don’t have time to wonder who we’re guarding. We just have to sprint and then we can talk. But we have to turn around, sprint and then talk. If we do that, one at a time, and value that, I think we take away a lot of the simple things from them, and I think they really feed on that.
On the other hand, some Wolves, like Towns and Edwards, said the team’s offensive play – they shot just 37% – was simply a product of missing shots. Point guard Mike Conley and Finch said their problems ran a little deeper.
“You can’t put it on one thing,” Conley said. “There were times when we would just let guys hit hard shots for no reason, bypassing the easy game for a harder game, leading to difficult situations, leading to turnovers.”
It all culminated in that third quarter as Denver drove the Wolves out of the gym.
Anderson released some pent-up frustrations towards the end of the third quarter when he got into a scuffle with Denver’s Christian Braun, a confrontation that resulted in a flagrant 1-foul for Anderson, which was felt.
“I was obviously a little frustrated,” Anderson said. “We shook hands. It’s all competitive. I like his game. He’s a good player.”
Anderson has been in this situation before; likewise Conley and Gobert. Unlike last season’s team, this year’s Wolves team has playoff experience to draw from. They reiterated the message that Sunday was just a game, and they were grateful to have two days off before Game 2 in Denver on Wednesday night after a hectic week.
“You have to be prepared,” Conley said. “You have to know their plays, you have to know all their tendencies… and it’s going to be a long streak. We don’t think this thing is a one game show and it will be. No, we will be ready to go.
“Could be a wake-up call for a lot of guys on our team.”
The kind that makes you wake up sweating from a nightmare.