The Minnesota Timberwolves are in the second round of the NBA Playoffs for only the second time in franchise history. The defending champion Denver Nuggets stand in their way after dispatching the Los Angeles Lakers in five games. The hot-take national TV shows are spending their time talking about LeBron James and LA’s offseason plans. However, the real ones are looking ahead to what could be the biggest playoff series in Timberwolves history, which could decide this year’s NBA champion. These teams are no strangers to each other, and the bonds they share should add extra motivation for the Wolves to beat Denver and earn a spot in the Western Conference Finals.
Doing so would match Minnesota’s deepest postseason run in 35 years.
The ties between these two franchises run deep through the last decade of the NBA. The Timberwolves lured Tim Connelly away from the Nuggets to take over as Minnesota’s President of Basketball Operations. Chris Finch served as an assistant coach with the Nuggets under Michael Malone during the 2016-17 season. Micah Nori was an assistant in Denver from 2015 to 2018, where he befriended Finch. Elston Turner played for the Nuggets for three years in the 1980s. And Corliss Williamson was an assistant coach alongside Nori in Sacramento under Michael Malone.
The Nuggets coaching staff is just as linked to Minnesota. Former Timberwolves head coach Ryan Saunders now patrols the sidelines in Denver alongside Rick Adelman’s son David, who was an assistant with the Wolves during his father’s regime. Monte Morris used to play for the Nuggets. The Wolves could have (should have) picked Jamal Murray with the fifth pick in the 2016 draft over Kris Dunn. Denver is the first team that the Timberwolves ever defeated in a playoff series in 2004, and the Nuggets knocked the Wolves out in round one last year. Everyone you know from your suburban Minneapolis high school that you went to the University of Minnesota with that went on to “bigger and better things” are now working in “real estate” in Denver. You get the picture. These franchises and cities are intertwined.
Wolves-Nuggets has all the trappings of a great rivalry, but the Timberwolves have to step up and make it a rivalry by winning. Tim Connelly is widely credited as the architect of the Nuggets roster that finally took home the Larry O’Brien Trophy in Year 47 as an NBA franchise. But Connelly didn’t stay in Denver long enough to claim the title. Finch won championships in the British, Belgian, and NBA D-Leagues, but he arrived in Canada a year and a half after the Toronto Raptors’ championship run in 2019. Monte Morris left Denver a year too early. Mike Conley and Karl-Anthony Towns almost won a championship in college. However, as constructed, the Wolves haven’t experienced winning in any meaningful way in the NBA. The Nuggets have four fewer playoff wins in the last 12 months (20) than the Timberwolves have in their entire history (25).
The great Maury Povich has determined that the Nuggets are actually the Lakers’ father. However, they’re definitely at least Minnesota’s annoying older brother. Nikola Jokic is about to become a three-time MVP. Jamal Murray hit two game-winners to send the Lakers to Cabo, and Michael Malone is staring down Erik Spoelstra with the best coach in the NBA belt on the line.
Denver is doing exactly what every Wolves fan has wished for their franchise ever since Kevin Garnett showed up in the mid-90s. They’re winning everything in sight in a media market with homegrown stars. Minnesota has its version in Anthony Edwards, Towns, Naz Reid, Jaden McDaniels, and outside pieces like Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley. However, that group has only won one playoff series so far. All great champions have to start somewhere, and it seems poetic that Minnesota’s run at a title will have to go through the Mile High City.
It will be interesting to see if this familiarity plays any role in the outcome of the series. Finch was only around Malone for one season, but there’s no doubt he picked up some tricks that he implemented into this Wolves squad. Ryan Saunders knows what makes Karl-Anthony Towns tick because the two were close when Saunders was at the helm. He was the first head coach Anthony Edwards had in the NBA and made an imprint on a 19-year-old kid drafted a month before his first NBA game in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. Alex Rodriguez hit .362 lifetime against the Colorado Rockies. It all connects.
We’ve been building towards Nuggets-Wolves. You have to beat the champs to be the champs. If the Wolves beat the Nuggets in Game 1 on Saturday and win the series, it will mean that much more because of the friends they made along the way. Minnesota’s revenge tour starts Saturday, and this time, it’s personal.
