Denver won the regular season series 3-1 and Nikola Jokic was the reason for all three losses. He averaged 35.8 points, 15 rebounds and 11.3 assists against Minnesota this season while shooting 65 percent from the field, which is just bonkers. On Christmas Day he dropped 56 points, set an NBA record with 18 in overtime while Anthony Edwards got ejected arguing foul calls, and the Wolves blew a massive fourth quarter lead they had no business giving back. None of that is fun to revisit. But before anyone writes this series off, it is worth remembering that Minnesota came back from 2-0 down in 2024 to eliminate this exact Denver team in seven games, which was one of the better series wins this franchise has had in a very long time. The regular season is a different animal and this team has shown before that they know how to turn it on when April arrives.
The Connelly Factor
What the national conversation keeps missing is who built this Minnesota roster and why. Tim Connelly spent years constructing the Nuggets into the powerhouse they became before leaving for Minnesota. He did not see OKC coming with their generational pile of draft capital and he spent his early years here watching Denver become the most consistent obstacle anyone in the West was going to face. Connelly knows the scouting reports on this team better than anyone alive. He knows where the Murray-Jokic two-man game breaks down, he knows where the coverage cracks appear, and he knows what it takes to disrupt it because he is the one who built it. This roster was assembled with this matchup in mind.
The Jokic Problem and the One Real Answer
No one is stopping Nikola Jokic. He is a generational talent and trying to contain him is the wrong frame entirely. The realistic goal is controlling what kinds of shots he gets and making the damage feel manageable rather than catastrophic. What gave Minnesota genuine hope in the one game they won this season, back on March 1st, was Rudy Gobert playing off him deliberately and inviting the long hook shots from the free throw line and the extended post-ups from distance rather than letting him operate freely inside. Jokic still scored because Jokic always scores, but the diet of shots felt different, the defense stayed more connected, and the Wolves came away with a win. That game is the blueprint for this series and the proof that it can work is already on film. The real question is whether Minnesota’s players execute the game plan, because when they do this team is capable of beating anybody.
The Murray Problem and What Jaden Has to Do
Jamal Murray averaged 31.5 points and 7.3 assists against Minnesota this season while shooting 43.6 percent from three, and he made his first All-Star team this season in his ninth year in the league, which tells you everything about the kind of year he is having. He and Jokic ran the most connected two-man operation in basketball all year. Murray racked up 170 assists to Jokic, the most from any player to a single teammate in the entire league, and Jokic returned the favor with 147 assists back to Murray, making them the top pairing in both directions simultaneously. The fact that the same two players led the league in assists to each other going both ways is just ridiculous and it tells you everything about how deeply their game is built around one another. When that partnership is running at full speed every defensive choice is the wrong one in some way because they have been playing together long enough to exploit whatever you give them.
Jaden McDaniels is almost certainly going to be the primary defender on Murray. His combination of length, athleticism and defensive instincts makes him the best option on the roster for that assignment, even if Ant, Ayo, Donte and even Kyle Anderson can all take turns making Murray’s life difficult. The concern is foul trouble. Murray is extremely good at getting into the body of his defender and drawing contact and if Jaden picks up two quick fouls early the Wolves are in a difficult spot. The Jaden and Rudy pick-and-roll coverage should give Denver real problems when both are on the floor and disciplined, but there will be stretches in this series where Jaden is sitting and Minnesota has to have a real answer ready.
The Julius Question
Julius Randle averaged 21.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.9 assists across 15 playoff games last season and was a genuine difference maker in that run. His regular season numbers this year are almost identical on paper, 21.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 5.0 assists, which makes the conversation about his decline harder to have because the box score does not really capture what has been wrong. What has been wrong is everything the box score does not measure. The possessions that die when the ball reaches him and he holds it too long. The defensive breakdowns at the worst possible moments. Intentionally looking off Rudy wide open under the basket or leaving shooters on the perimeter because he decided to do something else with the ball. This season has been genuinely frustrating to watch and everyone has been saying it, on X, in the national media, everywhere you look. But last year’s playoff version of Julius was a completely different player, more connected, more decisive, more willing to make the simple play, and there is real reason to believe that version comes back when the stakes are real. If it does, Denver has a problem at the four they did not prepare for.
Can This Team Flip the Switch?
The Timberwolves have had a real effort problem this season. Not a talent problem, not a scheme problem, a consistency and engagement problem. They have been one of the moodier teams in the league all year, capable of playing excellent basketball against good opponents and then completely sleepwalking through games where nothing seemed to click and nobody seemed particularly bothered by it. They have drifted in and out of entire games like the stakes were not real and the pattern has been exhausting for anyone who has followed this team closely all season long. This is not a secret and it is not an unpopular opinion, it has been the conversation surrounding this team for months.
The encouraging thing is that this team has found another gear in the playoffs two years running, reaching the conference finals both times and playing meaningfully better basketball than they did in the regular season. Yes, there are going to be some dog shit games in this series. That is just who this team is and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But across seven games this roster is built to be hard to beat in a way that very few teams in the league can say honestly, and the depth absorbs the bad nights in a way that a thinner team simply cannot.
The Depth and the Finch Question
This is where Minnesota can genuinely hurt Denver in ways the regular season series did not fully show. Ayo Dosunmu has averaged 14.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 24 games since coming over from Chicago at the trade deadline while shooting 52 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from three. He has been excellent and Denver does not have a clean answer for him off the bench. Kyle Anderson gives you a completely different pace and makes the right read every single time the ball finds him. Naz Reid provides real scoring punch when he is locked in. Bones Hyland creates chaos and pace that changes a game’s rhythm in ways that are genuinely difficult to prepare for in a long series.
Terrence Shannon Jr. is the wildcard that deserves some real attention going into this series. In his last three meaningful games of the regular season he dropped 33 against Orlando, 23 against Houston and 26 against New Orleans, all while playing 28 to 35 minutes a night, and was in the conversation for player of the week in the final week of the season. Whether Finch gives him meaningful playoff minutes is an open question, but if TSJ is anywhere near that form off the bench this team has another weapon that Denver simply did not see in the regular season.
The problem is Finch and his rotational conservatism, which has been visible all year. He has historically run tight rotations with tight leashes and benched players for mistakes that other coaches would move past. Trusting this bench in the moments when the series gets tight and uncomfortable is going to require him to coach differently than he has all season. The talent is there. The depth is real. If Finch actually deploys what he has, this team is genuinely hard to beat across seven games in a way that the regular season results do not communicate.
Where This Series Ends
Minnesota wins this in seven. The Wolves have the depth to absorb Denver’s best nights, the defensive structure to make Jokic’s scoring diet as annoying as possible, and a president of basketball operations who designed this roster specifically to dismantle the team they are about to play. The road is not going to be pretty and there are going to be games where this team looks completely out of it. That is fine. This roster is built so that no team in the league can beat them across a full seven game series and the conference finals are the destination. This team is built for a championship run and the path starts April 18th.
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