Everything goes Wolves way but Nuggets still readying brooms

It was a franchise-defining game for the Minnesota Timberwolves, behind new ownership, the offseason mega trade of Rudy Gobert and a chance to win their first playoff series since 2004, the crowd was amped even down 2-0.

Everything went the way of the Wolves. Beating the visitors on the fastbreak, securing the ball better than their opponents and getting to line way more often. Minnesota even got the game they’ve been looking for out of their three-headed monster of Gobert, franchise face Karl-Anthony Towns and burgeoning phenom Anthony Edwards that they hadn’t gotten in Games 1 and 2.

None of it mattered for the Wolves, they walked away without a win.

Behind Nikola Jokic’s seventh career playoff triple-double the Denver Nuggets thoroughly handled the Wolves best claw. Jokic scored 20 on 13 shots and added 12 helpers with 11 boards and didn’t get to the stripe one time.

“It was an outstanding effort all the way around Nikola had his seventh-career playoff triple-double. And what’s even more outstanding about that,” Michael Malone asked rhetorically. “First time I think there have been a playoff triple-double zero free throw attempts. zero. Nikola’s greatness was on full display.”

Malone massaged the truth a bit there, it’s the seventh such time a postseason triple-double was notched without a trip to the line. And it wasn’t just Jokic’s efficient shooting from the field that netted the Nuggets a win. The team had their franchise-best field goal percentage in a road playoff game at 57.1%.

Michael Porter Jr.’s team-high 25 points on 17 shots certainly helped as he led a Nuggets supporting case that saw six different players tally a dozen or more.

“Michael as well as everybody else on our team understands that if we’re going to win a title we all have to check our egos at the door,” Malone said. “We all have to find ways to make those around us better. Michael has done that all year long, he’s doing it at a very high level in the playoffs.”

Despite the T-Wolves turning it over one fewer time, Minny scoring two more points on the run, hitting the offensive glass more and shooting an obscene 22 more free throws, the Nuggets got it done.

The free throw differential was the largest in a Nuggets playoff road win ever, and just the fourth time in the last 20 seasons an NBA team won a road playoff game while being outshot by 22 or more.

“We needed to win, I think we didn’t want to give them life it doesn’t make any sense,” Jokic said. “We want it to be the aggressor we wanted to punch them first.”

The Nuggets did out-glass the Wolves 40-32, beat down the two-star centers for 60 points in the paint and cashed on 13 threes. Denver just found a way. They got huge moments from Christian Braun, Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who each separately led the team for a moment during the Game 3 victory.

“I was proud because I knew that we were going to face a very desperate team in Minnesota,” Malone said. “And there were times we didn’t play like ourselves tonight, got a little rattled. But I thought that fourth quarter was just was outstanding.”

Minnesota has won just one of 12 quarters in the series and will now attempt to be the first team in NBA history to come back from down 3-0 in a playoff series.

NBA teams have gone 147-0 in advancing to the next round when up 3-0 in NBA history. And only three of those series even made it to seven games, including those three only 11 even made it to six.

Denver has never swept a best-of-seven series, they have only been up 3-0 one time in franchise history. But across the NBA, of the 147 instances when a team was on the verge of a sweep, 90 of those series have ended in Game 4.

T-Wolves fans chanted, “We want Denver,” during the play-in game. Malone even remarked, “They want us so here we come.” Now the Wolves might not even get back to Denver.

“No disrespect to Minnesota, but this is about us,” Malone said. “We don’t want to go back to Denver.”