Nuggets ‘kick Wolves butt’ and state the obvious in blowout playoff debut

DENVER—The Denver Nuggets played their best game of the season on Sunday in a blowout 109-80 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, and it was so obviously going to happen.

Yes, the Timberwolves had quite a few advantages heading into the matchup. They had games of experience, hours of tape, a former Nuggets assistant as their head coach, the architect of Denver’s roster running their front office, a point guard and a center who had played the Nuggets in a seven-game series and nearly week to know if they won their play-in, they’d be traveling to Denver. Oh, and they have four All-Stars to Denver’s one.

But the Nuggets had rest, a buzzing crowd and a Joker rejoined by his stacked deck.

In Jamal Murray’s first home playoff game since 2019, he cooked for 24 points and eight assists playing a true point guard role.

In Michael Porter Jr.’s first playoff game in two years, he put up 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds over Minny’s twin towers while playing rock-solid defense.

Nikola Jokic only needed to play 28 minutes and score 13 points, adding in six helpers and 14 boards as the Nuggets big three played postseason ball together for the first time in 932 days.

The trio was always going to come out with their butts on fire, they’ve been waiting for this exact moment through ups and a whole heck of a lot of downs for years.

“Very excited, I had a bunch of adrenaline running, I hadn’t felt that in a while, I got tired quick but got the jitters out of the way,” Murray said about settling into his first playoff game since the bubble.

It’s no shock a week of honing in on exactly what the Nuggets needed to tune up after nearly six weeks of rest made the team look fresh. And in turn, no team in the NBA this weekend dismantled their opponents quite the way the Nuggets did. The 80 points the Timberwolves scored is both the fewest Minnesota has totaled in a game this season and the fewest Denver has allowed an opponent to tally this season. It had been since November, 19 of 2016 that the Wolves had such a sorry attack.

“We haven’t played in a week, so I think we were all pretty amped up and ready to go,” said rookie Christian Braun, who scrapped with veteran Kyle Anderson but said it wasn’t much of a tussle. “The crowd was into it and gave us a lot of energy.”

The measly performance by the Wolves had more of it had to do with Denver’s defense, who hadn’t allowed that few points in a playoff game since September 1, 2020. Better known as Game 7 of Round 1 where Denver completed its 3-1 comeback against Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley and the Jazz.

Gobert was a -28, and Conley had just eight points.

“We played a lot of games. They had a lot of rest. So, it was only right they came out with a lot of energy,” Wolves’ leading scorer at 18 points Anthony Edwards said. “We’ll get our energy.”

Minny’s star Karl-Anthony Towns was held to 11 points on 5-of-15 shooting, much of the makes coming in garbage time.

“You can tell on the court they knew our plays, they knew what they were doing,” Towns said.

So how were the Nuggets more prepared?

If you watched close enough the Nuggets have built and prepared for this moment since their bubble was burst. They’ve had the chance to advance ripped from them by injury but in this mostly healthy season head coach Michael Malone has pushed every button to get Denver ready for Round 1 of Game 1. Toying with rotations, putting his players in uncomfortable situations and testing them, these Nuggets have grown and they’re back to the same monster that made history back in the bubble.

“Tonight was a great starting point to open up the series at home, I want to thank our crowd for another unbelievable atmosphere,” Malone said. “But now make sure that you win a game and don’t come up for air. Don’t be satisfied. Don’t think we figured anything out. Wednesday night is going to be a completely different game. They’re going to be much better and we have to be prepared for that. Now the challenge is going to be can we consistently do the same thing for Game 2 and moving forward after? We set a pretty high bar tonight.”

The Nuggets were the best version of themselves which is the best in the West and they played a mediocre team who barely snuck into the playoffs. Denver’s low bar might clear the Wolves, but the Nuggets peak embarrassed them.

“Way more physical than we were,” Wolves head coach Chris Finch said. “They played with more speed, more force, they kicked our butt in every category that you possibly can imagine. Physicality on the glass, turning corners.”

As Aaron Gordon muttered walking past reporters in the locker room, “15 to go.”