Nuggets survive shorthanded Wolves, win has big implications

The Denver Nuggets were cruising to a win in the Twin Cities on Tuesday night to finish their road trip but they ran into a hiccup. A giant Minnesota Timberwolves run made it a game and put the pickaxes in peril. But then came the best closing unit in the NBA to finish the job, and give the Nuggets a meaningful 115-112 win.

For a game that was so big, Minnesota was small, without bigs Karl-Anthony Towns who is out for an extended period and Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid, who were both hurt in the Wolves game on Monday. That left the Wolves with forward Kyle Anderson starting at the five, who quickly picked up three fouls in the opening minutes. Nikola Jokic took advantage with a rare assistless half as he focused on scoring and Denver led by 15 at halftime.

But back came the Wolves in the third quarter who kept it up and eventually took a four-point lead in the fourth quarter. Anthony Edwards scored 30 in the game and led the comeback with 26 points coming from Jaden McDaniels.

“Well, you know, you always take a division when and to end the road trip,” Michael Malone said. “Not always going to be pretty. And I thought in the first half, we did a nice job third quarter to your point, just came out with no urgency, and they become the aggressor and had us on our heels.”

As is the norm, Jokic checked back in with Michael Porter Jr. and Denver went on a quick 10-0 run and the Nuggets never looked back.

“To our credit in the fourth quarter, I think we went on 18 to six run. Michael Porter Jr. was a huge part of that with the timely shotmaking,” Malone said. “I’d much rather watch film and clean things up after a win.”

Jokic walked his way into 36 points, 16 rebounds and a low two assists. Porter notched 26 points with four rebounds while Jamal Murray had a nice first half and finished with 18 points and 11 assists.

“Nikola is gonna read the game and they were sending bodies at him,” Malone said. “You trust him to make the right plays. I don’t think I’ve seen him with zero assists at half but we were up 15 and that’s what the defense was giving us.”

While the game might not mean a lot for what a possible playoff matchup would look like given the star power missing for Minny, it did have a role in where that series would be played. Minny won the first matchup against Denver this season and the Nuggets have now taken the second. There are two more games coming between these teams in the short future. Denver needs to win both of those to secure the standings tiebreaker, which may be needed to finish above Minny. The Nuggets win pushed them into a virtual tie with the Thunder for first in the west, though OKC owns that tiebreaker. Denver is now a full game up on the Wolves.

The Nuggets are back home Thursday, hosting the New York Knicks.