Player Ratings: Playoffs Game Five | Denver Nuggets

Wolves see their season ended in Denver

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It was only fitting that the Minnesota Timberwolves’ season ended in the same way it had plodded along for the entire campaign. A miserable symphony of heartbreak, bad luck and undying fight. Throughout 89 games, the Wolves both crested waves and drowned mercilessly, rising and falling seemingly at random. They toiled through an all-consuming torrent of injuries, they never quite figured out how to meld all the pieces of their funky puzzle together, and they found inexplicable ways to shoot themselves in the foot while simultaneously finding amazing ways to crawl out of every foxhole.

The game ends 112-109. They couldn’t quite find a way out of this final foxhole, but it wasn’t without one last scrapping and clawing effort. By every sensible measure, the shorthanded Wolves stood no chance to beat the healthy first-seed Denver Nuggets. Technically, that proved correct. As it has been all season, though, the Wolves worked best with their backs glued to the wall. They took those Nuggets to the brink of a game six back in Minnesota. However, as it also has been all season, the Wolves couldn’t inch their way over that pesky little finish line.

Everything about this game defined this season’s Timberwolves, and that includes the 15-point lead they found themselves holding early in proceedings. They burst out of the gates, landing an early jab to Denver’s throat with a flurry of efficient offensive possessions gated by a defensive game plan that made Denver take and miss tough shots. For a brief moment, it felt like they were going to make Denver pay for their laissez-faire attitude toward the culmination of the series.

Credit to the Nuggets, though, the jabs only awoke them. They stormed back late in the first period and the entirety of the second. With the help of a friendly whistle, a hunger for offensive rebounding, and a bear pit home crowd to buoy it all, they were able to offset their sleepy shooting start. On the other side of the ball, they began to force the ball away from Anthony Edwards and dare Minnesota’s other and more flaky pieces to beat them. That mantra allowed them to eat up that 15-point deficit with a few huge gulps, and the Wolves went into halftime deserving to be in front by a bunch but losing by a point in the cold, harsh light of reality.

Then it was a war. Weapons clashing, blood spilling, shields splintering and bodies dropping. Back and forth both teams went, with the lead growing no bigger than six points in either direction. Whenever Jamal Murray would make a brazen jumper, the Wolves responded. Whenever Nikola Jokic bumbled to the rim like a great Serbian sasquatch or whipped a fancy dime to an open shooter, the Wolves responded.

They kept finding answers, but eventually the Nuggets overwhelmed them with questions. The late-game inability to grab a defensive rebound did them in. The flood of fouling did them in. The composure in the highest leverage moments did them in.

Just as it has for the entirety of this topsy-turvy season.

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Mike Conley: 3/10

If lasting memories of the season are molded in the final stanza, then Conley’s should be stricken from the record. This was a night that belied his impact on the team and the affection he deserves for conforming a million different ways after arriving midway through the season.

Trading D’Angelo Russell started as a ploy to preserve a salary spot and squeeze a measly drop out of a juiceless cap sheet and, instead, they received everything they needed at the point guard position. One who was smothered in the intangible sweetness that endears itself to fans and organization alike. An on-court leader who used his wily on-ball talents to maximize his teammates while adjusting his game to become an aging off-ball demon. An unconditional trier. A unique blend of father figure and friend to the youthful core of the team. A spiritual figurehead worthy of that title.

With those traits seared into our Wolves-watching brains, it’s hard to take this night as anything but an untimely anomaly. He knocks down his customary triple in the clutch and he was always there with a heady dime throughout the night, but he was the most muted version of himself outside of that. In the lone win of the series, he was able to slither to floater range, work in pick-and-roll whenever Anthony Edwards wasn’t on the ball, and knock down multiple jumpers when the offense clammed up. That wasn’t there in this one.

Let’s hope his ripened legs don’t wither away in the offseason, because he’s still a piece worth cherishing.

Finished with 7 points (28.6% TS), 4 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 steals in 38 minutes — +6 Plus/Minus

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Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 9/10

Talk about pissing in the wind.

Trying to guard Jamal Murray when he is on the kind of heater he was on in this one is pissing in a fucking hurricane. Alexander-Walker wasn’t any slower with his lateral shifts, he wasn’t any less determined to make life a waking nightmare for Murray, he didn’t miss any more rotations or get pinned by any more screens.

He just pissed into the wind and felt the overspray wreathing his face. Sometimes, against combustible scorers, that can happen. He was fantastic defensively in the biggest game of the season, but his opponent made tough looks and naught but a hat tip is the course of action.

With a few hoop-and-harms, a couple of catapult corner treys, and the pinch-hitting ability to tee-up the offense, Gorilla Nuts showed he is more than just the spectral ghost of Josh Okogie. Hopefully, that’s enough to earn him a fresh contract and a permanent home in the Twin Cities for at least the next few seasons.

Finished with 14 points (45.5 FG%) and 3 assists in 38 minutes — +10 Plus/Minus.

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Anthony Edwards: 9/10

He deserved more than watching that shot fire off the back rim to end his season. He deserved more. After what he did to hoist this franchise above the sweeping tides when Karl-Anthony Towns missed 52 games, he deserved more. After picking this downtrodden dumpster fire off the floor and willing them to their maximum playoff potential, he deserved more. Make no mistake, for somebody of his age, this was one of the best postseason boomlets in playoff history. Nobody deserved that shot to trickle in more than he did.

Now, he will have all summer to sit on that miss. It will twist and turn and rot and ferment until it turns into a beverage of work that we all need to fucking sip. That’s the way great players work, and there’s no denying he’s that now.

It would have been nice to just see that nylon ripple one more time, though.

Alas, it did as all things did this season. It teased and it tantalized and it flirted and it failed. It was his sixth missed trey in six attempts on the night, perhaps the only demerit against his name over the past four outings. This was a slight step down from the inhumane slaughtering of the Nuggets we’d seen over the past two weeks, but it was still a parade of tough drives, insane shot-making, defensive destruction, and smart passing out of aggressive doubles. If he could buy a fucking foul call off Scott Foster and his band of dweeby losers, his night would have peaked even higher.

Still, even with a gentleman’s sweep in the history books, this was an unforgettable series from Minnesota’s phenom. One that will glimmer in the annals of time. The great warrior is the one who still breathes when the crows feast, and he stood tall while many of his troops were put to the sword.

Finished with 29 points (48.1 FG%), 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 blocks in 40 minutes — 0 Plus/Minus.

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Karl-Anthony Towns: 7/10

A hard night to square. A hard series to square. A hard fucking player to square. An enigma in all the right ways and all the wrong ways. A former franchise pillar whose now placed even more firmly under the magnifying glass than he ever has been in his career.

It doesn’t take any mental contortion to say that the Wolves could have pushed their double-digit lead into near-unreachable territory had he contributed anything positive in the first half. Anything. A bucket over one of Denver’s too-small forwards. A defensive stop. A smart pass or a spot-up 3-pointer. Anything but another miserable half of shrinking under the beaming lights.

It’s also important to note that they couldn’t have held firm against Denver’s riptide in the second half without him coming alive. They wouldn’t have survived Anthony Edwards being ferociously trapped if Towns couldn’t use it to leverage drives and jumpers. Jokic would have buried them under an avalanche of pudgy post moves without Towns in his face every step and every shuffle.

They needed him early and got nothing, but they needed him after the interval and got just about everything.

And that’s where he is at. A supreme mega-talent whose deluge of caveats act as an anchor holding him down. Along with the unicorn skill, the disappearing acts, foul-outs, defensive disasters and mental mishaps are, unfortunately, part of his package. It’ll take some serious summer deliberation as to the worthiness of that baggage.

Finished with 26 points (52.9 FG%), 11 rebounds and 3 assists in 38 minutes — -9 Plus/Minus.

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