The Minnesota Timberwolves reached their first Western Conference finals in 20 years last season, then made one of the most controversial moves in franchise history by trading Karl-Anthony Towns.
And now they’re right back in the conference finals.
The Timberwolves finished off the Golden State Warriors with a 121-110 win in Game 5 on Wednesday, ending the series with four straight wins after Stephen Curry went down with a hamstring strain. They will face the winner of the series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets, which the Thunder lead 3-2.
Leading Minnesota in scoring was Julius Randle, one of the two key rotation players it got in exchange for Towns. He finished an impressive series with 29 points on 13-of-18 shooting with eight rebounds and five assists. Five more Timberwolves players scored in double figures, including Anthony Edwards with 22 points and a playoff career-high 12 assists.
The Timberwolves led for nearly the entire game, taking a lead they never relinquished 2 1/2 minutes into the first quarter. The Warriors were within striking distance for much of the first half, but a second-quarter run put Minnesota up double digits and allowed it to coast from there.
Are these the Timberwolves who will break through?
Without context, beating LeBron James, Luka Dončić, Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler would be an impressive path to a championship, let alone a conference finals.
With context, however, the luster fades a bit. The Timberwolves exposed some serious structural issues with the Los Angeles Lakers and beat a critically hobbled Warriors team. It’s not hard to disregard this run, but that would also be unfair.
Since finding a groove at the start of March, Minnesota has won 17 of 21 regular-season games and eight of 10 playoff games. That’s what good teams are supposed to do, and it now seems hard to deny the Timberwolves have found something that works. Maybe they’ll get out-talented by the Thunder or the Nuggets will get their revenge after last postseason, but for now, the Timberwolves are a team to be taken seriously.
In 36 seasons of existence, the Wolves haven’t reached the NBA Finals. There was the Kevin Garnett era, then the Kevin Love era, then the Towns era, and now it’s Edwards leading the team with a competent supporting cast, and perhaps one that fits better than last season’s twin-towers set-up with Towns and Rudy Gobert.
However the rest of the postseason works out, Minnesota at least has reason to believe this is working.
This was barely a series after Stephen Curry went down
It really needs to be said. The Warriors looked like a contender when the playoffs began.
Their trade for Butler at the deadline unlocked the remaining potential of Curry, and the result was a scorching end to the season. The combination of Curry, Butler and Draymond Green was highly malleable and playoff-tested, as the Houston Rockets can now attest.
And then Curry went down, and the Warriors offense became a lot simpler to defend. The team failed to break 100 points in the first three games of a series against a Timberwolves defense that ranked sixth in defensive efficiency in the regular season. It looked better when the series went to San Francisco, but even that home-court advantage didn’t push them over the top.
With Curry out, Golden State also entered Game 5 with Butler reportedly battling an illness.
Sometimes, basketball just isn’t fair. You look great, then your best player goes down. Of course, that’s the risk the Warriors run every time they place another season on the shoulders of the 37-year-old Curry.
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