MINNEAPOLIS — Aaron Gordon made the Timberwolves respect him, Jamal Murray made them fear him, and the Nuggets made them realize mowing through the Western Conference isn’t meant to be easy.
The Nuggets have made this a series, for now at least. They still must win Sunday at Target Center to avoid facing three consecutive elimination games, but a clinical 117-90 victory Friday over the Timberwolves closed the gap to 2-1 in the second round of the playoffs. The road team has won all three games so far.
The Nuggets shot 54% from the floor and 48% from 3-point range, also buoyed by 21 points from Michael Porter Jr. They held Minnesota to 44% and 30%.
Edwards was limited to a minus-32 on the floor with a pedestrian (for him) 19 points. He turned it over five times. Nuggets sixth man Christian Braun — his playoff minutes have firmly confirmed that title — matched up against Edwards successfully for key stints, part of a lineup configuration that involved wings (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope or Justin Holiday) guarding Karl-Anthony Towns and daring him to post up. Towns’ 14 points were generated largely on 3-pointers.
The Nuggets, mercifully for their own sake, played a competitive first quarter and emerged with an eight-point lead after three days off to think their agonizing trend of lethargic starts. Michael Malone’s entire pregame news conference transpired like a plea to his team’s mental fortitude, rather than much of any tactical.
“There’s no excuses,” he said when asked Denver’s list of injuries. “If you can play, you’ve gotta go out there and play. Everybody across the playoffs is hurt. … Jamal is banged up. KCP is banged up. Nikola is banged up. So what? Go out there and do your job. And if you’re not able to do your job, then we’ll have to throw somebody out there who can try to help bring something to the table.”
