“The offense looks a little different when ‘Joke’ isn’t out there, but we’ve been making it work,” Porter said. The Wolves attacked the basket better than they did in the first two games, and Towns drew Jokic’s fourth foul with 5:51 left in the third quarter, but the 7-foot Serb is just too skilled – and too much of a load – to get beat that way. The Wolves won their play-in game here a week ago on the backs of Towns and Gobert, the unlikely big-man pairing they created when former Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly bolted for the same job in Minnesota and swung a blockbuster trade for Gobert. They were still within six points at the end of the third quarter. The Wolves kept up the momentum and cut the lead to 61-55 right before halftime. The Nuggets had two 9-0 runs in the first half and started the second quarter by making 12 of their first 16 shots on their way to a 13-point lead.Įdwards, who had 41 points in Game 2 for the franchise playoffs record, single-handedly brought the Wolves back with the kind of starburst only players like him are capable of.Īfter a bad pass by Towns was picked off by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Edwards hustled for the block and quickly converted a Euro-step layup on the other end. The Western Conference’s top team shot like its seeding depended on it and outjumped the Wolves for just about every long rebound. With the Nuggets holding their first 2-0 lead in nine playoff series under Malone, their message from the coach was to keep the throttle on full and not give the underdog Wolves extra confidence. “No disrespect to the T-wolves, this is about us, but we don’t want to go back to Denver,” Malone said. “Our decision-making on offense just kind of let us down,” coach Chris Finch said.īruce Brown had 12 points to lead Denver’s 29-10 edge in bench points, and the Nuggets shot a hard-to-beat 57% from the field. “They handled their business like they’re supposed to, like mature teams do.”Įdwards scored 36 points to raise his series total to 95, Karl-Anthony Towns had 27 points after totaling only 21 points over the first two games and Rudy Gobert had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Wolves, but a defensive lapse here and a rushed 3-pointer there was enough to seal their fate against this Nuggets team finally healthy enough for another run at the NBA finals. “Proud of the group,” Nuggets coach Mike Malone said. had 25 points and nine rebounds and Jamal Murray added 18 points and nine assists as Denver withstood another dashing game by Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards to send a loud crowd of white-shirt-wearing fans home from another frustrating postseason loss. “We didn’t want to give them life,” said Jokic, the two-time reigning NBA MVP who led the league with 29 triple-doubles this season. Jokic had his seventh career triple-double in the playoffs with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists and the Nuggets beat the Timberwolves 120-111 on Friday night to take a 3-0 lead in the first-round series.
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