The Minnesota Timberwolves Are Ravenous. Can They Win The Title?

DENVER — The thing is, championship experience doesn't mean the game falls into your lap.

You can't just expect to be there, to have the chance to close with your amazing clutch-time performances and think teams will just give you the opportunity to win. You have to want to take it, to rip it from the opponent. You have to be greedy. You have to be hungry.

You have to be ravenous.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are ravenous.

"(Coach) Finch did a great job of stressing that it's not who wins Game 1 that wins the series," Anthony Edwards said after Minnesota's 106-80 trouncing of the Denver Nuggets. "The goal is to win two here and win two at home."

They don't just fight for every possession. They fight for every dribble. Every shot contest. Every rotation. Every charge. They attack everything you do, whether it's a shot, a pass, a dribble, a shoulder fake, or just a step on the floor. The Wolves meet you at every moment to try and rip the game from your hands.

They're not the Bad Boys trying to punish you.

They're not the 2015 Warriors with a revolutionary small-ball approach switching everything.

They're not the 2008 Celtics with veteran strength and rotations.

They are their own version of an all-time defense, and they just absolutely obliterated the defending champs to move to 6-0 in these NBA playoffs.

The Wolves' second-round series versus the Nuggets isn't over, but it sure felt like it as fans filed out of the arena with five minutes left in a game the home team trailed by 20+ for three quarters, with the Wolves' biggest lead 32.

The Timberwolves were without the Defensive Player of the Year, Rudy Gobert, after Gobert missed the game with the birth of his child. And yet they eviscerated the Nuggets in every category. They held Denver to 35% from the field, 30% from 3 and an 88.6 offensive rating.

"We had to switch the game plan up a little bit," Anthony Edwards said. "Shoutout to KAT and Naz tonight, they played great defense so we didn't have to help."

Minnesota led in points off turnovers 19-2. They outscored Denver in points in the paint by 18 and lost second-chance points 14-8 (and that 4th-quarter garbage time).

"They kicked our ass. Tonight they ran us off the floor," Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after the game.

The Wolves' tenacity erased all the championship pedigree and swagger the Nuggets played with and left them unraveled. Denver constantly complained about officiating to the point of Jamal Murray throwing a heating pad on the floor during play, a sequence which will be examined by the league office for further punishment. (An official told the local pool reporter Monday night that had they known Murray had thrown it, he only would have received a technical.)

The Wolves are not satisfied.

Denver was left mostly speechless after Game 2, humbled in a way they haven't been since winning the title. Denver all season held worrying marks in terms of its reliance on clutch-time performance and its penchant for sneaking out wins; they had a sub-.500 record vs. the top teams in the Western Conference. But there were so many signature moments of success (many against the Los Angeles Lakers) that it was easy to believe they would simply flip a switch and win.

Instead, the Timberwolves ripped the switch out of the wall, tossed water on the electrical circuits and burned the house down.

Minnesota had no time for bulletin board material or trash talk after Game 2.

"Even in Game 3, they're going to punch back," Edwards said. "They have to be ready to take our punch and we have to be ready to take their punch."

Anthony Edwards has been the best player, by far, in a series that features a soon-to-be-as-of-Thursday three-time MVP. Edwards wasn't explosive in Game 2 because he didn't need to be, scoring "just" 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting, with seven assists.

Karl-Anthony Towns, so often a punchline for his failures in meaningful games, was magnificent with Gobert out, defending Jokic in the post and scoring 27 on 10-of-15 shooting with 12 rebounds.

This wasn't a Denver collapse. Something has to be standing to collapse. The Timberwolves raided Denver's camp before they could build anything in either of the games in Denver but especially in Game 2.

The Nuggets lost their composure, coach Michael Malone said after the game. They didn't know how to respond to Minnesota's physicality and failed to respond.

The series isn't over until you win four. But the Wolves didn't send a message with Game 2. They don't care who's in front of them, they're going to eat.

These Wolves aren't just hungry.

They're ravenous.

The Wolves are now +280 to win the NBA title. They match up well with both the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder who play Game 1 tomorrow. They beat the Boston Celtics in Minnesota and lost in Boston this season by seven… in overtime.

Celtics to beat Wolves as the exact Finals outcome is +310 for a potential series that would see the Wolves as significant underdogs.

It's becoming unclear exactly how much the Wolves should be dogs — to anyone — in these playoffs.