Anthony Edwards scored 27 points to lift the Minnesota Timberwolves out of their mid-series slump and post a flawless 115-70 win over the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night, forcing a Game 7 in this rollercoaster playoff matchup.
Jaden McDaniels poured in 21 points and shut down the defense, and Mike Conley had 13 points in his return from injury. Big men Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns and Naz Reid combined for 38 rebounds and a brutal effort to hold NBA MVP Nikola Jokić to a relatively quiet 22 points.
The deciding game for a spot in the Western Conference finals is Sunday evening in Denver.
Jamal Murray struggled again, scoring just 10 points on 4-for-18 shooting for the Nuggets, whose bench held a 36-9 lead — and seven of those points came in the final five minutes. The Wolves’ reserves led a 24-0 run in the fourth quarter to take a staggering 49-point lead, a fitting follow-up to the 20-0 surge the starters led in the opening frame.
Aaron Gordon had 12 points and eight rebounds for the Nuggets, who finished just 7 for 36 from three-point range and trailed by at least 17 points over the final 31 minutes of the game.
For the Wolves, McDaniels’ offense is usually a bonus, but he can’t be as quiet as he was through the first five games with a total of 35 points. This time he was all over the court, going 3 or 5 from deep and mixing in a few well-timed dunks to fire up the crowd.
Edwards, whose 44-point performance ultimately came in a Game 4 loss the last time he played at Target Center, had the tenacious look of a superstar player who refused to relinquish the series. He had nine points in the 20-0 spurt and needed just nine shots from the floor to reach 19 points in the first half.
In the third quarter, he turned a steal into a fast break before using two crossover dribbles to beat Michael Porter Jr. in the air and blow past him for a dunk. A few minutes later he drove past Porter, drew a foul and landed hard on his back. The Wolves called a timeout to give Edwards more time to catch his breath, and as he walked back onto the field without missing time, the “MVP!” chants rose up.
When a fourth-quarter timeout signaled the start of empty-the-bench time, Edwards raised seven fingers to the adoring crowd in anticipation of what would happen next.
The Wolves were frequently in disarray on offense during Game 5 in Denver, with Conley nursing soreness in his right calf muscle, and the 17-year veteran point guard clearly helped keep the half-court sets sharp and organized in his return .
The Wolves held the Nuggets to 14 points in the first quarter, posting the second-lowest total in the league this postseason behind Miami (12 points) in a Game 3 loss to Boston in the first round.
Murray had a great time doing something productive against McDaniels and the rest of the NBA’s leading defense, which came alive after exposing some significant cracks in the previous three games.
Murray, who had a 3-for-18 clunker in Game 2, tried everything from leaners, fadeaways and spot-up 3-pointers. He even rolled a finger from the baseline, only to be pulled back in a bad play by Naz Reid in the post on the ensuing possession for a flip-in that gave the Wolves a 43-24 lead.
McDaniels tapped in a missed 3-pointer by Reid at the halftime buzzer to make it 59-40, a sharp contrast to the 17-yard swish Murray had late in the second quarter in Game 3 to make an 8-0 run-over to close 20 crucial seconds of that match.
