With Timberwolves’ takedown of the champs, there’s a new favorite in the NBA (for now)

DENVER — There’s no more waiting your turn in today’s NBA, no more requisite suffering a team must endure before reaching elite status.

Windows open and close quicker than anyone could expect, so if there’s an opportunity for the taking, you’d better take it.

And the Minnesota Timberwolves shook off nerves, first-half lethargy and even 20 years of generational ineptitude to not only cement themselves as a bonafide championship contender but to knock off the defending champion Denver Nuggets — on their home floor, and coming back from a 20-point deficit to do so.

The Nuggets know that feeling, they were the championship stalkers last spring, shaking off curses, shaking off injuries to eventually wrest the title away from the traditional NBA powers.

That ultimate feeling is the one the Timberwolves hope to have — which is also one of exhaustion, of frustration, the one that says as champion you must play another 82 games before starting the two-month journey in the hopes of reclaiming another title.

The Wolves want it now, without all the devastating heartbreak that comes with a championship road.

“It’s the playoffs, we lost last year,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, referencing last year’s first-round loss to these Nuggets.

“We lost the last two years,” said Anthony Edwards, a nod to their first-round loss to Memphis in 2022.

Towns continued, “How much more we gotta lose? We been losing for 20 years!”

Maybe, not much more.

For the sixth straight year, the NBA will not have a repeat champion, and for the first time in modern NBA history, the NBA’s Final Four will not have a current or past Most Valuable Player in it.

The Timberwolves came into Ball Arena and won for the third time this series, advancing to the Western Conference finals with a 98-90 win Sunday night, the most unlikely of finales to the most unlikely of series.

The Timberwolves will have home-court advantage against the Dallas Mavericks when the series tips off Wednesday night.

Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves took down the defending champs. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

It was all there, the flush look on the face of Nuggets coach…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-05-20 05:39:30

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