The sound and the fury of Jaden McDaniels and the Minnesota Timberwolves

Atlantic76ersCelticsKnicksNetsRaptorsCentralBucksBullsCavaliersPacersPistonsSoutheastHawksHeatHornetsMagicWizardsSouthwestGrizzliesMavericksPelicansRocketsSpursNorthwestJazzNuggetsThunderTimberwolvesTrail BlazersPacificClippersKingsLakersSunsWarriorsScores & ScheduleStandingsThe Bounce NewsletterNBA DraftPodcastsFantasyNBA OddsNBA PicksLatest Mock DraftWhat Makes Up Championship DNA?Player Poll: Who is the MVP?Player Poll: Who Will Win Title?NBA Playoffs Jaden McDaniels backed up his tough talk and outplayed Jamal Murray in the first round. Stephen Maturen / Getty Images Share articleMINNEAPOLIS — This series will be remembered for the noise. From a deafening Target Center crowd, that would not let four injuries and 40 years of Minnesota sports fatalism dull their urge to see their Timberwolves send those dastardly Denver Nuggets packing for the summer, and possibly for good. From a long-quiet wingman, one who dispensed with six years of muttering under his breath and spoke with a cold-blooded certainty that announced his arrival as a force to be reckoned with. From a dunk so violent that it sent shockwaves through the Nuggets, further validating the Timberwolves’ aggressive play to lure Tim Connelly away from their division rivals four years ago. And from a coach who was questioned over and over again as the Wolves labored through an uninspiring regular season only to conduct a master class in strategy and resourcefulness to lead his severely short-handed team to a stunning upset. “Our guys, they took it personal,” Chris Finch said defiantly after his Wolves closed out the Nuggets with a 110-98 victory in Game 6 on Thursday night. “I mean, Denver had the chance to pick who they wanted to play coming down the stretch, and they chose us, and we use that as a motivation all the way through preparation and through the series. They chose us.” The playoff rubber match of one of the NBA’s best rivalries was filled with trash talk, confrontation and angst, all unavoidable when two teams meet 32 times in four years, including three postseason showdowns. The Timberwolves limped into this series with Anthony Edwards nursing a knee injury, Naz Reid dealing with a bad shoulder and Ayo Dosunmu keeping an eye on his bothersome right calf. After the Nuggets took Game 1, Jaden McDaniels looked around at his banged-up crew and decided it was time to make his voice heard. He called out the Nuggets by name after the Wolves won Game 2, calling them all bad defenders and inviting scrutiny for such blunt rhetoric in the middle of a series. But McDaniels knew exactly what he was doing. After six years of happily ceding the spotlight to higher profile players like Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle, McDaniels offered up his commentary as a way of taking the focus off of his teammates and putting it onto his slender shoulders. This has been a season of evolution for a player once viewed as a defensive specialist. McDaniels has taken a leap offensively, becoming a reliable shot creator, a real threat from long range and a terror in transition. He looked at a team full of players who weren’t at their best, a Nuggets defense that didn’t have anything for him and decided to take this series by brute force. He went for 20 points and 10 rebounds in a Game 3 win, an emphatic response after he was criticized for his stinging rebuke of the Nuggets defense. He raised Jokić’s ire when he made layup at the buzzer of a win in Game 4, pushing the envelope on the league’s hallowed unwritten rules. “It was just being confident in whatever I do and knowing that I’m way more athletic than them and have finishing abilities and touch,” he said. “Really just being aggressive.” He wasn’t bragging, but offering a dispassionate delivery of the cold, hard truth. The Nuggets had nothing for McDaniels, and that is why they are going home despite being the heavy favorites from the start of the series right up until the bitter end. The Timberwolves are advancing to the second round of the playoffs, where they will play at San Antonio in Game 1 on Monday, for the third straight season because McDaniels was the best player in a series that also included Jokić, Jamal Murray and (for a short time) Edwards. And he acted like it. Not only did he relentlessly attack the Denver defense he disparaged, but he also erased All-Star Jamal Murray from the series. He shot 35 percent from the field and 26 percent from 3 in the series and capped it with 12 points on 4-for-17 shooting in Game 6. McDaniels’ long arms and pure enmity for Murray shut him down to such a degree in the finale that it was a wonder he didn’t toss a heat pack onto the floor again. His decision to step out of the shadows was indicative of a growing confidence in his game and comfort in his team. He is tied with Edwards for the second-longest tenure on the team, one season behind Naz Reid. That gives McDaniels some ownership of where this team is headed. He wasn’t worried about offending his opponent. He wasn’t worried about putting a target on his back. He saw what his team needed in the moment and delivered it. “I just didn’t care,” McDaniels said. “I said what I said. I’m not going to say it again, but I just don’t care. That’s how I am.” That is nothing new to McDaniels’ mother, Angela, who watched her youngest son battle with his older brother and cousins while growing up in Federal Way, Wash. The older boys would torment Jaden on the basketball court. Unlike the quieter nature he has shown in the NBA, McDaniels would rage against the big kids. “He got pushed around a little bit,” Angela said. “But he always fought. He never took it lightly. That’s where it comes from, that competitive nature.” McDaniels saved his best for when things looked the darkest. The Wolves were handled by the Nuggets in Game 5 in Denver, reducing their series lead to 3-2. They knew they would be missing Edwards (knee), Donte DiVincenzo (Achilles) and Kyle Anderson (illness) as they arrived to Target Center. But they found out on Thursday evening that Dosunmu, who scored 43 points in their Game 4 win, would miss Game 6 with a sore right calf. McDaniels responded by hitting 13 of 25 shots, attacking Murray on the defensive end over and over again. He scored 12 of his points in the fourth quarter, including a pull-up jumper from the free-throw line with one minute to play that iced the win. “He talked all series, and he backed it up all series,” Finch said. “And that’s called legitimate tough.” He didn’t go it alone on Thursday night. Terrence Shannon Jr. was put into the starting lineup and responded with 24 points and six rebounds. He was a late first-round draft pick by Connelly two years and struggled through an injury plagued second season. But he has gotten healthy just in time for the Wolves, and his combination of speed and power overwhelmed the Nuggets. “I thought he’d give us a boost. I didn’t realize it would be like this,” Finch said. “Not just with his scoring, but I think he made a lot of emotional energy plays that got the crowd into it.” Connelly helped build the Nuggets into a Western Conference power, leaving in 2022 just before Denver won the championship. His work in Minnesota has been almost as impactful, and Game 6 was evidence of that. Even with all of the injuries the Wolves were facing, they were still able to get contributions from Shannon, Jaylen Clark and Mike Conley, who Connelly traded at the deadline but was able to get back to Minnesota when Conley was traded a second time and bought out by Charlotte. Gobert almost had a triple-double, putting up 10 points, 13 rebounds and a team-leading eight assists, all while making life as difficult for Jokić as any defender has ever made it. Reid had 15 points and seven rebounds, Randle went for 18 points and five assists and Finch was masterful, deploying a three-big lineup of Randle, Reid and Gobert to great success. “This is one of the best collective efforts that we’ve had here,” Finch said. “Just all the adversity that we’ve faced through this series, and keep fighting, keep guarding, and keep leaning into defense.” Finch’s “they chose to play us” motivational tool may have been a bit of revisionist history. The Nuggets could have dumped their regular season finale to the San Antonio Spurs, which would have put them into a first-round matchup with the Houston Rockets rather than the Timberwolves. But Denver did rest all of its starters aside from Nikola Jokić, who only played the first half. The Nuggets won thanks to strong play from David Roddy and Julian Strawther, two non-rotation players. But athletes and coaches will take an edge wherever they can get it. Whether the slight is real or imagined is irrelevant. The Target Center crowd certainly fed into the underdog status. As the fans kept getting word on more and more injuries, there was a nervous energy that engulfed the building. But when the Wolves got off to a 13-7 start, the anxiety gave way to pandemonium, willing the team forward. “They’re everything for us,” Shannon said. “We feed off their energy and they feed off us and they’ve been great.” The Wolves went 3-0 at Target Center in the series. Game by game, the volume grows. It started in Game 2, when McDaniels looked around at his bruised and battered teammates and decided it was time to make his voice heard.  It carried into Game 4, when DiVincenzo yelled for help and Dosunmu erupted to stun the Nuggets. It reached a crescendo in Game 6 on Thursday night. As McDaniels dropped pull-up jumper after pull-up jumper, as Shannon thundered to the rim and as Reid and Gobert flexed their muscles on the glass, Target Center shook with a volume that will keep ears ringing and throats scratchy for as long as they tell tales of the night the Timberwolves eliminated their bitter rivals. “It’s the best for sure,” McDaniels said. “Even on dry spells throughout the game, they still loud. Even if we’re not scoring, we’re locking up on defense, they’re getting loud.” The connection is forging over a newfound appreciation for who the Wolves are and who many think they can become. The purpose behind the team was evident before Game 1 started. One by one, they walked into the arena for the most important game of the season, all adorning DiVincenzo’s No. 0 jersey. It was Conley’s idea, a way of getting his teammates to think of a cause greater than themselves as they prepared to do the unthinkable. If Edwards is the soul, Gobert the spine and Randle the broad shoulders of this Timberwolves team, DiVincenzo has been the beating heart. He was the one breaking up four-on-one breaks in the playoffs. He was the one coming to Naz Reid’s aid in a throwdown with the Pistons. He was the one playing with a broken nose, two pieces of gauze jammed up his nostrils, in Charlotte. “He really embodies the spirit of our team. Played 82 games this year. Played through injuries,” Gobert said. “Was getting his teeth knocked out every other game. Was getting concussions once a week. But he never missed a game. He was just competing every night. … This is the mindset that we want to embody as a team.” DiVincenzo watched some of the game from a suite high above the court, better to protect his casted foot. But as his Wolves kept throwing haymakers at the punch drunk Nuggets, he couldn’t help but wheel himself down to the sideline to be with his teammates, to revel in the triumph that he inspired. “It meant everything,” DiVincenzo told The Athletic. “That uplifted me tremendously. I wasn’t expecting it and it doesn’t allow me to be in a bad mood, all my guys showing love.” This was a DiVincenzo game. Rugged, exhausting and undeniable. The Timberwolves shot 24 percent from 3-point range. They missed seven of their 24 free throws. But they out-rebounded Denver 50-33, outscored the Nuggets 20-4 in second-chance points and only committed eight turnovers after giving the ball away 25 times in the Game 5 loss. There was not a moment the Nuggets could feel comfortable because the Timberwolves simply would not allow it. When McDaniels wasn’t in Murray’s grill, Jaylen Clark crawled into his jersey. The only time Gobert allowed Jokić to breathe was when he was hoisting errant 3-pointers, clanking four of his five attempts. Jonas Valančiūnas and Zeke Nnaji couldn’t last four minutes on the floor against Minnesota’s relentless pressure. They are going to need all of that and more against the 62-win Spurs in the next round. With Edwards hoping to return at some point in the series, McDaniels cementing himself as a star and a raucous crowd behind them, the Timberwolves still have more noise to make. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms