Timberwolves vs Nuggets Playoff Series Preview

The 8th seeded Minnesota Timberwolves will take on the top seeded Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs.

How They Got Here
Alright so, lets discuss the paths both teams took to get to this point. The Minnesota Timberwolves finished the regular season 42-40, and they lost the 7 seed play in game to the LA Lakers in overtime. Then they routed the Oklahoma City Thunder to clinch the 8 seed. Around that process, the Wolves had a tumultuous finish to the season. With around 3-4 weeks left in the season, Anthony Edwards turned his ankle in a game in Chicago. Not long after that, Karl-Anthony Towns returned from his 52 game absence due to a right calf injury. The next game, Edwards returned from his injury. So basically, KAT is just now getting to 100%, and Ant is still getting there. He seems to have a taken a setback during the Lakers play-in game when he took a hard fall on his shooting shoulder. So we really aren't sure where his true status is. Its the playoffs so of course he will play with what he has currently. 
The Denver Nuggets clinched their playoff spot way back in the middle of March. They clinched the Northwest division title a little earlier then that. The Nuggets have rested their players on and off for the last 3-4 weeks, so expect them to be well rested and ready for a playoff run. 

Regular Season Series
The Wolves and Nuggets played 4 times in the regular season. The last game was on February 7th, so it wasn't exactly recently. To give an overview of the 4 game series, the teams split them. Both teams had a close win, and a blowout win. Now, none of the games were played between both teams at full strength. In the first 3 games, the Nuggets didn't play either Jamal Murray and/or Nikola Jokic. In the 4th game, the Nuggets were full strength, however the Wolves were missing KAT and Gobert in that game. Nevertheless, both teams won their games at home and struggled on the road. The Nuggets scored the most points in a game, with 146 in a rout of Minnesota back in Denver. The best defensive effort was played by the Wolves when they routed the Nuggets in Minnesota in game 3. So, honestly, the regular season series doesn't tell us much about how this series will go. Onto something else.

What both teams are good at
Minnesota does have quite a few strengths. The Wolves have very talented shooters, and even better defensive players. In fact, I would put Minnesota's defense up against the best of the NBA. Typically, when the defense is playing well, it produces their excellent offense. When Minnesota's best players (KAT, Anthony Edwards, and Rudy Gobert) are playing well, this team wins and fairly easily too. That will be a huge key to this series for Minnesota.
On Denver's end, they have the triple-double king in Nikola Jokic who you can always count on to be consistent and make an effect on the game. He also tends to get the better of KAT too. The Nuggets also have Jamal Murray, who is an excellent guard who plays great defense and hits plenty of shots as well. However, this team doesn't live and die by these two players. Denver also has Aaron Gordon, who has managed to inject a little life back into his career while in Denver, who has been a volume shooter and playmaker for the Nuggets this season. They also have Michael Porter Jr, who was very key in their win over Minnesota in game 4 of the regular season series. Another key piece for them is up and coming point guard Bones Hyland. While he was rumored to be on the trade block a couple months ago, he is quite the player for Denver.

X-Factors
Minnesota's X-Factor is two fold I believe. The first one has to be how Nickeil Alexander-Walker will defend Jamal Murray if allowed to start. If he can manage any kind of lockdown mentality on Murray, like he did to SGA in the play-in win, this could be key to any Minnesota victory in the postseason. The second factor, is how will KAT and Gobert play together in the playoffs. In the play-in win over OKC, the two were vital to the team's success and worked extremely well together. They even managed to pull off an alley-oop dunk to one another, something that is rarely seen in the NBA and may have been KAT's first time being on the passing end of a showtime dunk. If these too big men can hang with Jokic for a full 4 quarters, things could get very interesting in this series.
On Denver's side, I think they have one x-factor. It isn't really a specific player, but mainly their defense. While Denver hasn't really had a terrible game defensively when all their guys are player, if they can't manage to slow down Minnesota's top scorers, then they will be in a for a tough battle to move on to the second round. However, if the Nuggets manage to shutdown KAT in any sense of the word, Minnesota doesn't have much of an answer with Anthony Edwards not at 100%. While Mike Conley, Rudy Gobert, and Kyle Anderson play great in a play-in victory over an exhausted Thunder team, its not as likely to work for a best of 7 series. 

Grudge Matches
This really doesn't have much to do with the play in the series at all, but I wanted to highlight how linked these two franchises are in recent memory. Minnesota PoBO Tim Connelly was hired away from Denver last summer to take the position with the Wolves, so he has plenty of knowledge about the Nuggets best players and particularly their flaws. On the other hand, Denver has Ryan Saunders and Rick Adelman on their coaching staff. Saunders is Wolves legend Flip Saunders' son and coached the Wolves a couple years back. So he would have insight on how to stop KAT. Adelman doesn't really have a recent insight into the Wolves but coached the team almost 10 years ago now. 

My Prediction
I am going to predict the Nuggets beat the Wolves in 6 games. I just don't think that Minnesota has the health to even last a full 7 games but I think they will put up a respectable fight against one of the best teams in the league. 

This should be a fun series nevertheless, bring on the playoffs!!

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