The Minnesota Timberwolves are done. Their improbable postseason run finally hit a wall Friday night, but not before they turned the NBA playoffs into something genuinely, unexpectedly fun.
Consider what they accomplished against the odds. Entering their first-round matchup against Denver on a 12-game winning streak, the Nuggets were favored to run the table. The Wolves were without two starters and another key reserve, all sidelined by significant injuries. They won anyway, in six games, dismantling Denver piece by piece until the defending champs cracked.
Then came San Antonio. A team built around Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 phenom who seemed destined to steamroll opponents with supernatural calm. The Spurs took two straight after dropping Game 1, and everyone was ready to write Minnesota off. But the Wolves stole Game 4 at home, a narrow victory achieved through pure harassment. Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid poked and prodded at Wembanyama until the typically composed rookie lost it, throwing a vicious elbow at Reid's face and earning an ejection. The Wolves won without him.
Anthony Edwards had the line after that game: "Today is Mother's Day. I couldn't lose this game for her." His mother died in 2015. Reid, still collecting himself after taking an elbow, shrugged it off with characteristic humor. "Pain is weakness leaving the body," he said, drawing laughs from the locker room.
This was the Timberwolves in miniature. Scrappy, unpolished, occasionally hilarious, and just competent enough to frighten better teams.
Roster consistency was never their strength. Coach Chris Finch acknowledged after elimination that the team failed to take the regular season seriously, leaving themselves unprepared for the intensity of April and May basketball. Their defense and rebounding were erratic. They weren't the deepest squad in these playoffs, nowhere close.
Yet in certain passages, they played some of the most soulful basketball in the league. Edwards can seize control at any moment, either launching deep threes or contorting his body for acrobatic layups. Rudy Gobert anchors the defense with intensity that occasionally borders on the reckless. When everything clicked, it was mesmerizing. When it fell apart, they still fought like they had nothing to lose.
Their resistance to respectability set them apart. After Game 2 against Denver, Edwards chose the phrase "beat that shit" to describe his rebounding ambitions. Julius Randle couldn't stop laughing. McDaniels, hood up on his black hoodie, announced the team's strategy against Denver: they'd attack the rim because the Nuggets' defenders were "all bad." He then proceeded to name several Nuggets, including players widely regarded as legitimate defenders. Nikola Jokic got so irritated by McDaniels' showboating at the end of Game 4 that he sprinted down the court to confront him. McDaniels laughed. He then dropped 32 points in Game 6, the best individual performance of the series, to close out Denver.
Against San Antonio, the Wolves went down 18-3 in one game and somehow tied it by the end of the first quarter. They cut a 29-point deficit to 12 by halftime in another. They were never the better team, but their refusal to quit had teeth.
The problem is clear: this roster isn't built to win a championship. The Thunder, who beat Minnesota last year en route to the title, are positioned for a dynasty. San Antonio is young, talented, and has room to grow. When the Wolves played with full intensity in sync, they could match those teams over short stretches. Over a seven-game series, they couldn't sustain it. Trade talk will focus on Julius Randle, who struggled to generate offense throughout these playoffs.
Still, Minnesota's reputation as an unlikely band of misfits who thrive in upset situations is genuinely earned. Very few analysts picked them to beat Denver this year, or the Lakers last season, or Denver the year before that. They won all three series. The silverware isn't there, but their fingerprints are all over the entertainment value of this era's playoffs.
The Wolves' elimination probably benefits the postseason narrative. Oklahoma City awaits the next opponent, and only San Antonio has shown it can ask the Thunder genuinely difficult questions. The entire season has been building toward that conversation. It should be worth watching.
Author James Rodriguez: "The Timberwolves probably won't win anything with this roster, but they deserve credit for making the playoffs matter to people who don't even care about Minnesota."
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