Minnesota tries toppling the champs

Wolves/Nuggets preview, old scouting tales, Kidd takes his swing

The Western semifinals may be the best series of the 2024 postseason, and yet it may only last five, close, games.

MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES

C: Rudy Gobert — 35 minutes an outing plus a double-double against Phoenix, a two-point shooting club featuring a burly center. Denver is different, a champion, but also not enough to play Rudy off the floor. Not that Minnesota would abandon him.
F/C: Karl-Anthony Towns — 53/53/89 vs. dem Suns. Only one offensive foul and seven turnovers, amazing work for someone mere millimeters away from spraining everyone’s ankle during another one o’ KAT’s pell-mell stomps toward the lane. Towns’ drives are wild, I agree with myself, but his two-way gifts are enough to dethrone the champs.
F: Jaden McDaniels — missed 8-11 threes against Phoenix but still averaged 14.3 points per game, fourth-most on the Wolves, on cuts and opportunistic dashing, nearly matching Bradley Beal’s output. If he commands the off-ball defensive attention of Michael Porter Jr. (presuming such a thing exists) and similarly approximates Porter’s scoring, the Wolves roll.
SG: Anthony Edwards — 51/44/84 on the way toward 31 points, eight boards and six dimes an outing against Phoenix, eight steals in the series, makes that this grapefruit juice is too tart face all the time, like, it’s grapefruit juice. It’s tart.