Nuggets and Knicks, off for summer

Timberwolves and Pacers win on the road

Minnesota 98, Denver 90

Timberwolves win series, 4-3

It didn’t have to be this way, end this way, on the court, off it. Defending a title is tough, witness the six consecutive NBA teams which failed to do so, but it shouldn’t be so tough that a coach has to play an MVP all but 1:26 in a deciding game, until the MVP resembles the color of a beet stewed in paprika-based broth. The front office shouldn’t leave the coach with so little, the coach shouldn’t ignore what little he has.

Barely fading to the Wolves in a seven-game Western semifinal is as quality a defeat as falling to some chump out of the East in the Finals, this was no ignoble hardwood failure for Denver. But the bosses betrayed them in the boardroom.