The Minnesota Timberwolves did not eliminate the Denver Nuggets at full strength. That is what made it feel louder.
They were missing Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Ayo Dosunmu and Kyle Anderson. They had only eight active players. They were facing Nikola Jokić, a former champion, a team with more available firepower and a Game 6 that looked, on paper, like a night where reality finally catches up to courage. Instead, Minnesota beat Denver 110-98, closed the series 4-2 and turned injury into identity.
Jaden McDaniels gave the Wolves the performance of his postseason life, scoring 32 points with 10 rebounds while also helping make Jamal Murray’s night miserable. Murray finished with 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting, the kind of line that says as much about Minnesota’s defensive stubbornness as it does about Denver’s offensive frustration.
Terrence Shannon Jr. became the other face of the upset. Pressed into a larger role, he scored 24 points and delivered one of the game’s defining sequences, helping spark the late run that finally pulled Minnesota away. For a team missing so many creators, his aggression was not a luxury. It was oxygen.
Denver still had Jokić, and Jokić was still brilliant enough to make any result feel negotiable. He finished with 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds, but the Nuggets could not find enough rhythm around him. Minnesota did not stop Denver with perfection. It stopped Denver with bodies, effort, nerve and a collective belief that makes a depleted roster feel strangely whole.
That is what will last from this series. Not just that the sixth-seeded Timberwolves beat the third-seeded Nuggets, but that they did it while limping, improvising and refusing to behave like a team waiting for its absences to become an excuse.
