Denver Beats Minnesota as NBA Western Conference Race Tightens Up

With the NCAA basketball tournament starting this week, it’s easy to overlook that the NBA regular season is in its final weeks with the games becoming more important for playoff positions and seedings. A case in point was the March 19th game between the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.

Minnesota, Denver, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are all at the top of the conference standings, separated by percentage points or a game in the standings depending on who is playing or idle on any given night. Denver has been playing well as the season has progressed, and Minnesota has been at or near the top all season long. But the Timberwolves are starting to get some injuries to key players, at the wrong time. Karl-Anthony Towns (22.1 points per game, 8.4 rebounds per game) is out indefinitely with a knee injury, and Rudy Gobert (13.7 points, 12.9 rebounds) has missed the last three games with a rib injury. He’s a game time decision at this point.

Despite that, the Timberwolves almost pulled it off after trailing 70-45 at halftime. Minnesota’s defense, one of the best in the league this season, held Denver to just 17 points in the third quarter, but it wasn’t quite enough as the Nuggets held on to win 115-112. Nikola Jokic led Denver with 35 points and 16 rebounds in his quest for yet another MVP award. Michael Porter Jr. added 26 for Denver. Anthony Edwards scored 30 for Minnesota and Jaden McDaniels scored 26. The victory put Denver (48-21, .696) five percentage points behind idle Oklahoma City 47-20, .701). Minnesota (47-22, .681) is one game back.

The Timberwolves and Nuggets play twice more this season, on March 29th and April 10th. Both games are in Denver. The teams split the two games in Minneapolis. Neither team has any games left with Oklahoma City. The Thunder took three of four from Denver, while splitting four games with Minnesota.