Anthony Edwards wouldn’t describe it any other way.

As the Timberwolves star gets ready to face the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs for the third time in the last four years, “rivalry” was the only word that came to mind.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to call it but a rivalry,” Edwards said this week. “I think there’s a lot of rivalries in the league right now, and me and Denver is one of them.”

That rivalry gets renewed in Saturday afternoon’s Game 1 (1:30 p.m. Amazon Prime) at Ball Arena.

The previous two meetings involving Edwards couldn’t have ended any more differently.

The first, in round one in 2023, was a coming-out party of sorts for Edwards, just 21 years old at the time and not yet the perennial All-Star that he’s become. He scored over 31 points per game, also dishing out over five assists and grabbing five rebounds per game, as Minnesota fell to Denver in five games, as the Nuggets went on to win their first NBA championship a few weeks later.

After missing a potential game-tying 3-pointer to end Game 5, a frustrated Edwards picked up a chair and tossed it aside on his way off the court. 

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards reacts adfter missing a last-second, 3-point shot to tie the game in the second half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets Tuesday, April 25, 2023, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

In the second round a year later, Edwards got his revenge, leading the Timberwolves to a 20-point comeback in Game 7 in Denver, ending the Nuggets’ title defense, and having some fun with the home crowd in the process.

Now 24 years old and arguably the best current American pla

yer in an NBA dominated international stars, Edwards is taking a mature approach to this latest postseason meeting against the team he knows better than any other in the league — even if his team is once again a large underdog.

“Never get too high, never get too low,” Edwards said. “We’ve been down in a series, we’ve been up and I think when we (get) up, we get a little too high, so (I’m) just going in with an even mindset.”

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) in the second half of Game 7 of an NBA second-round playoff series Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Edwards has become the de facto point guard for the Wolves this season and even though he’s been limited recently with a knee injury and is officially questionable for Game 1, he’s likely to have the ball in his hands a ton, surrounded by a starting lineup of Donte DiVincenzo, Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert.

Karl-Anthony Towns is not around to help defend Nikola Jokic like he was in 2023 and 2024, while veteran point guard Mike Conley has a significantly diminished role and likely won’t play much of a factor at all in the series with trade deadline acquisition Ayo Dosunmu a key bench piece.

The Nuggets are different, too, with Cameron Johnson occupying Michael Porter Jr.’s spot in the starting lineup and with a much deeper bench than the last time these two teams met in the playoffs, thanks in large part to Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jonas Valanciunas.

“We have slightly different personnel, they have slightly different personnel,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “I think at the heart of what we do is largely the same on both sides. It’s really a lot of the nuance around the differences like with what our personnel is able to do when matched up with theirs, what we’re not able to do anymore that we did in the past. Trying to key in on slightly different tendencies that they might have under Coach Adelman than they had under Coach Malone.”

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels (3) looks to shoot over Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

As Finch pointed out, at the core of each team is a group that is each so accustomed to playing one another. For the Nuggets, it’s the Jokic-Jamal Murray-Aaron Gordon trio. For the Wolves, it’s Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, who have played more games together than any other trio in the league since 2020.

The multiple days of rest and preparation have been beneficial to both sides, but they both understand what it takes to beat the other when the ball finally goes up in the air on Saturday afternoon.

“All I can say is that I feel that we’re really ready to play,” Finch said. “We know our opponent well, they know us well. We’ve had a lot of really wild games here and with them throughout the years. We expect a really long, hard series.”