Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Canis family.

For the second consecutive season, and the fourth time in franchise history, the Minnesota Timberwolves played on Christmas Day. Tonight, it was against a familiar foe, Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets. Whenever these two teams match up, crazy things seem to happen, and tonight was no exception.

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For most of the game, it seemed like the Wolves were trending toward a frustrating loss. They fell behind by nine points in the first half before a 17-0 run catapulted them into the lead.

The advantage didn’t last long, though, as midway through the second quarter, Rudy Gobert picked up his third foul, sending him to the bench for the remainder of the half. Without Gobert, the Wolves were unable to slow Denver’s league-leading offense as the Nuggets scored 19 points in just over six minutes to take a two-point lead into halftime.

The Wolves’ defense continued to struggle into the third quarter as Gobert again had to be taken off the floor due to foul trouble. The Nuggets went on a 22-8 run to start the second half, opening up a game-high 16-point lead as the Wolves were unable to slow down Jokić, who already had a triple-double with 27 points.

Offensively, Anthony Edwards struggled to put the ball in the basket following an outstanding 14-point start, likely due to a shoulder injury he appeared to sustain late in the first quarter. Edwards went scoreless in the second quarter and only made one field goal in the third quarter as the Nuggets built up their lead.

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The Wolves trailed by double digits for a large majority of the second half, until, with less than six minutes to go in the game, Minnesota mounted a comeback. Trailing by 15 points, the Timberwolves put together a 15-2 stretch to cut the Nuggets’ lead all the way down to just one.

After a Jamal Murray 3-pointer and Spencer Jones layup, Denver pushed their lead back to six before a trio of Edwards free throws and a McDaniels layup following a turnover got Minnesota back with one with 4.8 seconds left. Following a pair of Jokić free throws, the Wolves had 3.6 seconds left to tie the game, which was plenty of time for Ant to do just that.

It was an astonishing comeback from a team that looked dead in the water just a few minutes prior. The trio of Edwards, McDaniels, and Julius Randle scored the final 35 points in regulation.

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That momentum would carry through to overtime as the Wolves scored the first nine points of the extra period to take a 124-115 lead. Ant scored seven of those nine points, including what felt like a dagger 3-pointer coming off a Gobert screen.

What goes around comes around, though, as the Nuggets mounted a comeback of their own. Jokić hit a 3-pointer coming out of a timeout, followed up by a Tim Hardaway Jr. 3-pointer on their next possession to suddenly cut the Wolves’ lead to just three points. After a pair of Randle free throws, Jokić scored the next seven points to give the Nuggets a two-point lead.

An Edwards dunk layup tied the game on the next possession, but the Wolves were again unable to stop the Denver offense as Murray, in the pattened two-man game with Jokić, put in his ninth make from beyond the arc of the game to give the Nuggets the lead for good.

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The game went off the rails in the final minute of overtime, with Edwards getting ejected amid a flurry of Denver free throws as Minnesota attempted to prolong the game. The Wolves eventually fell by a final score of 142-138 with the Nuggets setting the record for points in a single overtime with 27, 11 of which came following Timberwolves take fouls.

Much of the focus on this game will rightfully be on the late-game comeback and overtime, but this was a game the Wolves probably should have won in regulation. The Wolves’ defense played poorly almost the entire night, and aside from Edwards’s 44 points, Randle’s 32 points, and McDaniels’s 21 points, the Wolves got very little offensive production as the rest of the team went a combined 16-45 from the field, including 4-21 from deep.

The Timberwolves have now lost all three games against the Nuggets this season after sweeping the season series last year. While the other two losses came on the second nights of back-to-backs for the Wolves, tonight’s game doesn’t have the same excuse as the Nuggets were missing three of their five usually starting players, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, and Cameron Johnson.

Up Next

The Timberwolves now return home to face the Brooklyn Nets before heading out on a three-game East Coast road trip. After the heavyweight fight with Denver tonight, it will be interesting to see where the Wolves are at mentally against a much lower caliber of opponent.

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The game against the Nets on Saturday, December 27, begins at 7:00 PM CT. Fans can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network.

Highlights