It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t even fun. But it didn’t matter. The Denver Nuggets earned a big 115-112 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

To wrap up their four-game road trip, the Nuggets were handed a gift with all three of Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Naz Reid missing Tuesday night’s game. The T’Wolves were forced to start Kyle Anderson at center to match up with Nikola Jokic, and the Serbian big man took advantage early and often. The Nuggets looked to be in firm control of the game heading into halftime and simply needed to hold on for the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, and the Timberwolves had other ideas, putting constant pressure on the Nuggets in the third quarter and ultimately forcing the Nuggets to relinquish their lead. Target Center was going absolutely insane, and the Nuggets lost all of their momentum until the middle of the fourth quarter.

Then, Michael Porter Jr. came in and changed everything with a personal 7-0 scoring run. He hit three buckets in a row to force the T’Wolves to call timeout and continued putting pressure on Minnesota for the rest of the game. His shotmaking helped unlock the rest of Denver’s offense in the fourth, which had been stuck in the mud until he hit a contested three over Luka Garza late in the shot clock. Porter finished the game with 26 points on 9-of-15 from the field and 4-of-7 from three, including some clutch free throw shooting at the end.

 From there, Nikola Jokic went back to work, hitting some important shots and drawing an incredible amount of attention. Jokic finished the game with 35 points and 16 rebounds, going 3-of-4 from beyond the arc on some incredibly pure shots. Jokic only had two assists throughout the game, and the Timberwolves made his life difficult with length and athleticism around the perimeter while he tried to set up teammates. Fortunately, Jokic did enough as a scorer and rebounder in this one to get the job done.

Somehow, the Timberwolves weren’t done though, even with the Nuggets seemingly out of reach. The Timberwolves, namely Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley, and several incredible three-pointers in a row to keep within striking defense and forcing the Nuggets. Fortunately, they were able to do so, and yet Anthony Edwards still had a final shot to tie the game at the end and got a relatively uncontested three at the buzzer, only to draw front iron. Denver escaped with a win.

The Nuggets had clearly dominated the first half and put a ton of pressure on the Timberwolves on the offensive glass. Jokic and Gordon combined for 19 rebounds in the first half alone and were dominating on the boards. Credit to Minnesota for effectively nullifying Denver’s offensive rebounding advantage in the second half, forcing the Nuggets into some ugly turnovers and shots with pestering defense.

 Jamal Murray handled that pressure reasonably well with 18 points and 11 assists. He was mostly a setup man tonight and had just two turnovers. Unfortunately, the Nuggets as a team had 17 turnovers, including 10 combined between Jokic, Gordon, and Porter trying to attack the paint. The Timberwolves have great defensive personnel, even without Rudy Gobert out there. Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker spent a bunch of time on Murray, so credit to him for playing a relatively clean game.

Unfortunately, it was also in Murray’s bench rotation in the fourth when the Nuggets couldn’t score at all. There wasn’t a lot of pressure being put on the rim, and the Nuggets weren’t getting great shots. They went with Aaron Gordon at center replacing an injured Zeke Nnaji with the bench, but that didn’t impact things positively. Christian Braun and Peyton Watson had tough games, and though Braun hit a three-pointer, the Timberwolves never really respected their spacing and were hard doubling every Murray pick and roll. The Nuggets will be better prepared for that in a playoff series, but it’s important for one or both of Braun/Watson to be scoring threats in those moments.

Still, a win is a win, and the Nuggets move back into second place in the Western Conference. The Oklahoma City Thunder don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon, so it’s on the Nuggets to keep pace and put pressure on them, while also holding off the Timberwolves at the same time. Coming off of a big road trip, the Nuggets are in a good spot with just 13 games remaining. They have five road games left, and the only multi-game road trip now includes the final two games of the season. If they want to, they could push for the top seed and a franchise record in wins.

We will see what they bring at home.

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