As the Minnesota Timberwolves limp back home to face the Denver Nuggets for the sixth time in their first-round playoff series Thursday night, there are excuses and there is opportunity, both so palpable that the narrative writes itself depending on the outcome. 

The Wolves have lost their marquee leader and their most effective role player, an exponential ravaging of their processing and their pecking order. Anthony Edwards lands on one of the digits in your two hands as you’re counting down the best players in the NBA. Donte “Ragu” DiVincenzo disrupts with guerrilla intentions, be it hand-to-hand combat on defense or long-range sniping on offense. But during Game Four of this series at Target Center last week, Ant’s leg bent at a gruesome angle coming down from the lofty heights of his shot-blocking leap, and the random cruelty of fate gave Ragu some of his own guerrilla medicine by snapping his Achilles tendon, an event that always has seemingly no cause for such a devastating effect. 

When they are in their respective grooves, Ant sows fear in his opponents while Ragu sows chaos, dynamics that feed off each other to provide enormous benefit for the Wolves. There were 18 different two-player combinations that logged more than 600 minutes together during the 2025-26 regular season for Minnesota. The Ant-Ragu tandem logged the best net rating of all those duos, with the Wolves scoring 119.5 points per 100 possessions while allowing just 110.8 points per 100 possessions for a +8.8 rating (the math is not exact) during the 1334 minutes they shared the court.

Their dual absence from Game Five on Monday night — and for the rest of this best-of-seven series — puts their team in a precarious position, even as the Wolves at least theoretically remain in the driver’s seat, still up three games to two after losing 125-113. 

The series is now a toss-up due to the unpredictable blend of its variables and verities. The Nuggets never trailed after the first two minutes on Monday, and received exactly what Denver coach David Adelman had asked for — enhanced contributions from rotation players aside from their Big Two of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, especially forwards Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones, who combined for 38 points in Game Five after delivering a collective 61 in the first four games.

But as Wolves power forward Julius Randle noted in his very calm and perceptive remarks after the game, the players aside from Jokic and Murray “made shots — credit to them. But a lot of that was off our mistakes and turnovers.” 

Indeed, the Wolves committed 25 turnovers, more than double the 12 they averaged in the previous four games of the series, when their number of miscues were remarkably consistent — between 11 and 13 turnovers per game. And it cost them dearly: After allowing no more than 16 points off turnovers in the previous four contests, Minnesota ceded a whopping 35 on Monday. 

“They are not playing any differently than they’ve played all series,” Randle pointed out. “We just have to continue to make the right plays. We had 25 turnovers and they scored (only) 113 points. The formula is the same, we don’t have to change that.” 

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But one postgame media reporter wouldn’t take calm for an answer. Going home, do you have a sense of urgency? How do you approach that game? he asked. 

“Win the game. Simple as that,” Randle gently retorted. “Don’t beat ourselves. I feel like we beat ourselves tonight. To win the game, make the simple plays, don’t beat ourselves, play defense.”

A matchup task for Finch

Yes, playing an elimination game, the Nuggets understandably upped their physicality. Yes, without two exponentially impactful starters and a hurriedly experimental mix-and-match rotation (further complicated by foul trouble for series villain Jaden McDaniels), the Wolves were clearly less cohesive, their interactive rhythms laden with gusts and stalls at both ends of the court. The Nuggets were the more aggressive, desperate and thus determined team. 

But some verities still hold. In Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, the Wolves still have compelling defensive counters for Jokic and Murray, the stars whose performances dominate and dictate the power of Denver’s top-rated offense. And even without Ant and Ragu, Minnesota remains the more athletic team, especially if Nuggets’ forwards Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson remain on the shelf with injuries. 

The experimental nature of the rotations had an impact on the cohesion: Wolves coach Chris Finch played nine in the first quarter and eight of them committed at least one turnover (veteran Mike Conley was the predictable outlier), totaling nine in all. Those blunders overwhelmed stellar outside shooting — the Wolves made 7-of-12 three-pointers — and allowed Spencer Jones and Bruce Brown the early confidence borne of easy buckets in transition. 

The turnovers didn’t stop — five, six and five in the final three quarters — but the accurate shooting likewise held sway. In fact, the Wolves’ 50.6% marksmanship from the field and 42.9% from beyond the 3-point arc were both series highs, even with the lackluster 3-for-9 conversion rate from deep in the second half. That’s heartening, because volume accuracy from three-point range is statistically the largest hole left by the absence of Ant and Ragu, easily the most frequent distance shooters during the regular season, when they collectively nailed 38.8% of their 1158 trey attempts. 

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Ironically, in my preview of this first-round series a couple of weeks ago, I leaned into the necessity of Finch being boldly experimental in his lineups and player rotations. Now, with Ant and Ragu suddenly gone and the Wolves clinging to a 3-2 series advantage, a dominant x factor will likely be the coach’s ability to engineer the right matchup advantages on the fly for his secondary personnel in the dynamic flow of the game. 

Here are some of the things that will factor into, if not outright compel, how the rotation gets juggled. 

Can Gobert and McDaniels continue to effectively reduce the offensive impact of Jokic and Murray, respectively, without getting into foul trouble or requiring more assistance? Can the Wolves push the pace without committing a slew of turnovers, exercising poor shot selection, or failing to rapidly get back on defense? 

Will the flow of Game Six require more veteran poise, or fresher legs and greater physicality? What is the patience and loyalty level for the too-often boom-or-bust skill sets of Terrence Shannon Jr. and Jaylen Clark and, to a lesser extent, for the injury-riddled Naz Reid, the easily unguarded Kyle Anderson, the game but aging Mike Conley and the volatile Bones Hyland? And, last but not least, was Ayo Dosunmu’s 43-point performance in Game Four a unicorn or a tantalizing tease of his vast upside on offense? 

The Nuggets, of course, will also have a prominent say in what transpires. Have Jokic and Murray simply been underachieving and have a level beyond what Gobert and McDaniels can effectively limit? Will Aaron Gordon return and, if so, how effectively? Will Denver’s primary Game Five adjustment — playing point guard Tyus Jones so that Murray doesn’t constantly have to make plays under pressure — be expanded or curtailed? And do the Wolves have enough capable bodies to wear down Jokic, as happened in three of the first four games of the series? 

That’s a lot of questions, but the way the series has transpired — with the Wolves snatching Games Two, Three, and Four, then getting bullied into improvisation by two major injuries — has besmirched a great deal of the status quo and the conventional wisdom that goes with it. 

Too many variables

Here’s my admitted guesswork. After a bevy of failed screen tests, Terrence Shannon Jr. is finally ready to take off, provided that Finch and TJ’s teammates groove his flight path and can cover for his lapses and heedless aggression on defense. Jaylen Clark deserves, and will get, at least briefly, moments to spell McDaniels and Ayo guarding Murray. Gobert will not be quite as effective, but still impressively staunch, defending Jokic. Conley and “Slo Mo” (Anderson) will have loud successes but will be quietly exploited due to lack of size (Conley) or shooting ability (Slo Mo) nearly as often. Ayo and McDaniels will deliver their virtues in a resilient but not exalted manner. 

Wild cards: Randle, Naz, and Bones. 

Game Six is a toss-up, for all the variables just detailed. That’s a safe but honest position to hold, but I will get zigzag away from consensus and say that if the Nuggets do beat the Wolves at Target Center on Thursday, Game Seven in Denver is also a tossup. This is a highly competitive rivalry because the teams have played often and evenly. Among the Wolves victories was a Game Seven triumph in Denver two years ago. No Ant and no Ragu creates formidable obstacles, but it doesn’t translate into “no chance,” especially with two more swings at the pinata.

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