The Minnesota Timberwolves led the Denver Nuggets wire-to-wire and won 113-96. It was utter domination right from the start, and now the Nuggets are in a must-win situation. They cannot afford to go back home 3-1.
Nuggets fans know how eerily familiar this game was. It was shades of Game Two in the 2024 series. Every offensive possession was a struggle.
In that Game Two a few years back, the Timberwolves won 106-80 while holding Denver to 34.9% shooting from the field overall and 30% from three. Fast forward to Thursday night, and the numbers share a striking resemblance.
The Nuggets shot just 34.1% overall and 25.0% from three. The assist-to-turnover ratio was 1.2 as they had 12 assists to 10 turnovers. Minnesota made every offensive possession a nightmare. For the series, Denver is shooting 40.78% overall and 30.28% from the field.
This is a significant drop off from the regular season when the team went 49.61% and 39.57% from those categories, respectively. The Timberwolves were built to beat this Denver team, and it has been showing, holding the best offense in the league to just 108.67 points per game.
The Nuggets have missed a lot of wide-open shots, and Minnesota deserves credit for that. The physicality and mind games have Nikola Jokic and company off balance at the moment.
Usually, when Jokic has a bad game, there’s always a counterargument. If he shoots poorly from the field, he has a ton of assists. When he has a low number of assists, his points and rebounds are higher than average.
In Game Three, none of that was the case. The Joker was just flatly bad, and it was concerning to watch. His aggressive approach to the game was reasonable.
In the first two games of the series, Jokic had six points each in the first half, looking to get his teammates involved. The tax on that approach was that he was out of rhythm late in the game, and Game Two was evidence of that. This time, he wanted to come out and knock out the Timberwolves early.
The first five shots of the game were taken by Jokic. Three of them were three-pointers, and none of them found the bottom of the net. He is now shooting 20.83% from distance.
In addition to the missed threes, the easy shots are not going in. The Joker’s bread and butter is his floater. Even that is not going in, and Minnesota and Rudy Gobert deserve a lot of credit, once again adding three blocks while being a +18 for the game.
It, overall, was a rough day as the three-time MVP finished 7/26 and 2/10 from three. It is not a hyperbole to say that this was one of Jokic’s worst playoff games ever. His inabilty to shoot threes had made it difficult to have any success from the interior.
With a player this great, though, he cannot be counted out until the clock strikes zero on the final game.
It was salt in the wound for Nuggets fans seeing Jaden McDaniels scoring 20 points on 9/13 shooting. He talked a big game after Game Two and backed it up. Denver missing Aaron Gordon certainly did not help, but he should be back for Game Four.
It has been a repeat script for the Nuggets. In 2025, they won Game One, lost Game Two in close fashion, and got blown out in Game Three by the Los Angeles Clippers in round one. This year, it has been following that exact formula. Denver ended up winning that series last year, so if the fans are looking for any silver linings, look at last year.
It feels like the Nuggets are due for a blowout loss once a series. In 2024, it was Game Two against the Timberowlves. In 2025, it was Game Three against the Clippers and Game Two and Game Seven against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This year, Game Three was that game. Despite the blowouts, every series listed in here went seven games.
Denver historically bounces back in these moments. Let’s see what they have in store for Game Four.
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