3 ways Tim Connelly built Minnesota Timberwolves roster to beat Nuggets
By Bret Stuter
The path through the NBA Playoffs leads through Denver, Colorado, for the Minnesota Timberwolves. While the Timberwolves may have entered the 2022-23 NBA season with higher expectations than the eighth seed in the NBA Western Conference, the team has managed to earn a berth in the NBA Playoffs all the same. And it doesn’t require a soothsayer or fortune teller to understand that the Timberwolves would eventually meet the Denver Nuggets.
Yes, the Minnesota Timberwolves only won 42 out of 82 games in the 2022-23 NBA season. But that was all about getting here, earning a berth in the 2023 NBA Playoffs. And now that the Timberwolves got here, anything is possible, right? Well, in theory, that is true enough. In a regular scenario.
The Timberwolves have been anything but regular this season. From a roster that was meeting for the first time in their last preseason game, to countless injuries that decimated the team throughout the season, to losing to bad teams, it seemed very much like a high-performance engine that was sputtering and threatening to stall out.
The Timberwolves are back in the NBA Playoffs
Still, the Minnesota Timberwolves are here, smack dab in the middle of the NBA Playoffs and facing the best team in the NBA Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets. In most scenarios in which the eighth-seeded team faces the top-seeded team in the NBA Playoffs, the outcome is a rapid sweep of the eighth seed in four games, and the top seed quickly advances to Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs.
But I don’t see that happening in this series. Yes, the Minnesota Timberwolves had to scratch and claw to get here. But let’s not ignore the headwinds that the Timberwolves had to fend off all season. From injuries to unfamiliarity to players who simply did not fit what the goal was this season, the Timberwolves had to systematically face and overcome each roadblock along the way.
9 players the Minnesota Timberwolves gave up on too soon. light. Must Read
Along the way, the Timberwolves’ roster transformed from 15 players to one cohesive team. Now that the Timberwolves have made it to the NBA Playoffs, let’s lift the hood and see what type of engine this team has: