After the shorthanded Timberwolves improbably beat the Nuggets in six games in round one, a lot of Nuggets fans and even media are questioning whether this Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon core has hit their ceiling.
Honestly, they aren't wrong. Aaron Gordon has struggled with durability lately, and the Timberwolves exposed the Murray-Jokic two-man game.
This Nuggets team won a championship in 2023. I'm not discrediting it at all; every champion gets a bit of good luck. But that Nuggets team didn't play a team that won more than 46 games in that entire run. In fact, a Jokic-led team has only beaten a 50-win team in the playoffs once, and barring some major roster shakeups, it's fair to expect this trend to continue.
The Timberwolves could be the primary culprit of ending this core
After the Nuggets won the 2023 championship, they were a prime repeat candidate. That is, until they met the Timberwolves in the second round, and lost in Game 7 after blowing a 20-point lead.
Two years later, they met their match against the Wolves again, but this time in round one. After being heavy favorites, the Wolves then lost their three most important guards, but it ultimately didn't matter.
The Murray-Jokic two-man game was completely bottled up by Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert. Christian Braun gave them nothing the entire series, except for pointing at McDaniels after an ultimately meaningless dunk, and Aaron Gordon has now dealt with lower-body injuries in the playoffs two years in a row.
The Nuggets' 21st-ranked defense and poor rim protection were loudly exposed by Minnesota.
If you're a Nuggets fan, it may be hard to see the positives if they choose to run back the same team.
Tim Connelly may have built, and destroyed the Nuggets
Before turning Minnesota into a perennial contender, Tim Connelly played the same role in Denver. He famously drafted Jokic in the second round.
He drafted Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. traded minimal value for guys like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Gordon. These guys helped bring Denver their first championship.
When he got to Minnesota, he built a team that was made to take down the monster he created. He traded a haul to bring in Gobert and shift Karl-Anthony Towns to the four.
At first, the optics of this trade weren't good, but Connelly knew exactly what he was doing. The Wolves' mix of athletic, rangy wing defenders and a double big lineup that includes the best rim protector of the 21st century was built to take down this exact iteration of the Nuggets, and it succeeded...twice.
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