The Minnesota Timberwolves are officially on the brink as they head home to Minneapolis for Game 6 on Friday night. The Wolves trail the San Antonio Spurs 3-2 in their Western Conference semifinals series and will need to win back-to-back games to advance to their third straight conference finals.
With the way San Antonio has played through the first five games of the series, that will be a difficult task. But Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic pointed out that they may have the blueprint thanks to their recent history in the 2024 Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets.
Wolves can cling to the fact that they were beaten badly in Game 5 in Denver two years ago, and came back to win the series. But that's about all they have going for them.
— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) May 13, 2026
The caveat is notable as the Wolves are a very different team than they were two years ago. But there’s enough similarities to draw upon as the season is on the line over the next two games.
Timberwolves’ 2024 playoff run could be leaned on to complete a comeback vs. Spurs
The Wolves and Nuggets had a back-and-forth matchup two years ago and Minnesota headed on the road in Game 5 in an attempt to take control of the series. Things didn’t work out that way as Minnesota got pummeled 112-97 and many believed the season was over as they went back to the Twin Cities for an elimination game.
Minnesota found itself on the flight home, however, handing Denver a 115-70 win at home to force Game 7. While the Wolves fell behind by 20 points early in the third quarter, they mounted one final comeback and pulled away with a 98-90 victory to reach the conference final for the first time since the 2003-04 season.
Wolves fans are aware of this (and the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks had an eerily similar path to the NBA championship), but there’s also several differences that could play out this time around.
For starters, the Wolves are incredibly banged up going into Game 6. Anthony Edwards is playing on two bad knees and Ayo Dosunmu is playing with a bad calf. But an extra day between games could be the difference that gets both players up to full speed.
The Wolves are also dealing with a disappearing act from Julius Randle, who was acquired in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade that happened in the fall of 2024. Randle is shooting just 36.6 percent from the floor and 21.1 percent on 3-pointers with 14.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, and more turnovers than assists per game during the series with the Spurs and it’s a sharp contrast to what Towns did in the two-game comeback against the Nuggets.
Towns had 10 points and 13 rebounds to help Minnesota extend their season and Game 6 and was a big force on the inside with 23 points and 12 rebounds in Game 7. He even helped lock up Nikola Jokic at times during the final game of the series and the Wolves may be doomed if they’re counting on a similar output from Randle.
Still, this is a situation that most of the Wolves’ roster has been in before. Even though they’re playing an emerging superstar in Victor Wembanyama, Jokic was at the end of a run where he won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award in three out of four seasons from 2020 to 2024.
That Nuggets team also had more experience than the Spurs have and while that hasn’t been a factor, it could be in front of a Wolves crowd ready to lay it on the line Friday night.
With six players from the 2023-24 roster on this year’s team. If they could come back then, they may have the experience to come back against the Spurs and help extend their playoff run into the conference finals.
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