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The time and energy required to maintain hardcore sports fandom is barely rational and rarely worth the investment. On the other hand, if I were to explain to an uninitiated stranger why it’s nevertheless a good deal, I would start with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
They are a maddening basketball team, full of clunky offense and bad decisions that will make you miserable, but also replete with the sort of indelible characters that make the sport feel twice as alive and every playoff win turn borderline euphoric. One week ago, only days after calling out every Denver Nuggets player by name, Jaden McDaniels exploited Nikola Jokic’s matador rim protection to put up 32 points and 10 rebounds on 13-25 shooting, all while ruining Jamal Murray’s life on defense. It was my favorite game anyone’s played all season.
In broader strokes, for the third straight year we’re into the second round of the playoffs, and the Wolves have come further than anyone expected. They were supposed to lose first round matchups with KD and the Suns in 2024, Luka and the Lakers in 2025, and Jokic and the Nuggets two weeks ago.
Most of this year’s skepticism was health-related. Superstar guard Anthony Edwards finished the season battling something called “runner’s knee” (patellofemoral pain syndrome), an injury that hampered him through the second of the season and clearly limited him in the first round against a Nuggets team that was considered a real threat to win the title (the same injury kept Steph Curry out two months for the Warriors). When Edwards then went down with a hyper-extended knee on his other leg, halfway through that Denver series, on the same night the Wolves lost their other starting guard, Donte DiVencenzo, to a torn achilles tendon, Minnesota looked cooked.
