Timberwolves After Midnight: Brilliance and bad basketball all at once in double OT victory over Nuggets

DENVER – Julius Randle and Mike Conley are both in their 30s, and both sat at their lockers Tuesday following the Timberwolves’ 140-139 double-overtime victory over Denver not wanting to move.

“I feel terrible. I feel absolutely awful. My body is in shock,” said Randle, 30, who played over 49 minutes and had 26 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.

“I’m tired. I’m not gonna lie, especially being in Denver, you go to an altitude area and to have a game like that, it’s really tough,” said the 37-year-old Conley, who played 36 minutes and had nine points and eight assists.

The veterans had to log all those minutes because of the two overtimes, and also because the Wolves were down two rotation players, Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo, who were serving one-game suspensions for their involvement in an altercation Sunday against Detroit.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum from Randle and Conley was 23-year-old Anthony Edwards, all smiles and full of energy as if he hadn’t just played 50 minutes himself.

“I wasn’t tired at all,” said Edwards, who had 34 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. “This might be the first time I played in Denver that I wasn’t tired.”

It’s hard to believe he wasn’t. Anyone who stayed up late enough to watch it — the game finished after midnight in the Twin Cities — witnessed one of the most confounding, topsy-turvy but ultimately exhilarating regular-season games they have seen a long time, if not ever.

They witnessed brilliance (a triple-double and a career-high 61 points from three-time MVP Nikola Jokic), they witnessed bad basketball (multiple head-scratching mistakes by each team in late-game situations), but they also saw an unflinching Wolves squad no matter how long the odds were late in that second overtime. All the way until the final tenth of a second, when Nickeil Alexander-Walker sank the first two of three free throws after Russell Westbrook fouled him on a three-point attempt as time expired.

“It’s two different types of fights, you know?” said Alexander-Walker, referencing the scuffle from Sunday’s win. “It’s two different types of fights. … I was just chomping at the bit, excited to get that chance. [Chris] Finch trusted me. My teammates trusted me.”

Edwards, who’s been in the league five seasons, said Tuesday’s win was as special as any the Wolves have had in his career.

“That might’ve been the best game of my life that I’ve been a part of,” Edwards said. “Nikola Jokic, bruh, oh my God, he might be the best basketball [player] I’ve ever seen close up. Besides myself to myself. Bro, he’s incredible.

“The MVP race is tough, man. I don’t know. He had 60. It’s crazy.”

Crazy was another good description.

The Wolves should have won the game multiple times before the second OT, but they couldn’t hold on to small leads late, they didn’t get great shots to win at the buzzer in regulation and overtime, and Edwards committed a turnover he’d like to have back when he threw an ill-advised cross-court pass with the Wolves ahead by two and 18.6 seconds to play in the first overtime.

That allowed Jokic, who carried the scoring load with Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. out, to tie the game and send it into another extra session after Rudy Gobert fouled out. Double him or not, he sliced up the Wolves.

“He’s doing all type of crazy [stuff] out there,” said Randle, who had to guard Jokic with five fouls through the overtimes after Gobert exited. “I don’t even know how to explain it. He’s making tough shots. It feels like any time he gets it in the paint, he puts it on the rim, it’s so soft. The shot is extremely soft. It’s going to find its way through the hoop.”

Then the Wolves should’ve lost the game in the second overtime. Denver led 139-138 after Jokic hit one of two free throws following a Jaden McDaniels foul on, of all things, a jump ball with Jokic. That only came about after officials couldn’t determine who knocked the ball out of bounds after a missed Westbrook free throw moments earlier. Just one of many crazy footnotes in a night full of things that don’t normally happen in NBA games.

Edwards again turned the ball over on what could have been the Wolves’ final possession, but Conley chased down Westbrook, who went for a layup at the other end. He missed.

“Mike ran that guy down and made him miss,” Alexander-Walker said. “ … What Mike’s doing, there’s guys like LeBron [James], but that’s LeBron. For what feels like a normal person, to have a guy like Mike, people overlook how difficult it really is to do.”

Alexander-Walker got the rebound, and coach Chris Finch opted not to call timeout with the clock ticking to zero. The Wolves had called timeout to set up their final shots in regulation and overtime; Randle and McDaniels took the shots, but neither had a good look.

As Edwards drove to the hoop, he spotted Alexander-Walker open in the right corner. Alexander-Walker had been money all night. He led the Wolves out of a double-digit hole in the first half and finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and eight assists. That led Edwards to make the pass.

“He hit big shot after big shot,” Edwards said. “At some point I was like, ‘Let’s just give the ball to Nickeil, and we all spot up.’ He was incredible tonight, man.”

Westbrook made contact with Alexander-Walker as he missed the shot, and official C.J. Washington blew the whistle and held up his arm. Not everyone on the Wolves realized they still had a chance.

“I didn’t even know he got fouled,” Edwards said. “I was on the ground, then [someone] come to help me up like, ‘Hey, we got three free throws.’ I didn’t know he got fouled.”

Said Finch: “I was blocked by traffic. I thought the game was over, but thankfully it wasn’t.”

Alexander-Walker knew Westbrook had fouled him.

“I knew it was going to be called,” he said. “I was just looking to see if I got the four-point play.”

Officials had to review to make sure the contact had occurred before the buzzer sounded, and it had, with 0.1 seconds to play. After the lengthy review, Alexander-Walker stepped to the line for three shots. He hit the first two, right through the net on each. No drama, no rolling around the rim. Clutch.

BOXSCORE: Wolves 140, Nuggets 139

NBA standings

“Everybody was laughing because I started screaming,” Alexander-Walker said. “I don’t even know why I did that. It’s so out of my character. Just making that shot. The emotions … my body was on the ground, but I felt like I was floating in that moment.”

Edwards began jumping up and down, and Alexander-Walker missed the third free throw on purpose to end the exhausting evening. Well, it was exhausting for some.

But no matter how tired they were, the Wolves players went back to their hotel with smiles on their faces. It wasn’t a perfect win, and they will have to address their clutch-time offense before the postseason. Those were tomorrow’s concerns. They had no business losing Tuesday before they had no business winning, and it’s just like these Wolves to take the hard way to a win.

“We’re like cardiac kids,” Conley said. “We got a little bit of that in us, but we operate in a weird way. We operate well in chaos, it seems like.”