Timberwolves, Thunder take different paths to Western Conference finals

This might take some reminding even for those who follow the Timberwolves closely, but two seasons ago, the Wolves and Thunder played each other in a play-in game for the No. 8 seed in the NBA playoffs.

The teams took different routes to get to that night, and they have taken different routes since then, but they both wound up in the same place, the 2025 Western Conference finals, which begin in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night.

The Wolves won that play-in game 120-95 and went on to face the Nuggets, who won the first-round playoff series in five games on their way to an NBA title.

For the Wolves, that victory represented one of the few good moments in a season that had a lot of drama. The trade for Rudy Gobert happened that previous offseason, and the initial results were not promising.

The fit next to Karl-Anthony Towns was clunky on offense, and the Wolves were in the midst of figuring everything out before Towns injured his calf in late November. When he came back, the Wolves were playing some of their best basketball of the season, and then injuries, both incidental and self-inflicted, cost them a chance at a serious postseason run.

Naz Reid had broken his wrist on a fall in Phoenix in March while Jaden McDaniels broke his hand punching the wall of the tunnel near the Wolves bench on the last day of the regular season. The Wolves lost the first play-in game to the Lakers before returning home to face the Thunder for the final playoff spot.

For the Thunder, that night represented another step in the franchise’s gradual ascension, which has taken a fairly linear path to then and to now. Oklahoma City had traded for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from the Clippers as part of the Paul George trade in 2019, and Gilgeous-Alexander had emerged as a franchise cornerstone, and that season the Thunder were a surprise fringe playoff team. They were ahead of schedule, and they were going to be a force in years to come. The whole league could see it. That night, the Thunder featured a number of players Wolves fans will become familiar with in this series — Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe and a rookie in Jalen Williams.

Since then, both teams have had a lot of success, though in different ways. The Wolves became a defensive force in 2023-24, the Towns-Gobert pairing proved it could work, and they battled the Thunder and Nuggets for the No. 1 seed all season before making the conference finals. Then they made one of the most significant trades of this season in dealing Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, another move that took time to click.

But by March, it had, and the Wolves have been one of the best teams in the league since Randle and DiVincenzo came back from injury. When they were out, the Wolves played the Thunder three times, with the Wolves winning two of those matchups, including a comeback overtime thriller in Oklahoma City.

While the Wolves roster went through some significant jolts over the last few years and still got here despite that winding road, the Thunder have stayed patient in their rebuild. Before that play-in game, they were a franchise who amassed a war chest of draft picks from several teams and developed their young talent. After losing in the second round last season, they made some moves, but nothing that shook up the core of their team or cost them a significant number of picks. They signed Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency and traded Josh Giddey to the Bulls for Alex Caruso. Gilgeous-Alexander kept making leaps into a finalist for MVP, while Williams developed into an All-Star.

The Thunder’s depth, youth and athleticism led them to the best defense in the league and 68 regular-season victories, though their second-round series against Denver, which lasted seven games, showed they aren’t invincible.

That 2023 play-in game against the Thunder was a significant one for this Wolves team in another way. That night, coach Chris Finch opted to give the start to Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who had been in and out of the rotation after coming to the team in the Mike Conley-D’Angelo Russell trade from Utah.

Alexander-Walker guarded his cousin, Gilgeous-Alexander, and held him to 5-for-19 from the floor. Alexander-Walker’s success that postseason continued in the Nuggets series, and the Wolves signed him to a two-year deal that offseason. He might not be on this year’s team if not for that night. At Friday’s practice, he spoke about what has made his cousin so dangerous.

“It’s not about how has he done it differently, it’s about how has he done it to be so consistent in it,” Alexander-Walker said. “That comes from diligence, hard work, seeing it firsthand and discipline that truthfully I haven’t seen in anybody else.

“I have not seen discipline like his. So I think that’s the main reason why people think he’s made a jump when really he’s just been able to be consistently that, because he’s been so disciplined in his approach.”

Consistency is also how Anthony Edwards helped the Wolves arrive at this point. Every year, Edwards has grown in his ability to read the game, and he is dissecting defenses better than he ever has over the past two rounds, even if the eye-popping scoring nights of his previous postseason runs aren’t quite as frequent.

Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, is three years older than Edwards, and that three-year gap is a significant one in the NBA. Edwards is still young by NBA standards, and young by the time most top-level players start winning titles around age 27.

Edwards’ discipline and consistency in the face of a blistering Thunder defense, which likes to create turnovers, will be the key to the series. If the Wolves don’t let the Thunder get loose in transition and force them into a halfcourt game, they stand a chance. If they don’t, advantage Oklahoma City.

This series will be different for Edwards than the previous two in this run. Instead of trying to knock off some of the legends and older guard of the NBA (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green), Edwards will be trying to topple someone closer to his peer group. That might provide a different kind of motivation for him in this series to prove he is a better player than Gilgeous-Alexander, who might end up accepting the league MVP award during this series.

A lot is at stake for the future of both players and teams in this series. Would a loss in this series cause the Thunder to make a significant push in a trade for a big-name star with all that young talent and all those draft picks they are owed? Or will staying the course pay off in an NBA Finals appearance?

What decisions will the Wolves make in the offseason when it comes to players like Randle, Naz Reid and Alexander-Walker, all of whom could be free agents? What would a Finals appearance mean for the franchise and for Edwards’ place in the game?

Neither of these teams seemed on a collision course to define their legacies and destinies two years ago, but they found a way back to meet each other at this moment.