DENVER – Familiarity abounds on both sides of the Nuggets-Timberwolves playoff series. Wolves coach Chris Finch used to be an assistant in Denver, as did assistant coach Micah Nori. Nuggets assistant Ryan Saunders preceded Finch as the head coach of the Wolves and guard Austin Rivers played for Denver the previous two seasons.
In the middle of all of it is current Wolves President Tim Connelly, the man who spent nine seasons building Denver into the Western Conference contender it is today and the executive who swung for one of the most controversial recent NBA trades when he brought Rudy Gobert to Minnesota.
"It'll be weird for sure," Connelly said at a Wolves shootaround Sunday. "I think it will be weirder for my kids. It's their first time back. Timberwolves, hopefully we prevail. But if we come up short, we're going to come up short to guys that I love and care about and they're going to move on and have a great series.
"I think our group is pretty excited. We've been through a lot. It has not been a linear path to this game this evening."
By that, Connelly was referencing the injuries the Wolves have endured, like Karl-Anthony Towns missing most of the season because of a right calf injury, the multiple play-in games they played over the past week and the process of integrating Towns and Gobert together.
"I thought it was super clunky initially," Connelly said of the pairing. "It wasn't even unique to them. We had a clunky start to the season, period. A little bit expected because of the new faces."
Connelly lamented the recent injuries to Naz Reid (broken wrist) and Jaden McDaniels (broken hand) because he felt the Wolves had played their best basketball of the season on a West Coast trip in which they defeated the Warriors and Kings on the road.
"I thought prior to Naz's injury, I thought that's probably the best we looked. We had a really successful West Coast road trip. I thought the big identity was starting to look like it could potentially be something that was impactful."