Timberwolves season comes to an end with 112-109 loss to Nuggets in Game 5

DENVER – After his last-second three to tie the game went long off the rim, Anthony Edwards didn't feel much like being seen or heard.

As the buzzer sounded, Ball Arena erupted and confetti fell following Denver's 112-109 series-clinching Game 5 win, Edwards sprinted for the tunnel near the Wolves' locker room. He didn't stay around to say congratulations to the Nuggets.

In the locker room, he sat for a long time silent as teammates and staff members shook hands and some said goodbyes after the Nuggets finally ended their turbulent season. No one took it harder than Edwards, who played in 79 regular-season games through multiple injuries, made his first All-Star appearance and seemed to hit another gear in this playoff series.

He kept sitting, with a balled up left fist on his chin, staring at the floor after scoring 29 points. The fact he didn't get to 32 and extended the Wolves season another five minutes stung. When addressing the media afterwards, he didn't feel much like talking then either.

"I mean, I got to play better," Edwards said. "That's all I got. I just got to play better."

Seated next to him at a small table was Karl-Anthony Towns, who had a strong second half after going just 2-for-7 in the first. Towns finished with 26 points and refuted that Edwards needed to be better.

"It's not Ant. Ant was fantastic," Towns said. "It's a series that I think we all have a part in this, including myself. Just got to be better. Ant is a hell of a player. Future of this league, I feel like we got everything we need. Just got to continue to work with each other."

There lies the disappointment the Wolves felt in this season.

When the Wolves made the trade for Rudy Gobert, their goal was to finish among the top four teams in the Western Conference and at least advance as far as the second round of the playoffs. Their season stopped short of both of the goals.

On Tuesday, they were down three key contributors in Kyle Anderson, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, just as the Wolves rarely had everyone healthy for the entire season, especially Towns, who missed nearly four months because of a right calf strain.

"If we just had Slo tonight," Edwards said in reference to Anderson's "Slo-Mo" nickname, "we get out of here and force a Game 6.

"Bad things after bad things after bad things just happens to us. But, all the praise to my teammates, we stuck with all of us. We stuck together through all the adversity. Big shoutout to those guys."

But the clock is ticking on how long the Wolves have to compete with this current iteration of players, given Gobert's age (30) and looming large contract extensions for Edwards and McDaniels that will complicate their luxury tax situation a year from now.

Because of the trade, any season that falls short of their goals is a missed opportunity, whether through the Wolves' own doing (in trying to force the Gobert-Towns combination to work), or not (injuries).

Despite their injuries, the Wolves didn't make it easy on Denver to put them away, but as they showed in three of their four wins, Denver's cohesiveness and execution late in games proved too much for the Wolves.

Nikola Jokic broke a 104-104 tie with a putback with 52.8 seconds remaining. After a miss from Anthony Edwards, Jokic came back down the floor and converted a three-point play to all but end the Wolves season with 28.1 seconds left. That foul was the sixth for Towns, who exited after a strong second half and 26 points. Jokic was just 8-for-29 for 28 points on the night but he scored the biggest buckets of the game to go with 17 rebounds and 12 assists.

Jamal Murray was again a menace for the Wolves with 35 points while Edwards, like his teammates, went down swinging with 29 and had his last shot of the season miss a tad long.

Gobert had a mixed night. His stat line read 16 points on six shot attempts to go with 15 rebounds, but his inconsistent hands fumbled the ball for three turnovers and he relinquished a few backbreaking rebounds in the fourth quarter as Denver tallied 21 second-chance points.

"I'm not proud of losing 4-1 to anybody, but I'm proud of the way we competed," Gobert said. "I'm proud of the guys that stepped up when they didn't have maybe that big of a role during the regular season, but stepped up when we needed them the most and gave us a chance. I'm proud of everybody — the coaching staff, everybody in this organization for just keep fighting and putting us in the best conditions to get a chance to win."

Now the questions for the future start. Can Towns and Gobert co-exist for another season or more? For those wanting the team to blow it up and start over, coach Chris Finch was not sounding any alarms.

"There's a lot of things we can talk about about why the learning curve was so steep," Finch said. "But the most important thing is we have a big enough body of work, I think we can properly evaluate it. I still remain extremely confident we're able to maximize those guys."

It never quite happened this season, a season they almost extended after being up 15 in the first quarter. But their inconsistencies shined on both ends of the floor. Their halfcourt defense was stout in limiting Denver to just 40% shooting, but they gave up too many offensive rebounds (16). Their offense couldn't keep its rhythm for a whole game, and Finch admitted he has to reconsider what the offense will look like around Towns and Gobert moving forward.

The Wolves showed admirable fight while shorthanded in Game 5. It would have been easy to pack it in down so many players after avoiding a sweep in Game 4. But a defining quality of this Wolves team was that they fought when they absolutely had to, but it was also one of their biggest flaws that they were in these positions at all.

"It's not how you want to live," Finch said. "It's all credit to us. We've had many points during the season to let go of the rope or give up on the moment, but we never, ever did. So I love that about our guys. They kept competing. But the more mature team doesn't find themselves in those situations as much."