Timberwolves fall from pedestal, now face a fight

The Timberwolves didn’t seem to be bothered by the altitude in Denver, but on Friday, they played like they were afraid of heights.

After a week of award celebrations and raised championship expectations, the Wolves slipped off their ski lift.

With less defensive effort and offensive efficiency, they were brought back to earth by the defending champion Nuggets in a 117-90 loss at Target Center that elicited more jeers for the referees than cheers for the home team.

The difference between the Wolves in Game 2 and Game 3 was the difference between a hurricane and a breeze.

A hurricane will wreck you. A breeze may not even annoy you.

On Friday night, the Wolves encountered an opponent rarely sighted in franchise history: the opportunity to be overconfident. Then they played like they were planning a parade instead of trying to earn one.

“Just sluggish, slow, the pace up and down the floor wasn’t where it has been all postseason,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “Decisionmaking wasn’t there. General movement, activity wasn’t there.

“We tried to shoot our way after one pass, like when the game was still there to be had. We didn’t want to work very hard for our offense. And you know, we got a little bit lazy, and we missed those shots.”

The Wolves won Game 1 of this playoff series convincingly, and Game 2 with a defensive effort not seen in Minnesota since a group of large men earned the nickname “Purple People Eaters.”

In Game 3, the defending champions looked like a team that had figured out how to turn embarrassment into fuel. They played with much better composure, and Jamal Murray went from throwing a heat pack onto the court to reprising the shotmaking and clutch play that made him so spectacular during Denver’s championship playoff run.

The Wolves, a team with so many three-letter nicknames — Ant, KAT, NAW and Naz — could have their fortunes summarized by another three-letter word.

Now.

Now it’s a series. The Wolves will not be sweeping their way to an NBA championship, and neither will anyone else. The Nuggets now have a chance to even the series and regain home-court advantage on Sunday at Target Center, and if they do, Denver’s Ball Arena may feel like a less hospitable place in Game 5.

On Friday, the Wolves failed to fluster the Nuggets with full-court pressure and seemed to be a step slower on defensive rotations.

The Wolves might have survived such sluggishness if they had made makable shots. Their ball movement wasn’t any crisper than their defensive rotations, and even when they did earn a point-blank shot, they too often missed.

The Wolves have proved that defensive excellence can elevate a franchise, but there is no substitute in the NBA for making shots.

The Wolves missed from near and failed from afar. In the first half, Karl-Anthony Towns made all four of his threes, while his teammates went 2-for-16.

You don’t have to do everything well to win, but you have to do something well, and the Wolves couldn’t point to a single area of the game in which they excelled.

Maybe we should have expected this. The Wolves spent the week hearing about all of the awards they’ve won and their newfound status as this year’s favorite underdogs, as the national media streamed into town to see if they could earn the status as championship favorites.

Meanwhile, Nuggets coach Mike Malone was hammering his players for their lack of fire and professionalism in Game 2. He said Friday afternoon that he challenged them “as men” to play like champions, and he sounded quite confident that they would.

The Wolves remain the deeper and bigger team, but on Friday, Murray was a different player, getting to his favorite spots on the floor and making high-arcing shots with ease regardless of who was guarding him.

Murray should not have been playing. Throwing a heat pack onto the court is the kind of irresponsible act that should have earned him a suspension.

On Friday, Murray threw haymakers.

The Nuggets have three advantages over the Wolves — home court in Game 5 and perhaps Game 7, the world’s best player in Nikola Jokic and a coach and starting five who know what it takes to win it all.

The Nuggets showed what they’re made of on Friday.

The Wolves had better do the same on Sunday.