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The Minnesota Timberwolves are the talk of the town still after they subdued the title-repeat dreams of Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in a thrilling seven-game series in the second round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. That also means that Minnesota is on its way to playing its first Western Conference finals game in two decades. The last time the T'wolves reached and played in that round was way back in the 2003-04 season when Kevin Garnett was still the ruler in Twin Cities hoops.
Two decades later, Garnett is feeling ecstatic about the rejuvenation of Timberwolves basketball, as clearly evidenced by the team's conquest of the Nuggets. The duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards is playing a huge role in the success Minnesota is having in the playoffs, and if you ask Garnett, the fit of those two personalities alongside each other is a major reason for the Timberwolves' deep playoff run. The Big Ticket even compared Edwards and Towns to his Boston Celtics tandem with Paul Pierce.
“[Anthony Edwards] has too big of a personality to be Robin… [Ant and Karl-Anthony Towns] are the faces of the franchise,” Garnett said during a recent episode of All the Smoke Productions.
“This is why me and [Paul Pierce] worked. You got to have a yin and a yang,” Garnett added.
Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns keep on powering the Timberwolves
The Timberwolves are indeed riding the shoulders of Towns and Edwards in the playoffs. With Edwards, it appears that Towns has found the right partner to combo off of him from the perimeter. While Towns is a unicorn who can operate from anywhere on the floor, Edwards' otherworldly athleticism and shot-creation abilities give the former Kentucky Wildcats star even more angles to work on offense. Edwards makes it easier for the Timberwolves to run their twin-tower pairing of Towns and Gobert, and it showed in the first two rounds of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
In their 98-90 Game 7 win over the Nuggets, the Timberwolves did not get the usual numbers from Edwards, who finished with just 16 points on a salty 6/24 shooting from the floor, but Towns was there to help soften the impact of Edwards' poor shooting performance. Towns had 23 points, as he converted eight of his 14 attempts and also hauled down 12 rebounds. It is not always going to be that bad for Edwards and Towns is not always going to be that efficient with his shooting, but that Game 7 further showed that their chemistry on the floor goes beyond what basic boxscores tell.
Towns and Edwards will be put to the test anew in the next round, this time with the Dallas Mavericks as the obstacle in the way of Minnesota's ascent to the top of the league. The Mavs offer a different challenge for the Timberwolves, but it's not difficult to think that Minnesota is confident it can get the job done versus Luka Doncic and company. After all, the Timberwolves just ended the short reign of the Nuggets as league champions.
So far in the playoffs, Edwards, the top pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, is pacing the Timberwolves with 28.9 points per game while knocking down 50.4 percent of his field goal attempts. Towns, on the other hand, is second on the team with 18.8 points per game on 51.7 percent shooting.
