DENVER — With every swing of momentum, every swell in the crowd at Ball Arena — and every Karl-Anthony Towns outburst at that crowd — the stakes felt like they grew higher with each minute Friday night in Denver.
The Nuggets could almost eliminate the Wolves from a chance at the No. 6 seed with a victory while the Wolves needed a win to keep those small hopes alive.
Despite the emotional atmosphere, or perhaps because of it, the Wolves came away with a 136-130 victory to move within two games of the Nuggets and clinch the tiebreaker over them with four games remaining.
Towns, who always relishes his matchups against Nikola Jokic, had 32 points and nine rebounds while Jokic had 38 points, 18 rebounds and eight assists. D'Angelo Russell broke out of his slump with 24 points while the Wolves turned 17 Denver turnovers into 30 points. The Wolves still have an uphill climb to avoid the play-in tournament, but Friday's win made sure they're still in that race for a little while longer. The Wolves survived a late push from Denver that made it a 133-130 game with 24.2 seconds to play to hang on.
Towns and Russell couldn't miss to start in the game and hit their first 10 shots.
Russell looked eager to snap out of his cold spell by hitting his first four shots, which included two 3-pointers. Towns looked eager to prove he's every bit Jokic's equal with 16 points in the first quarter on 6-for-6 shooting. That helped the Wolves open up a 34-26 lead. Towns could have had more in the quarter but foul trouble came back to bite him again.
He picked up one trying to defend Jokic in the paint and then an unnecessary one swiping for the ball in the backcourt.
The Wolves were on fire even outside of Towns and Russell in the early going and put up 40 in the first. The problem was Denver also had an easy time scoring and shot 59% to the Wolves' 64% in the first and trailed by just five.
When Jokic rested the Nuggets turned to DeMarcus Cousins, who had a night he'd rather forget with four fouls and a technical foul in less than three minutes of playing time early. He went back to the bench early in the second as the Wolves increased their lead to 51-39. The emotions were just beginning to fly.
Towns checked back in and immediately picked up his third foul. He came close to picking up a fourth later in the quarter and Jokic argued with the officials that Towns should have, and Jokic picked up a technical in the process.
The other story of the first half for the Wolves was Russell, who had 22 points. That included 10-for-11 shooting from the free-throw line and the Wolves led 70-65 at half.
The energy ramped up even more in the third as the Wolves opened a 12-point lead again, spurred by a Towns block of Jokic. Towns made sure to let the arena know about it afterward. Same with a dunk he had later in the quarter.
Wolves coach Chris Finch pulled Towns at the 6:19 mark in an effort to save Towns for the fourth quarter and the Wolves bench responded by scrapping it together for a 98-94 lead after three. The Wolves capitalized on multiple Denver miscues in the fourth and opened the lead to 13 with 7 minutes, 57 seconds remaining.
Malik Beasley (15 points), who returned from a left ankle injury, and Anthony Edwards (17 points) shook off their early rust with some big 3s to keep the lead. While Denver would cut it to three late, the Wolves had built enough of a cushion to withstand the surge.
