Chris Finch: Timberwolves Preparing for Much Different Nuggets Team
The Minnesota Timberwolves will begin their first round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday.
It’ll be the first time the two Western Conference juggernauts have met since the 2024 NBA Playoffs, when Anthony Edwards and the Wolves knocked off the Nuggets for the second-consecutive postseason.
This time around, Minnesota comes in as the underdog 6-seed. They will travel to Denver for games one and two, hoping to steal one game on the road before bringing the series back to Minnesota for game three and four.
Chris Finch Previews Minnesota Timberwolves vs Denver Nuggets
Saturday’s game is scheduled to tip-off at 2:30 CDT on Prime Video, but the rest of the series does not yet have scheduled dates or times.
There are going to be a ton of keys to this series, all of which will highlighted, scrutinized, and eventually beaten to death over the course of this week, as we wait for the NBA Play-In Tournament to decide the final playoff participants for 2026.
But Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch was on KFAN Radio on Monday morning with host Paul Allen, where he talked at length about the upcoming Wolves vs Nuggets series.
PA’s entire interview with Finchy is worth a listen, but one piece of the conversation that stuck out as especially noteworthy came when Allen asked the Wolves coach what makes the 2026 Nuggets different the team 2024 Minnesota eliminated in seven games.
Deeper Nuggets and New Aaron Gordon will provide challenge for Wolves
Clearly, this is a question Chris Finch has been thinking quite a bit about recently. Because it didn’t take long for him to shift the conversation to Denver’s improved depth and outside shooting, specifically from stretch big Aaron Gordon.
The Nuggets’ new bench features a mix of youngsters that Finch mentioned by name, including Peyton Watson (29.6 MPG: 14.6 PPG, 4.9 RPG) and Jonas Valanciunas (13.4 MPG: 8.7 PPG, 5.1 REB). Tim Hardaway Jr (26.6 MPG: 13.5 PPG, 2.6 RPG) is another one of Denver’s improved bench pieces.
But another X-factor to this series, that the Wolves are trying to navigate, is the aforementioned outside shooting of 30-year-old Aaron Gordon, who shot 32% (213 attempts) from behind the three point line, from 2015-2024. In the past two seasons, that number is up to .41% (136 attempts).
“Where I feel that they’ve gotten a lot better, is they’ve gotten deeper. The team we played a couple of years ago probably didn’t have a lot of depth.
I think, right now, they got way more depth than they had then, whether it be the backup experience of Valanciunas at the 5, to some of their younger players, like Watson and Strather — who were on the roster a few years ago but inconsistent and at times and not playing. Those guys are now significant pieces to what they’re doing.
Aaron Gordon has really improved his three point shooting, and that makes makes it a lot harder because, before, you were able to kind of help heavy off of him. Those days are gone. And yeah, so I just feel like they’re as deep as they’ve ever been.”
Chris Finch – KFAN Radio
During their playoff series in both 2023 and 2024, the Wolves were able to match Rudy Gobert on Aaron Gordon down low… while nobody guarded him beyond the three point line.
Instead of letting Gordon to pull Gobert toward the arc, Minnesota dropped Rudy back as a help defender at the rim, daring Gordon to try shoot from deep, no matter how open he was. This highlight reel from the 2023 regular season is a good example.
On Jan 2, MIN beat DEN 124-111
— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) April 16, 2023
They’re primary defensive game plan was Kyle Anderson on Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert on Aaron Gordon.
– Gordon shot 4/18 (4/15 from 2)
– Jokic shot 10/20 (9/17 from 2)
These are the possessions Jokic shot or turned it over while guarded by Anderson. https://t.co/3HCb3vDyh4 pic.twitter.com/qkLxvgJJZy
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Back then, it was an incredibly effective strategy, and one that made it next to impossible for Nikola Jokic to find room around the rim. However, Gordon’s incredible 3PT turnaround makes that defense undeployable.
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