The Timberwolves clinched their second straight Western Conference Finals on Wednesday and they way the team reacted was in stark contrast from a season ago.
One year ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves felt on top of the world. They were celebrating a 20-point second-half comeback over the defending champion Denver Nuggets in a Game 7 that sent the team to its first Western Conference Finals in 20 years.
The joy the Wolves experienced was immense. So much so that the Wolves’ celebration could be heard behind Nuggets coach Michael Malone, as the media room at Ball Arena shares a wall with the away team’s locker room.
It was a euphoric scene, and it should have been. Taking down the Nuggets was an incredible accomplishment, one that served as vindication for an entire organization. It was especially meaningful for Karl-Anthony Towns, who had his fair share of doubters and people willing to tear him down throughout his nine seasons with the Timberwolves.
“How much more do you want us to lose, we’ve been losing for 20 years!” – Karl-Anthony Towns pic.twitter.com/eCGjys4ayf
— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) May 20, 2024
KAT wasn’t wrong by pointing out the Timberwolves have done plenty of losing, but Minnesota’s lack of experience playing deep into the playoffs showed up in the Western Conference Finals against Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks.
The Wolves lost the first two games of the series at home by a combined four points. They were torched late in both games by Dončić, Kyrie Irving, and Dallas’s pair of athletic bigs, Daniel Gafford and Derrick Lively II. After that, the Wolves were never able to regain traction in the series, losing in five games.
Maybe it was getting too high on themselves after dethroning Denver, or maybe it was a lack of energy after giving everything they had in the previous series, but either way, the Wolves never looked like themselves in the series against the Mavericks.
On Wednesday, the Timberwolves closed out their second-round series in five games to advance to their second straight Western Conference Finals. Unlike last season, when the Wolves jumped out to 20-5 through mid-December and were on top of the West standings for most of the season, this Timberwolves team encountered far more adversity throughout the season.
There were many roadblocks in the Wolves’ season, including a monumental trade that saw Towns traded away right before training camp, Julius Randle refusing to pass to Rudy Gobert in a loss to the Toronto Raptors, an 8-10 start to the season that had Anthony Edwards saying, “everybody got a different agenda,” several losses to lesser teams due in part to not taking them seriously, and near-simaltaneious injuries to Randle, Gobert and Donte DiVincenzo, causing the Timberwolves to drop to 10th in the Western Conference standings at the beginning of March.
Through it all, the Timberwolves held firm with the belief that this team could win at the highest level. It just took a little bit more time together, and in the words of Timberwolves Head Coach Chris Finch, they just needed time for “the cake to bake.”
When that cake was finally finished baking, the Wolves hit their stride, finishing the regular season winning 17 of their final 21 games to secure the sixth seed and avoid the Play-In Tournament. They dispatched both the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors in five games to return to the Western Conference Finals, a feat that would have seemed unimaginable even two months prior.
The vibe in the locker room after the Wolves’ first series-clinching win at Target Center in 21 years was in stark contrast to the win in Denver last year. They were certainly pleased with their performance, but the larger feeling was that they had not accomplished anything yet.
“There is no satisfaction. We just got here, we haven’t done anything yet. So, no. He’s not satisfied.”
– Anthony Edwards
“That’s exactly how it feels… stomach is not full, not at all”
– Rudy Gobert pic.twitter.com/mcakHEd7eh
— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) May 15, 2025
There wasn’t a great sense of validation; there was no loud celebration that disrupted any press conferences, and most of the talk was focused on the task ahead instead of what they just accomplished. Jaden McDaniels, in classic fashion, summed it up the series win best: “It feel like the rest of them, just another round ahead of us.”
In his presser with the media after the Game 5 win over the Warriors, Finch talked about what he told his team at the beginning of the season.
“The challenge we laid down to our guys from Day 1 was quite simple. One question.
Were you a Western Conference Finals team, or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference Finals?
There’s only one way to prove that: go out and do it again.”
– Coach Finch pic.twitter.com/P4bxgvBdnZ
— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) May 15, 2025
The Timberwolves clearly answered that question. There is no fluke to the Wolves’ recent success; they are flatly one of the best teams in the NBA and have proved it now in back-to-back seasons.
The next test for this Timberwolves team is one they failed last year against the Mavericks. Can they keep their playoff success rolling as fans and media start seeing them as a true contender, or will they let the added attention and physical struggles of a long NBA season get to them?
With the experience from a year ago, and a large rest advantage over whoever wins Sunday’s Game 7 slugfest between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, the Timberwolves are in a much better spot to bring their best basketball right from the first game of the series.
The question now for the Wolves is: Are they only ONE of the best teams in the Western Conference, or are they THE best team in the West, or even the entire league?