Twin Cities ‘gaga’ over Timberwolves playoff run as team prepares for third game in series Friday

CATHY WURZER: Say, if you're under the age of 33, then you have never seen a Minnesota team take home a championship in men's pro football, baseball, hockey, or basketball. Let that sink in.

Lately, fans are letting themselves hope that this year is the year that changes. Now, you may have heard the Timberwolves beat reigning champions the Denver Nuggets by 26 points Monday. And the team is getting nationwide attention with multiple players winning awards from the NBA. But they're still in the middle of the second round of the playoffs. It's not over yet.

Who better, who better to guide us through this moment than Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson? Wally is the founder of Minnesota Score Sports Magazine, the co-host of the 10,000 Takes sports talk show. Eric is the other host of said show and the Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Radio. I don't even know where to start, you guys. Well, obviously, with the T-Wolves, but did anyone, Wally Langfellow, expect the T-Wolves to be where they are right now?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, I mean, to be fair, Cathy, they did have the best record in the West for the majority of the season. So they had the number one team in the Western Conference. Now, if you were to ask me this before the season, I would have said they were going to be a playoff team. I don't know that they would have been the best team in the West. And they still had a chance to be the number one seed. They ended up being number three on the very last day of the season when they lost to the Suns.

But that's immaterial right now because, as you said, they now lead Denver two games to none, and neither game was really close. The game on Monday was an absolute wipeout. The Timberwolves is controlling from the get-go. And now they move to game three, which is tomorrow night at home, 8:30 PM tip-off, by the way. So they are kowtowing to the television networks. I believe tomorrow night's on ESPN.

And then Sunday will be game 4. That's an earlier start. That's a 7 o'clock start, also at Target Center. Now, if the Wolves can manage to win both of those, they then move to the Western Conference finals, where they would face either Oklahoma City or Dallas.

Jamal Murray of Denver, their second leading scorer this year, fined $100,000 earlier this week for throwing a heat pad onto the court in the game in the direction of the referees. I think that a lot of people look at that and say, wow. OK, $100,000 is a lot of money, but he probably should have been suspended, too. Dangerous. Somebody could have stepped on that, slipped, got hurt. Really dumb, and I think the NBA kind of faltered in leveling that out.

A couple of awards came out since we last talked. Michael Conley has been named the NBA Good Guy Award, basically the best teammate in the NBA. Rudy Gobert is your Defensive Player of the Year, and he didn't even play on Monday. They played such good defense Monday, and the Defensive Player of the Year didn't play. He was back here in the Twin Cities for the birth of his first son.

So they've had a lot of good things going. Let's keep the good karma going there, now 6 and 0 in the postseason. And as I said, game 3 tomorrow night, game 4 on Sunday.

CATHY WURZER: Eric Nelson I attempted to get tickets stupidly, and no dice. No dice.

ERIC NELSON: Well, I know you eat up a lot of the salary cap at MPR, Cathy, but I think this is even out of your price range.

CATHY WURZER: What?

ERIC NELSON: So the tickets for game 3, this is via the secondary market, not including fees. $275 would be the cheapest. And I saw one moments ago for 16,500 behind the Minnesota Timberwolves bench.

CATHY WURZER: What?

ERIC NELSON: So somebody's probably going to gobble it up. I don't know who, but it's ridiculous. And there's no doubt the Twin Cities and I think the state of Minnesota is going gaga over the Timberwolves because as you said earlier, when it comes to male pro sports teams, Minnesota is a title desert. The Twins were the last team to win a championship. That was 1991, the World Series. Nobody's even played for a title since then. I'm talking about Wild, North Stars, Twins, Vikings, Minnesota United soccer.

So there's a pent-up fan base in this state that really wants to cheer for a team and have a champion. And they certainly have a guy to root for who's becoming, I think, almost global now. And that would be Anthony Edwards. He's being compared, Cathy, to Michael Jordan, who, by the way, won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls. Ant's only 22, and he's got a lot of upside. And he's one of the reasons why the Timberwolves are up two games to 0 over the Denver Nuggets.

Now, there was a couple of other awards that came out today. Karl-Anthony Towns was the winner of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award. He's the first Timberwolves player to get that honor, just the fourth recipient since that was started in 2021.

And Denver's Nikola Jokic named the NBA MVP for the third time, becoming just the ninth player, Cathy, in NBA history to win three or more. But if you go back to game 2, the Timberwolves had that airtight defense, and they limited the joker to just 16 points. He's going to have to play much better Friday night if the Nuggets are going to come back and make this a series.

Second in the voting was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City and Luka Doncic of Dallas. But if they included the playoffs in the voting, which they don't, I think Ant might be the MVP.

CATHY WURZER: [CHUCKLES] You know, I want to stick with the Wolves here for the next minute and a half just because everyone was talking about the Wolves. I know, obviously, there's this pent-up demand for a championship team. But for those of us who've been around for a while, I mean, you just-- there is that-- you know this, Wally. I mean-- and so do you, Eric. Our hearts have been crushed, I mean, just into the dust so many times by other teams. Do you think that-- what are the chances that they can go all the way?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, first of all, Cathy, we haven't even had a team in a championship. The Wild have never advanced to the finals. The Timberwolves obviously haven't. The closest they ever got was the Western Conference Finals back in 2004. As we know, the Twins haven't. They haven't been to the World Series since they won it in '91. And Lord help us if the Vikings ever make it to the Super Bowl again.

So, let's take this one step at a time. But do they have a chance? Of course, they have a chance. As a matter of fact, they have-- according to Las Vegas right now, they are the second best odds to win it all. Unfortunately, the Boston Celtics are very good. They had the best record in the NBA this year. They are the odds on favorite right now to win the NBA title.

But they're in the east. The Wolves are in the west. There's still a long ways to go, but I think, do they have a chance? Of course they do. That's why they play the games. And I would say that this is as good a chance as we've had with any of our teams in a very long time.

CATHY WURZER: So, Eric, maybe just sit back and enjoy the ride.

ERIC NELSON: Well, I think clearly, yes. Enjoy it and live for the moment. Sponge it up. But let's be blunt here. There's 6 and 0 in the playoffs. They have to win 10 more games if they're going to take that confetti shower and get a parade. That's not going to be easy. Let's not forget, the top seed in the west is Oklahoma City. And they've won their first five playoff games. Wally mentioned Boston. So, the New York Knicks are still alive in the east, playing good basketball.

The key here is to get out of round 2. Dispose of Denver, the NBA champs. And then if they can get out of round 3, they'll go to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. You got to go all the way back to the Minneapolis Lakers, who won five back in the days of Sid Hartman as a young general manager, George Mikan. It's been that long when it comes to pro basketball here in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Tip of the hat to the Lynx. Now, just, you guys were very clear about men's teams not making championships, but--

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, they've got four titles.

CATHY WURZER: --yay for the Lynx. I know, exactly. All right, you guys, I got to go and raise some money. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you later, OK?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Thanks, Cathy.

ERIC NELSON: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: See ya. Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson here on MPR News.