In the eyes of Bruce Brown, the Denver Nuggets took the most major challenge at the initial stage of their title run this year.
Brown made it known that their first-round set against the Minnesota Timberwolves served up as the hardest postseason encounter they’ve seized.
“I’d say our toughest series was Minnesota. Suns were blowouts each game. With the Lakers, we never felt like we were gonna lose any game. Even when they went on a little run, it never felt like we were gonna lose.”
Brown disregarded both the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Lakers despite the fact that both teams do feature their respective superstars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Devin Booker.
The Suns were the only team to push the Nuggets to six games. And while their West Finals collision resulted in a sweep, the Lakers still posted a robust threat to the Nuggets as their deficit averages in the entire four-game series is considerably close at 6.0 points.
As such, the case for Minnesota is truly strong since the young club bannered by Anthony Edwards made a strong push to Denver amid failing on the five-game series.
Despite a one-sided result in the first game of the series, the Wolves were able to stay in the distance and hand the Nuggets a competitive fight for the rest of the series in courtesy of Edwards’ 31.6-point brilliance — and they managed to evade a sweep even without their best bench spark plug in Naz Reid and All-Defensive specialist Jaden McDaniels.
To add up, Nikola Jokic had his lowest offensive numbers in points (26.2) and field goal shooting mark (48.5%) against Minnesota if compared to the next three rounds of their championship postseason.
“Ant and them. It was something about them,” Brown further elaborated. “They had good players. It was Mike Conley, KAT, Ant. I think that was our toughest series.”
