Wolves storm back to knock out defending champ Nuggets in Game 7 - ESPN

DENVER — Minneapolis is going to party like it's 2004. For the first time in two decades, the Minnesota Timberwolves are back in the Western Conference finals.

The Wolves, who trailed by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, stormed back to complete the largest comeback in a Game 7 in the past 25 postseasons, winning 98-90 on Sunday night to dethrone the defending champion Denver Nuggets.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets became the fifth consecutive defending champion to fail to reach the conference finals.

With Minnesota's 22-year-old breakout star, Anthony Edwards, struggling through a 6-for-24 shooting night, Wolves four-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns turned in the most impressive performance of his nine-year career.

Towns, the franchise's No. 1 pick in 2015 and the longest-tenured member of the team, scored 23 points with 12 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 blocked shot. More importantly, he gave about as effective a one-on-one defensive effort against Denver's three-time MVP, Nikola Jokic, as anyone could be expected to give.

Jokic finished with 34 points and 19 rebounds but shot 13-for-28 and 2-for-10 on 3-pointers.

It was Towns' fifth 20-point effort of the postseason, with all five of them coming on the road.

«It was tough, man, because I couldn't find myself, my rhythm tonight,» Edwards said. «So I just had to trust my teammates.… I just had to make the right plays throughout the rest of the game. I did that, and my teammates made shots. Big shout-out to those guys.»

The Wolves used a 32-9 run from the 10:50 mark of the third quarter to the 11:14 mark in the fourth to wrest control of the game from the Nuggets. While Edwards started just 1-for-9 from the field, he found a rhythm late, scoring nine points in the third —