The Minnesota Timberwolves punched their ticket to the 2018 NBA Playoffs last night in what amounted to a play-in game with the Denver Nuggets in Minnesota, winning 112-106 in overtime.
Why is this particularly noteworthy? Because the last time the Wolves were playing playoff basketball their three best players were Kevin Garnett, Latrell Spreewell and Sam Cassell and Facebok and Twitter didn’t exist.
Minnesota ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought on Wednesday night, making their first playoff appearance in 13 years.
The @Timberwolves are headed back to the #NBAPlayoffs for the first time since 2004! #AllEyesNorth pic.twitter.com/o26wruXAuo
— NBA (@NBA) April 12, 2018
It was the first sort of winner gets in, loser is out game to determine a playoff spot on the final night of the NBA season since the Washington Bullets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1997.
Now Minnesota has the task of playing the NBA’s best team in the regular season, the 65-17 Rockets who are led by the soon-to-be MVP James Harden.
In all fairness, the Timberwolves are no normal 8-seed though. They are a 47 win team and were 36-22 and 3rd in the western conference before Jimmy Butler went down with a knee injury for five to six weeks, which means they likely would have been a 50 win team and the No. 3 seed had he been healthy.
Not the kind of team a No. 1 seed is used to playing in round one.
You know the Target Center will be rocking for Game 3…
