The Minnesota Timberwolves dropped Game 5 to the Nuggets 125-113 at Ball Arena, a loss that came while the team played without Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo and after falling behind by as many as 27 points in the second half.
The score and the late collapse were the plain facts: Denver, which had entered the game facing elimination, outscored the Timberwolves enough to erase the deficit and leave Minnesota clinging to a 3-2 best-of-seven series lead. The result kept the series alive for the Nuggets and pushed the decisive next game to Target Center on Thursday night.
Numbers underline the stakes. The 125-113 final is what the box score will show; the 27-point hole the Timberwolves fell into in the second half is what will linger. That margin turned Game 5 from a chance to close the series into a fight to finish it at home. With the series now 3-2, the calendar and the schedule hand Minnesota a single, concrete opportunity: win Game 6 at Target Center Thursday night and avoid returning to Denver for a seventh game.
Context matters here. This is a best-of-seven Western Conference first round series. Denver faced elimination entering Game 5, and Minnesota had an opportunity to end the series on the road. Instead, the Timberwolves left Ball Arena having lost a game in which they were ahead in the series but behind on the scoreboard when it mattered most.
The tension is immediate and simple: a team that can carry a 3-2 series edge still showed the kind of collapse that invites doubt. Falling behind by 27 points in the second half is a detail that does not line up with the idea of a team ready to finish an opponent. The Timberwolves’ absence of Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo in Game 5 is a concrete fact of this loss; how Minnesota responds at Target Center will reveal whether Game 5 was an outlier or the start of a swing in momentum.
What happens next is obvious and urgent. Game 6 is scheduled for Thursday night at Target Center. If the Timberwolves win, the series ends; if they lose, the teams head to a Game 7. That binary — close it Thursday or return to Denver — is the immediate pressure the Timberwolves face after a night in which a 27-point second-half deficit and a 125-113 final score erased what could have been a series-clinching performance.
The most consequential unanswered question now is whether the Minnesota Timberwolves can steady themselves at home and prevent this series from being decided on the road. The answer will come Thursday night at Target Center, when the Timberwolves must either finish what they began before Game 5 or hand the momentum back to a Nuggets team that refused to go quietly when facing elimination.
