The spirit of Anthony Edwards lifts the Timberwolves from flawed to formidable

DENVER — Anthony Edwards didn’t like what he saw in his box score. It showed 30 points and 10 rebounds, but he still compared it to an excremental chute. Even through his pitch-black sunglasses, wide as a visor, he could see his 15 missed shots, including eight bricked 3s.

“I’ll be better,” he said with his trademark certainty.

But his stats aren’t the reason Minnesota put the fear of an upset into a championship contender Monday. Not the reason the Timberwolves walked down the Denver Nuggets like a villain in a horror flick.

The Game 2 that Minnesota stole, coming back from a 19-point deficit, can directly be attributed to the spirit of Ant. A flex of his galvanizing powers. Behind that unfiltered, decidedly urban Southern charm lies a resilience that compels following. An inspirational recklessness.

Edwards doesn’t have the size of Nikola Jokić. He can’t tower over his defenders and read the defense like a chalkboard. Or turn his back to the basket and crash his way to the rim. However, again, in this clash between modern superstars, Edwards looms as large as the consensus best player in the world.

His will is 7-foot. The dawg in him weighs 290 pounds.

And it just changed this Western Conference first-round series.

Three minutes into the game, Edwards collided with Jokić and seemed to tweak his ailing right knee. After platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, fluid drains, rest and constant treatment, his runner’s knee is still causing him pain and limiting his explosiveness. But also summoning his resolve.

He grimaced. He limped. He rubbed it. And kept going.

“It definitely uplifts me,” Julius Randle said. “I feel like I can’t let him down. He’s out there battling, and there’s no excuse why I can’t give my best and make the extra-effort plays and just go out there and compete at the highest level. It definitely energizes me, and it makes me want to give my best effort.”

Perhaps nothing illustrates Edwards’ approach better than his thirst for blocking shots.

“Beatin’ s—,” he called it — vernacular befitting of that unfiltered charm.

Even with his knee condition, he can’t resist rocket-launching into the air like an outside hitter hunting for a spike. He’s not dunking. He’s being measured about when and where he exerts his surreal athleticism.

It all goes away when someone’s trying to convert a layup in his presence.

“I just be watching Dwyane Wade clips,” Edwards explained. “He was beatin’ s— at the rim. So I just be trying to beat s— at the rim. That’s all. People come to the rim, and if Rudy ain’t down there, I’m trying to beat that s—. I don’t care who it is. So, if you come down there and you see (No. 5) down there, I’m going up. I don’t give a damn.”

Denver knows this bent. They’ve felt the pressure of an Edwards-led team. Monday’s come-from-behind win was the Wolves franchise’s largest since they came back from 20 against these Nuggets in Game 7 of their second-round series in 2024.

Game 1 tricked most into thinking this would be an easy series for Denver. The Nuggets are the better team. They have the best player. And they won Game 1 without even playing that well.

However, Ant’s built for struggle. He’s so good at getting downhill because he’s no stranger to uphill battles. He’s been through enough, seen enough, to find peace in difficulty. And will covers a multitude of weaknesses. This flawed team compensates with fight.

So when the Timberwolves got down big in the first quarter, which included three four-point plays by Denver, his stratospheric confidence took over. They watched him take on double-teams with a compromised wheel. Then they heard his uplifting voice in the huddle when they were most vulnerable. They heard his confidence when he declared their run was coming. They felt his conviction when he wanted to see how they responded to Denver’s punch in the mouth.

“You just gotta read the game,” he said. “Knowing in the moments when to be positive and when to challenge people. It’s knowing when to uplift your teammates and when to get on them.”

Game 2 wasn’t about efficiency or aesthetics. It was about presence. His limp, his wince, the times he bent at the waist to subdue his discomfort, contrasted with his aggressive drives to the basket. With his scrambling over pick-and-rolls. With his soaring for rebounds. And blocks.

That stuff resonates in a way that spurs underdogs. It hit his teammates in the chest. It told them the night, the series, wasn’t slipping away. It was understood because it’s become their postseason ethos. The Timberwolves have made a tradition of acquitting themselves in the playoffs following underwhelming regular seasons. They become a team guaranteed to extract its pound of flesh. On Monday, again, Minnesota leans into the spirit of Ant.

It lit a fire in Randle. His 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists were a product of a much more aggressive performance than in Game 1. The Nuggets are blatantly doubling Edwards, and Minnesota needs Randle to punish that approach.

It channeled Rudy Gobert into one of his greatest defensive performances, holding Jokić to 1-of-7 shooting in the fourth quarter.

It turned up a kindred spirit in Donte DiVincenzo.

“That’s why we mesh so well,” DiVincenzo said after finishing a game-high plus-20.

The spirit of Ant gives Jaden McDaniels unspoken permission to be unabashed in his beliefs.

“Go at Jokić, Jamal — all the bad defenders,” McDaniels said of his team’s offensive strategy. “Tim Hardaway. Cam Johnson. Aaron Gordon. The whole team. Just go at them. They’re all bad defenders.

“They don’t got people that can defend the rim,” he continued, “and if (Jokić) is there, we’re still more athletic than him.”

Yeah, any team led by Edwards will not be afraid to talk. They don’t worry about repercussions. They aren’t deterred by doubt.

These Timberwolves aren’t elite. But if it’s a battle, they’re willing. If it’s about heart, they’re formidable. Like their leader, they’re reckless, magnetically unrefined and absolutely beat s—, in the spirit of Ant.