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The Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder kick off their best-of-seven series tonight in the Western Conference Finals. The series winner will represent the Western Conference against the Indiana Pacers or the New York Knicks from the East to decide this season’s best team and who will hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The Timberwolves and Thunder have a combined one NBA Finals appearance – Oklahoma City’s 2012 team featuring Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook that lost to the Miami Heat and their “Big Three” of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Both teams are led by a crop of new stars, with Anthony Edwards leading the Timberwolves and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander spearheading the attack for the Thunder.
With this series beginning in Oklahoma City at the Paycom Center, let’s dive into this Game 1 matchup while recapping how both teams got here and make a Game 1 pick for tonight.
The Timberwolves have only played 10 games during these playoffs, with 4-1 series victories against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round and the Golden State Warriors in the next round. Back in the Western Conference finals for the second straight season, Minnesota looks to get over the hump having lost to the Dallas Mavericks in five games last season. Edwards is the superstar for Minnesota, and where he goes, the Wolves typically go, but Julius Randle has been hugely important during this playoff run. Randle is shooting over 50% from the field and averaging 23.9 points, 5.9 assists and 5.9 rebounds this postseason.
As for the Thunder, they were the NBA’s best team during the regular season with 69 wins and the league’s best home team with a 35-6 record at the Paycom Center – the site for Games 1 and 2. Oklahoma City easily dispatched the Memphis Grizzlies with a 4-0 series sweep and then fought long and hard with Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets before a Game 7 rout at home to clinch the series this past weekend.
OKC split the season series with Minnesota at two games apiece, and considering the Thunder only lost 14 games all season, 1/7 of their losses came to Minnesota. The Thunder are the prohibitive favorites in this series and run a deeper playoff rotation than the Timberwolves. With the league’s top defense and the second-best Net Rating of all-time just behind the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls, the Thunder not advancing to the NBA Finals would be a huge disappointment.
The Thunder head into Game 1’s home tilt with the Timberwolves as a solid 7.5-point favorite, and if you’re looking for offense, this may not be the series for that. Both teams are fantastic defensively, so we likely won’t see any 127-124 barnburners despite both teams’ offensive efficiency.
Minnesota has been pretty reliant on Edwards, Randle and Jaden McDaniels for the offensive heavy lifting and on defense, those three, plus Rudy Gobert, provide size and massive length to cause some issues for the Thunder on offense. For the Thunder, Luguentz Dort and Alex Caruso harass opposing shooters and are the perfect complement to the offensive firepower for the Thunder.
With Gilgeous-Alexander, the presumptive league MVP, it’s hard to say he’ll be the best player in this series, but even with Edwards on the other side, it sure seems that way. The regular season leader in points per game with 32.4, Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged 29.7 points per game against the Nuggets in the Western Semis and tacked on 6.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game.
It’s hard to go against such an elite scorer like SGA, who is playing at home and taking on so much of the scoring responsibility. While the game and series will be a defensive battle, Gilgeous-Alexander will be relied upon and get just over his 29.7 points per game average from the Nuggets’ series.
Kevin has been writing about sports since 2015 with a primary focus on fantasy football. His work has been featured on outlets like Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life, FantasyPros, Sports Illustrated, RotoBaller, Fantasy Alarm, and numerous other fantasy websites. As a native New Yorker now living in the Midwest, Kevin counts the Green Bay Packers, New York Yankees and Syracuse Orange as his favorite teams.