There wasn’t much time for build-up, but with what lit­tle there was, the super­stars rep­re­sent­ing Den­ver and Min­neso­ta offered con­tra­dic­to­ry per­spec­tives on the Bat­tle for First Place.

In Min­neapo­lis, Antho­ny Edwards didn’t sug­ar­coat it. “I think every­one knows what is at stake,” he said. “I don’t even need to talk about how big it is. Every­body knows.”

Halfway across the coun­try in Utah, Niko­la Jokic’s tenor was more … bored. “I don’t think it’s a real­ly big game,” he said. “Yes, we’re going to go out there and play to win the game, of course, but I think peo­ple are just mak­ing their sto­ries that it’s a big game. Hope­ful­ly it’s going to be interesting.”

After both played the pre­vi­ous night, the Nuggets and Tim­ber­wolves met in the mid­dle Wednes­day for a stir­ring reg­u­lar-sea­son cli­max that end­ed in a cathar­tic dunk con­test between Chris­t­ian Braun and Pey­ton Wat­son. Den­ver pulled away in the fourth quar­ter for a 116–107 win in front of a play­off crowd at Ball Are­na, break­ing the tie atop the West­ern Con­fer­ence standings.

With two games to go, the Nuggets (56–24) are posi­tioned to clinch home-court advan­tage until the NBA Finals if they win both. The Tim­ber­wolves (55–25) still pos­sess a poten­tial tiebreak­er after a 2–2 sea­son series split thanks to their supe­ri­or divi­sion record, but Den­ver is firm­ly in the driver’s seat with upcom­ing games in San Anto­nio and Memphis.

Jokic might have put the fin­ish­ing touch­es on his third career MVP award with 41 points, 11 rebounds and sev­en assists on 16-for-20 shoot­ing. Jamal Mur­ray added 20. Aaron Gor­don had a sea­son-high nine assists. Braun pos­ter­ized Rudy Gob­ert with his left hand late in the fourth, then fol­lowed it by fin­ish­ing an alley-oop sec­onds later.

Edwards scored 25, but none in the fourth quarter.

The only sce­nario in which these teams could see each oth­er again before the West­ern Con­fer­ence Finals is if Okla­homa City (55–25) steals the No. 1 seed from Den­ver this week­end. The WCF would be more fit­ting any­way, based on the qual­i­ty and inten­si­ty of bas­ket­ball played Wednes­day. Defen­sive play-mak­ing was out­stand­ing for both sides in a tooth-and-nail first half. The sec­ond-unit min­utes are one of the scari­est aspects of this matchup for the Nuggets, but the defense of Braun and Wat­son ensured those min­utes were suit­ably ugly for both bench­es, not just Denver’s. Wat­son topped a career-high with six blocks, punc­tu­at­ing the last one with a dunk.

But the Tim­ber­wolves com­pen­sat­ed by tor­ment­ing the defend­ing cham­pi­ons’ start­ing five with their length. Den­ver went to half­time with nine turnovers, includ­ing three from Mur­ray, dis­rupt­ed again by Jaden McDaniels. In one great sequence, McDaniels and like­ly Defen­sive Play­er of the Year Rudy Gob­ert com­bined for a stop against Denver’s two-man game at the end of the shot clock, then flipped it into an easy tran­si­tion buck­et cour­tesy of McDaniels’ behind-the-back assist.

The stars went takeover mode in the third quar­ter. Jokic start­ed bul­ly­ing Gob­ert in the post. Edwards kept on beat­ing Ken­tavi­ous Cald­well-Pope with his explo­sive first step, get­ting KCP into rare foul trou­ble. Edwards scored 15 in the frame while Jokic soared past 30.

As for Jokic’s dec­la­ra­tion that this wasn’t such a big game, the two-time MVP was caught red-hand­ed in the first quar­ter. The emo­tion on his face after he sank a 3‑pointer from the top of the key wasn’t even rem­i­nis­cent of his typ­i­cal pas­sion­ate moments. It was less of a bel­low, more of a snarl, as if to sig­ni­fy the indig­nant atti­tude of a Nuggets team ready to get on with the play­offs, finally.

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