Jaden McDaniels Keeps Trolling Denver After Timberwolves Oust Nuggets
If anybody in the NBA earned the right to trash-talk the Denver Nuggets in perpetuity, it’s the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Tim Connelly left his role as Denver’s president of basketball operations for the Timberwolves’ front office in May 2022, and he proceeded to build the Nuggets’ worst nightmare in Minnesota.
The Nuggets dispatched the Timberwolves in five games in the first round of the 2023 Western Conference playoffs, going on to win their first championship in franchise history. That’s where Denver’s fond memories of facing Minnesota end.
In 2024, the Nuggets were resounding favorites to repeat as champions before running into the Timberwolves in the Western Conference semifinals. Denver led by 20 points in the second half of Game 7, but Minnesota came back to win 98-90 and stunningly eliminate the Nuggets.
That was this Timberwolves regime’s crowning achievement - the first of back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances - before this week.
Denver and Minnesota met again in the first round of the playoffs. The Nuggets were favored in the series. Everyone should have known better. Last Saturday, the Timberwolves took a 3-1 series lead, but lost Donte DiVincenzo to a torn Achilles and All-Star guard Anthony Edwards to a hyperextended and bruised left knee.
Those injuries gave the Nuggets an easier path to win the series in seven games. Denver won Game 5 by a score of 125-113, but the Timberwolves refused to stay down - demolishing the Nuggets 110-98 in Game 6 on Thursday night, ending Denver’s season.
Timberwolves forward and defensive stalwart Jaden McDaniels was the main character of the entire series, and he kept that energy afterward.
McDaniels appeared on ESPN’s “NBA Today,” where Malika Andrews asked him if he considered Denver-Minnesota a rivalry.
“Yeah, you could say it’s a rivalry,” McDaniels said. “It’s up there now. I don’t know if we can anymore after we beat them like two, three times, but it’s cool.”
Andrews replied, “You’re saying that they can’t be in your class anymore bc you guys have gotten the last two series?”
McDaniels nodded before saying, “Basically.”
McDaniels kicked up the intensity with his comments about the Nuggets following Minnesota’s Game 2 win on April 20.
“Go at [Nikola] Jokic,” McDaniels told reporters about the Timberwolves’ key to offensive success. “Go at Jamal [Murray], all the bad defenders. Tim Hardaway [Jr.], Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team. Just go at ’em. […] They’re all bad defenders.”
He added, “They don’t got people that can defend the rim.”
With 1.3 seconds remaining in Game 4, McDaniels scored a lay-up while everybody else was standing around at the other end of the floor. Three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic did not like McDaniels making the final score 112-96 instead of 110-96, so he charged at McDaniels. It spilled into a sideline skirmish, resulting in fines for Jokic and Minnesota’s Julius Randle.
McDaniels backed up his talk throughout the series, but especially in Thursday’s Game 6. He scored a career-high 32 points and also posted 10 rebounds, three assists, two steals, and one block for a team-high +16 plus-minus.
During the postgame presser, McDaniels was asked if he talked trash on Denver’s defense in an intentional effort to “get into their heads.” In McDaniels fashion, he responded, “Nah, I just didn’t care. I said what I said. I’m not gonna say it again, but I just don’t care. It’s just how I am.”
The Edwards-less Timberwolves will need all that from McDaniels and more against the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals, beginning Monday, May 4.
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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 8:21 PM.