Timberwolves bounce Warriors, return to West finals despite being written off after KAT trade

These are the same Timberwolves who traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks this past offseason, receiving Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo as part of the return.

It was at about that time that everyone wrote off the Wolves.

But guess what? After eliminating the Golden State Warriors with a 121-110 home win in Game 5 on Wednesday, the Wolves are going right back where they were last year — to the conference finals.

Interestingly, the Wolves join the Indiana Pacers, who advanced to the East Finals, as the two repeat conference finalists. Minnesota and Indiana. I’m guessing that’s not who you predicted would be playing for the right to meet in the NBA championship series.

As for Randle, well, he’s been brilliant in this playoff run. The only Timberwolf who has been better, in fact, is Anthony Edwards. And Edwards may be the MVP of the entire playoffs so far.

“We had a season with a little bit of adversity,” Randle told TNT. “I’m just super proud of our team.”

Randle finished with a game-high 28 points and eight rebounds, seemingly getting a bucket whenever it felt like the Warriors might make a run. Edwards added 22 points with a game-high 12 assists.

“The challenge we laid down to our guys from Day One was quite simple,” coach Chris Finch told reporters. “Were you a Western Conference Finals team? Or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference Finals? And there’s only one way to prove that — go out and do it again.”

Even Warriors coach Steve Kerr was fairly impressed in congratulating the Wolves. “Back-to-back in the conference finals is pretty damn impressive,” he said.

The Warriors were without Stephen Curry (hamstring) for the final four games of the series, but Kerr didn’t want to use that as an excuse. “I don’t want to take anything away from Minnesota,” Kerr said.

Minnesota lost to the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the West Finals last year. Now, it awaits the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Denver Nuggets series. OKC leads that series, 3-2.