Anthony Edwards led the way again as the Minnesota Timberwolves dominated defending NBA champions the Denver Nuggets to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semi-finals.
Edwards, who scored 43 points in game one, added 27 on Monday night as Minnesota completed a convincing 106-80 win.
Karl-Anthony Towns also scored 27 points and had 12 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who established a 28-point lead at one point in the second quarter and never looked back.
Minnesota were without three-time defensive player of the year Rudy Gobert but still limited Denver stars Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic to eight and 16 points respectively.
“When you don’t have the defensive player of the year, you’ve got to step your game up,” Towns told TNT.
“We all understood the challenge coming in against the defending champions.”
Having won both games in Denver, the Timberwolves head back to Minneapolis for the next two games in the best-of-seven series, with game three on Friday.
Jalen Brunson scored 43 points as the New York Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers 121-117 in a thrilling game one of their Eastern Conference semi-final series.
It was Brunson’s fourth successive 40-point game, making him just the fourth player in NBA play-off history to achieve the feat after Jerry West in 1965, Bernard King in 1984 and Michael Jordan in 1993.
