DENVER _ For the second consecutive April, the Minnesota Timberwolves played the Denver Nuggets to close out the season. Last year's game lifted the Wolves to their first playoff berth since 2004. There wasn't that much on the line Wednesday.
But as they have all season, the Wolves gave maximum effort and gave a Denver team that was playing for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference a scare in a 99-95 Denver win.
The Wolves led by 11 with four minutes to play, only to have Denver make a 12-0 run to take the lead on a Jamal Murray three-pointer with 31.5 seconds remaining. Andrew Wiggins was unable to score on the Wolves' final possessions. Nikola Jokic had 29 points to lead Denver.
The Wolves were playing without Karl-Anthony Towns, who sat out his second consecutive game because of right knee inflammation. They got productive nights from Wiggins, who finished with 25 points on 11 of 20 shooting, and Cameron Reynolds, who had a career high 19. They increased a fourth-quarter lead to 11 multiple times throughout the fourth quarter, but weren't able to close it out.
The Wolves finish with the 10th-worst record in the league with a 13.9 percent chance of jumping into the top four of the draft, 3 percent of getting the top pick.
