Northwest Notes: Nuggets, Finch, Thunder, Wolves

There’s a chance that Game 7’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder will be the last game together for the Nuggets‘ core four of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr., writes Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. The quartet, which has played together since the Gordon was acquired via trade in 2022, is looking at a financial reality that might prove too onerous for ownership to bear, especially with the team unable to get past the second round since winning the title in 2023.

Asked after Game 7 whether the Nuggets could win a championship as currently constructed, Jokic said, “If we could, we will win it. So I don’t believe in the ‘if, if’ stuff. We had opportunity. We didn’t win it. So I think we can’t.”

The loss comes after the abrupt termination of general manager Calvin Booth and longtime head coach Michael Malone, both of whom were crucial architects of the championship identity, just weeks before the playoffs began. Interim head coach David Adelman ended up coaching nearly as many Game 7s as he did regular season games.

Murray and Gordon both have extensions about to kick in. Murray’s four-year deal is worth nearly $208MM, while Gordon’s is a three-year $109MM extension after he exercised his $22.84MM player option in the 2025/26 season.

While both are trade-eligible, they have been crucial pieces of the Nuggets’ success, with Murray providing scoring and play-making while Gordon has consistently been a big-shot maker and elite defender who has displayed a seamless connection with Jokic as a cutter and screener. That may leave Porter as the best chance the team has to address some of its roster holes while it still can, especially with Christian Braun‘s extension eligibility looming.

We have more from around the Northwest:

• Whatever decisions the Nuggets are forced to make due to finances and a lack of repeated Finals runs will be made more difficult by the bonds that have developed over the years. One such relationship is between Porter and Gordon, who have become close friends and support pillars for each other, Marc J. Spears writes for Andscape. Gordon played this season after losing his older brother, Drew, and Porter was someone he could lean on in times of hardship. Gordon and Porter both fought through injuries that limited them in their series against the Thunder, to the point that Porter wondered if he made things worse by being out there. “I probably should’ve just let it heal for a few games and then try to come back,” he said. “That is just not the person I am.”
• Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch‘s journey to back-to-back conference finals appearances began with a rejection from a Pennsylvania high school coaching gig, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. At the time, he was coaching basketball in England and desperate for a way home. That journey led him to the Rockets’ G League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, which eventually led him to Minnesota, where, for the second time in three seasons, Finch had to figure out how to construct an identity around a team with a new All-Star. The results were tumultuous to start the season, with the team booed for a lackluster start amid discourse about whether newly-acquired star Julius Randle should be benched for Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid, but Finch eventually found the right buttons to push for to his new-look team. “The validation I feel is for what we’re doing overall as a program,” he said.
• Randle and Gobert struggled to find their footing early on together, but in the second round of the 2025 playoffs, the Timberwolves veterans showcased why they are such dangerous players and silenced criticism about their playoff histories, writes Mark Medina of Athlon Sports. “You’ve gotten a lot of disrespect your whole career,” Gobert said to Randle. “And so have I.” Finch, who was an assistant coach in New Orleans for Randle’s breakout year, says that finding the balance of Randle’s responsibilities was key to unlocking the team: “We, at different times of the season, gave him the message, ‘Hey we need you to score more. Hey, we need you to pass more.’ And sometimes it was the wrong message… So that was a lot of our early season growth with him.“
• The Thunder have some fascinating lineup choices to consider as they enter Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Wolves, says SI’s Rylan Stiles. After having gotten past Jokic, the team is likely to be less reliant on the two-big lineups featuring Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein against the athletic Randle and a more traditional center in Rudy Gobert. That, in turn, would allow the Thunder to bring more of their defensive-minded guards or wings into the lineup to try their hand at slowing down Anthony Edwards.