Overview
- Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, speaking before Monday's Game 2 in Denver, criticized the Game 1 foul calls and said his team might "start flopping" to get whistles.
- Finch pointed to the free-throw gap from the opener, with the Nuggets taking 33 attempts to Minnesota's 19 and Jamal Murray shooting 16 on his own.
- Nuggets coach David Adelman replied that four of Murray's attempts came from a flagrant and a technical, reducing his on-play total to 12, and he said the rest were earned through contact.
- Finch contrasted that whistle with Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards, who combined for nine free throws, and he said that some calls on review were fouls but not all of them.
- The back-and-forth follows Denver's 116-105 Game 1 win and revives both a 2024 playoff rivalry and the wider fight over flopping, which is when a player sells contact to draw a foul, with Finch's line ricocheting across social media via local reporting on X.