After leading by as many as 13, and trailing by as many as 11, the up-and-down young Minnesota Timberwolves had a chance to even their Wednesday night matchup with the Denver Nuggets at 105 in the closing seconds. They had top wing Andrew Wiggins going downhill off the bounce, headed straight for the rim, and elevating for what looked like it would be a game-tying finish … until Wilson Chandler reminded the young pup that he’s still got some bounce in his legs, too:

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Chandler had been guarding Wolves center Karl-Anthony Towns on the play before switching onto Wiggins as the two former Rookies of the Year ran a high screen-and-roll. Wiggins attacked the switch, pounding the rock with the right-hand dribble and making a bee-line for the front of the rim. He had a step on Chandler, too, but maybe only because Wilson wanted him to; the 10th-year veteran out of DePaul timed his contest perfectly, blocking Wiggins’ layup attempt over the rim and off the backboard into the far corner to snuff out Wiggins’ threat.

The Nuggets weren’t out of the woods yet, though. At first, Nuggets guard Gary Harris’ hustling play to run down the loose ball and flip it over his head into the backcourt seemed like an exceptionally heady move; rather than letting the ball go out of bounds and back to the Wolves with something like nine seconds left in the frontcourt, they’d be forced to go shag it down and rush for another try, taking precious seconds off the clock. But Minnesota guard Zach LaVine chased it down with just under six ticks left, dribbled over the timeline, and pulled up from 26 feet out — a pretty comfortable distance for the third-year scorer, who entered Wednesday night shooting 41.4 percent from deep this season. Luck was with Denver, though, as LaVine’s attempt rimmed out and the Nuggets held on for a 105-103 win.

Chandler’s tremendous defensive effort saved the game for the Nuggets, but Denver was in position to win thanks to a huge jumper by Danilo Gallinari with 27 seconds left:

Wiggins stayed with Gallinari through every step of his move, but the Italian spun, stepped back and knocked down the jumper off the window to break a 103-all tie and put Michael Malone’s club up by two. After the game, he admitted that he didn’t call bank …

… so I guess we have to start calling him “La Verità” now.

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The final-minute clutch plays by two long-tenured Nuggets helped Denver outlast a Wolves club that had ripped off a 14-4 run over a three-minute, 16-second stretch to erase a 10-point deficit and tie the game at 103 with 58 seconds left. The bulk of the damage in that Minnesota push was done by Towns, who rebounded from a quiet shooting start by drawing defensive attention and dishing to open teammates. He’d finish with 15 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and two blocks in 35 minutes, notching the first triple-double of an NBA career that promises to feature plenty more:

But while the Wolves rode their sensational sophomore 7-footer to come back, Denver spent much of Wednesday night countering with their own.

Nikola Jokic entered Monday’s game on an absolute tear, averaging 16.3 points, nine rebounds, 4.4 assists and just under 1.5 combined blocks and steals in just 25.1 minutes over his last 10 outings while shooting nearly 70 percent from the floor. His stellar play continued against the Wolves, as the Serbian pivot’s playmaking helped spark a pair of runs that pushed Denver to double-figure leads in both the third and fourth quarters. The 21-year-old came up just two rebounds shy of matching Towns’ all-around feat, finishing with 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting, a career-high 11 assists, eight rebounds, one block and just two turnovers in 34 1/2 minutes that saw him handling and distributing the ball an awful lot.

After a slow start to the season following an offseason spent helping the Serbian national team earn silver at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Jokic has now entrenched himself as Denver’s starting center — and, on Wednesday, point center — with six double-doubles in his last 11 games. As Malone sees it, nights like Wednesday are just the tip of the iceberg for his gifted young big man.

“I don’t know if there is a ceiling or not. I just know I would love to play with him,” Malone said after the game, according to T.J. McBride of BSN Denver. “If you listen to our bench, we are always yelling, ‘Cut, cut, cut.’ If you cut, he will find you, and there is a good chance that when he finds you, that you’re going to have a layup. All of our guys got a couple layups off of him. Sixteen points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds, and he is just getting better and better.”

Thanks to Jokic’s ongoing improvement, 18 points and the game-winner from Gallo, 17 points and the game-sealer from Chandler, a combined 28 points, six rebounds and six assists from the backcourt of Harris and Emmanuel Mudiay, and timely contributions off the bench, the Nuggets have now won five of their last seven to improve to 14-18. We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves in praising them; the best team they’ve beaten in this stretch was the Clippers without Blake Griffin and Chris Paul on the second half of a back-to-back the day after Christmas. But you play the schedule you have, those wins have put them in a virtual tie with the Sacramento Kings for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference playoff hunt, and the Nuggets have gotten their offense cooking in this stretch, scoring a scorching and positively Warriors/Raptors-y average of 114.6 points per 100 possessions over the last seven games.

Malone faces a tough task keeping the good times rolling with the Nuggets scheduled to face the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder in the first week of 2017. For now, though, his mix of emerging youth, re-established vets and high-octane offense have the Nuggets on the upswing and looking like one of the more subtly interesting teams in the league.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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