Whenever the Denver Nuggets play the Minnesota Timberwolves, they're surely in for a battle. That battle taking place in the NBA playoffs only heightens that affect. 

That battle means that nothing is ever guaranteed in matchups between the two Western Conference powerhouses and every point matters, because leads can be blown up in minutes.

The Nuggets opened the game extremely strong. The Nuggets outscored the Timberwolves 39-25 in the first quarter and based on that, it looked like Denver was well on it's way to cruising to a 2-0 lead in the series.

But the way that the Timberwolves performed in the second quarter changed al of that. Minnesota mirrored Denver's hot first quarter with it's own 30-25 performance and as Jamal Murray nailed a buzzer-beater from behind the logo to tie the game at the half, it was suddenly anyone's game again.

The next two quarters went in similar directions. The Nuggets had a strong third quarter to reclaim the lead while the Timberwolves had an even stronger fourth quarter to sneak by with a win in the final seconds of the game.

The Nuggets finished with a healthy 44% field goal percentage and shot 337% from three, but a respectable performance clearly wasn't enough to overcome the Timberwolves, especially when Minnesota took off on their offensive surge in the second half.

It's all the shots they missed that haunts Jamal Murray now that the defeat is final.

"Got to make shots to do it. I didn't make enough shots tonight," Murray said (via Nuggets). "That's really about it. We got the looks. Played good offense, good defense but shots didn't count. That's the way it goes. Guys will move on and we'll get focused for Thursday."

Murray led the way for Denver with 30 points while Nikola Jokic followed with 24 points, though the star Denver center was uncharacteristically quiet in the first half and barely shot the ball.

The Timberwolves' stars followed suit. Anthony Edwards also finished with 30 points while Julius Randle finished with 24 points, meaning the two pairs of stars cancelled each other out purely from a points standpoint.

It surely came down to the wire and while the Timberwolves found out how to exploit the Nuggets' weaknesses in the paint to score some easier buckets, the Nuggets found themselves creating opportune looks with their ball movement, they weren't executing the shots that they were creating.

There's never room for error in the high stakes of a NBA playoff game and the way that the Nuggets and Timberwolves play when they're against each other makes that even more true.