The Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves will officially have every (healthy) player available for Monday’s Game 5.
The NBA announced on Sunday that they are handing down fines only for Saturday night’s Game 4 incident between the Nuggets and the Timberwolves. Denver star Nikola Jokic is being fined $50,000 and Minnesota counterpart Julius Randle is being fined $35,000 as well.
In their official release, the NBA said that Jokic initiated the heated incident. Meanwhile, Randle was said to have “forcefully” inserted himself into the scrum before shoving Nuggets swingman Bruce Brown in the process.
Minnesota defeated Denver by a final score of 112-96 at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn. on Saturday to take a 3-1 lead in the first-round series. In the closing seconds of the game, Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels made a layup after both teams had effectively stopped playing.
That led to Jokic rushing over to confront McDaniels, and players from both teams then proceeding to exchange shoves. You can see the full video of the incident here.
In addition to Jokic and Randle (both of whom were ejected on the spot), there was uncertainty about whether players such as Aaron Gordon of Denver or Rudy Gobert of Minnesota would trigger automatic one-game suspensions for leaving the bench area during the fight. Ultimately however, the NBA will not be handing out any suspensions, though the bigger concern for the leading Timberwolves right now is the bad news that they just got on star player Anthony Edwards.
