Anthony Edwards chose 3 interesting words to describe Nuggets-Timberwolves rivalry

This weekend, the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves will, once again, meet in the NBA playoffs. It's the third time in the last four seasons the division rivals will have met in the postseason.

At no risk of hyperbole, each of the previous two entries produced some of the highest-level basketball we've seen this decade.

In 2023, the Nuggets dispatched the Timberwolves in a hard-fought five-game series en route to winning their first NBA title in franchise history. In the following year, in 2024, the Timberwolves took down the defending champions in an epic seven-game series. All told, when counting every regular-season and playoff matchup between these two squads over the last few years, which are led by two of the NBA's best players in Nikola Jokić and Anthony Edwards, Denver and Minnesota are ... even at 14-14.

Phew. Talk about a dead heat.

Knowing this, it stands to reason that many would rightfully call Nuggets-Timberwolves one of the NBA's best modern rivalries. Edwards agrees with that characterization, but perhaps not with the framing you might expect. When asked about his Timberwolves' rivalry with the Nuggets, Edwards said, "Me and Denver" is the rivalry. Please note the use of "me," meaning just Edwards, not "us," in including the rest of the Timberwolves' playoff rotation.

Regardless of whether this was a slip of the tongue or not, that is a fascinating choice of words, to say the least:

On some level, I could understand why Edwards meant "me" in this scenario. In a lot of ways, that 2024 series between the Nuggets and Timberwolves was his coming-out party as one of the NBA's new premier stars. He was the biggest catalyst in ending the reign of a defending champion, and he clearly reveled in the spotlight and villain role he received in the journey. I have to imagine that the Nuggets, privately, probably feel the same way about Edwards, who is often a walking individual matchup problem for their defense.

Even still, it's admittedly kind of weird for Edwards to use this choice of words for the Denver-Minnesota rivalry in public. He's a big reason many games between these two squads turn into instant classics, seeing as he is Minnesota's franchise talisman. I get that. But he's not the only Timberwolves player who usually makes an impact here. Guys like Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, and Naz Reid, among others, deserve a lot more credit than that for being part of Edwards' supporting cast.

But hey, maybe I'm reading into things too much. Maybe Edwards simply feels confident in his individual abilities against the opponent that helped launch his star profile two years ago. And that's completely fair for a professional athlete to express, even if his delivery of that sentiment wasn't the cleanest.

What I am sure of is that the latest postseason iteration of Nuggets-Timberwolves should provide us with some positively riveting basketball. That's what the best hoops rivalries almost always do, after all.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Anthony Edwards described Nuggets-Timberwolves rivalry with odd phrase