The league has begun an investigation into the scuffle from Saturday’s Game 4, including interviews with involved players and officials and a review of the footage, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Sunday.
Rulings from the NBA are expected before Game 5 on Monday, Charania added.
Nuggets star Nikola Jokic confronted Jaden McDaniels late in the contest after McDaniels took an uncontested layup with the Timberwolves on the way to victory and a 3-1 lead in the first-round series.
Jokic ran from one end of the court to the other to shove McDaniels. Players from both teams converged around them to broaden the scuffle before order was restored. Timberwolves forward Julius Randle, who was livid with Jokic, was ejected along with Denver’s centre.
“He scored when we’d stopped playing,” Jokic said. “You guys saw what happened.”
McDaniels, who spiced up the series after Game 2 by declaring Denver’s team was full of “ bad defenders,” said afterward he didn’t know what Jokic said to him during the confrontation.
“I just seen someone who was big as hell,” McDaniels said. “The clock still be running, so I might as well go score.”
As teams in the same division playing four times each regular season, and facing each other in the playoffs for the third time in four years, the Nuggets and Timberwolves have become quite the archrivals.
“Obviously, I didn’t like what McDaniels did,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “The game was over. The game was conceded both ways. In 2026, that stuff just doesn’t happen anymore. That’s something that happened in the ‘80s, where teams would continue to score. But that’s who he is, you know? And so if that’s what they want to do, that’s what they want to do.”
— with files from The Associated Press