The postseason perception pendulum can swing rapidly and violently over the duration of a best-of-7 playoff series.

The Timberwolves went from presumptive NBA champions after taking two games in Denver to open the Western Conference semifinals against the reigning champs, to dead in the water in the eyes of some after the Denver Nuggets evened the score with a pair of wins in Minneapolis.

The truth generally lies somewhere in the middle. Momentum generally isn’t a thing over the course of a two-week series. Adjustments, matchups and performance will be what determines the ultimate victor.

Minnesota is at least speaking as though it possesses that understanding to this point, even as a team that’s been through very few playoff battles.

“I don’t think (the Nuggets) got any momentum. We won two games. They won two games,” Wolves guard Anthony Edwards said. “At this point, it’s whoever wins two games. I don’t know how people look at it, but I look at it like I’m happy. I’m ready. It’s competing at the highest level. I’m smiling about it because I’m happy. I’m ready to go play.”

Game 5 is Tuesday in Denver. The winner of that bout will be one game away from the Western Conference finals. Sure, the last two results suggest Denver will win at home for the first time this series. But nothing about Games 1 and 2 foreshadowed the Nuggets’ dominance in Minnesota.

Things change. Each game develops its own personality. The Timberwolves know that better than most. They never allowed short-term struggles to grow into long-term issues during the regular season.

Minnesota has not lost three consecutive contests at any point this season. Continuing that streak would equal coming back to the Twin Cities with a 3-2 series lead.

“That’s something I was thinking about myself,” Wolves forward Naz Reid said. “I think at this point, we get back to the drawing board, make adjustments and lock in.”

But losing three straight in the regular season generally means falling to three separate foes. The playoffs feel different. If your opponent finds a weakness or a solution, it can pick at the same scab again and again until you find a way to cover it. So, is regular season resilience applicable in this situation?

“I hope so. I don’t want to lose three in a row, obviously. We’ve always been a good team when we don’t play our best, we hit some adversity, that next game or two, we find a way to get back on track, whatever it entails,” Wolves point guard Mike Conley said. “Hopefully, we get Game 5 in Denver, we’re confident, find a way to adjust.”

That confidence was stated by all who spoke after the Game 4 defeat. Timberwolves coach Chris Finch described his players as “frustrated” but “fine.”

“It’s 2-2. We’ve got a three-game series going on (now),” Finch said. “We never thought this would be a quick series.”

Maybe not at the outset. But it was hard after the first two games to not think that maybe the Wolves simply out-matched Denver. Two games later, that theory is clearly dead.

Are the Timberwolves?

They don’t think so. And, on Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to prove it.

“I mean, there’s no choice. I mean, this is the playoffs; second round, Western Conference semifinals. You got to stay mentally strong. You got to stay disciplined, as well. Things were going really right for us all playoffs. The first round, second round and then, obviously, things have turned around,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “So, we just got to stay connected in this locker room. The biggest thing for us has been what’s so great, and what’s been a joy to be a part of and watch, is just the continuity this team has. Even through good, bad, we always are together and we always lean into the brotherhood that we have built here.

“We talked about it, we keep talking about it every day, I talk about it all the time, obviously, about our team. But it’s a test now. And we got to be willing to show the work that we’ve put into our friendships and our relationships in this team, and that work that we’ve put in all year, will materialize to us either finding a way to win this series together, or finding ourselves on the wrong side of history.”

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Somewhere between Game 2 and Game 3, the Denver Nuggets found solutions for many of the problems the Timberwolves presented in the Mile High City.

Denver relied on its bigs to bring the ball up the floor to alleviate Minnesota’s full-court pressure. It tightened its defensive game plan to clog up the interior, while maintaining perimeter pressure on the Timberwolves’ top-tier scorers. The Nuggets have identified when to double, when to pre-switch, and when to help, recover and rotate.

They’ve found different ways to get Jamal Murray some room to operate, so the point guard can find his rhythm.

Suddenly, the tables were turned on the Timberwolves.

“They’re smart. They know what they’re doing,” Wolves guard Mike Conley said. “We can’t throw the same thing at them two, three games in a row. They’re going to figure it out.”

The three days between Game 2 and Game 3 likely helped the Nuggets drill into what was ailing them, then find and implement solutions.

Minnesota is now in a similar boat — beat rather convincingly in consecutive games at home. The difference is the Wolves had just one day between Game 4 and Tuesday’s Game 5 in Denver. Can changes really be made?

“There’s always different counters. There’s always different lineups, matchups, different schemes,” Conley said. “Now we have to try to make some changes, figure it out from our end. Something that’s a little bit different, tweak something that maybe they haven’t seen yet with our lineups and roster and kind of go from there. Hopefully we can do that in the next day”

Here’s a look at potential adjustments Minnesota may make:

AARON GORDON

Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic have certainly been the focal points of the Denver’s recent offensive success. Justin Holiday continues to hit outside shots for the Nuggets.

But Aaron Gordon’s emergence has done as much to unlock Denver’s offense against Minnesota’s vaunted defense as anything else.

The power forward is generally helped off of by the Wolves. But he knocked down three triples in Game 3, and then went 11 for 12 from the field in Game 4.

He made tough shots, but also was a key lob threat and had four second-chance points.

“We’ve got to go back and guard him a little more honestly right now,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said.

Yes, Gordon is shooting the 3-pointer at a higher clip than he’s accustomed, but they are generally wide-open looks. He’s currently serving as a release valve that negates all of Minnesota’s defensive pressure.

“The narrative on him is that he’s not a great offensive player. But I don’t care who you are in this league, there’s a reason why you’re a part of the 450 best players in the world,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We’ve got to put an honest contest. We’ve got to make his shots difficult. So just got to do a better job of contesting him, making his shots harder, making his shots more difficult to take and to make. And that falls on us.”

Perhaps Minnesota will deploy a scheme where Gordon isn’t ignored, and see how the Nuggets respond.

FINDING GOBERT/MCDANIELS

Like Minnesota is often doing with Gordon, the Nuggets are ignoring Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert when the Wolves are on offense.

McDaniels is left in the corner, with his man standing next to the paint as the last line of defense at the rim. And every time Gobert rolls on a ball screen toward the rim, he does so freely with no one going with him.

Denver has decided to deploy all defensive resources to slow Anthony Edwards, Mike Conley and Towns.

While there is no real answer for Edwards at the moment, the added attention certainly bothered Towns on Sunday. Man to man, Denver has a hard time matching up defensively with Minnesota, as the first two games of the series showed. But Denver has found ways to guard the Wolves 5-on-3, and Minnesota has largely allowed it to happen.

The Wolves need to find a way to make Denver pay for blatantly ignoring 40% of its lineup.

“We as handlers, and the guys who are going to be on the ball, have to find those guys when they’re open. We have to trust each other, like we did all season long, like we did earlier in the playoffs. It’s the only way through,” Conley said. “You can’t just try to beat around this defense any other way than take what they give you. If that’s Rudy on the roll or Jaden on the kickouts and his decision-making, driving and making plays and knocking down shots, then we’re going to have to do that, and be confident with it and figure out ways to manipulate it.”

Gobert said hitting him on open rolls is something the Wolves “gotta work on.”

“I think it’s hard sometimes for the guards to see me because they’re big, they have a lot of length. I truly believe that we’re getting better at it, but we gotta find ways, obviously, to get it to me or whoever the rolling big is rolling to the basket,” Gobert said. “That’s one of their weaknesses. Usually it ends up being a foul, and then we get in the bonus and it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. And I think we’re also capable to make the kick-outs as bigs, make the right play. We work on it every day, and we’re gonna keep working on it.”

BALL PRESSURE

Minnesota hounded Murray up the floor in the two games in Denver, forcing turnovers, eating shot clock and, most importantly, wearing the Nuggets’ No. 2 scorer down. But Denver’s answer of having Gordon or Jokic bring the ball up instead has worked wonders for the Nuggets’ offense.

In Game 4, the Timberwolves adjusted by having a wing hound Gordon as he dribbled up the floor.

But the pressure didn’t bother Gordon and left Minnesota with a few unfavorable defensive matchups once Denver crossed half court.

“But he handled it well,” Conley said. “He’s played very well. He’s been there, done that.”

So the Wolves will either have to find a different way to rattle Denver coming up the floor, or maybe sacrifice the full-court pressure in favor of setting up its half-court defense.

SECOND UNIT STRUGGLES

Generally, the key to defeating the Nuggets is winning the minutes in which Jokic is not on the floor. The Wolves have had a tough time doing that so far this series. That was especially true in game 4, as Denver opened the second quarter on a 12-2 run with the three-time MVP on the bench.

To open that quarter, Minnesota rolled out a lineup of Conley, Naz Reid, Kyle Anderson, Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker — marking the first time that five-man grouping has been utilized. It didn’t work.

The unit struggled to score and, with the lack of offensive success, was never able to set up to play to its supposed defensive strengths.

Frankly, Anderson has struggled in this series outside of Game 2, when he was able to play at more of his natural positioning in the absence of Gobert. Alexander-Walker has also struggled to make an imprint on the last couple games.

Minnesota’s bench was supposed to be a major boon for the Wolves in this series. Thus far, Denver’s unheralded reserves have stolen the show.

“Offensively, it’s a lot related to that second quarter stint for them. That’s where these games have been slipping away for us,” Finch said. “So, we’ve got to look at maybe ways to get those guys going and involved, or shuffle the rotation minutes to see if we can survive that. Two games in a row now when we’ve got to that unit where we’ve cratered.”

Perhaps Finch and Co. will again tinker with lineup possibilities in Game 5 when Jokic is off the floor.

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Lynn Noren started working at Rise as a college intern in the spring of 1979. Within a few months, she was working full time for the nonprofit organization that supports people with disabilities and other barriers to employment.

Now, 45 years later, Noren is retiring as president and CEO.

Lynn Noren (Courtesy of Rise)

“It’s bittersweet,” said Noren, 65, of Champlin. “In many ways, I grew up at Rise at the same time Rise was ‘growing up,’ and I treasure that experience.”

Noren, who has been president and CEO since 2013, said she feels fortunate to have worked closely through the years “with the exceptional people we serve, their families, our incredibly talented team members and community supporters.”

“It’s a really big change for me, but I feel confident it’s the right time for Rise and for me,” she said. “The future of the organization is bright.”

From 10 employees to 400

When Noren’s internship through the special-education program at St. Mary’s Junior College started, Rise had fewer than 10 employees. The Fridley-based nonprofit now has about 400, she said.

Noren continued working full-time for the organization while receiving her bachelor’s degree in human services administration in 1994 from Metro State University in St. Paul and her master’s degree in business administration from the University of San Francisco through its distance learning program in 1996. She held a number of positions at Rise before assuming the top leadership role in 2013.

Noren said she is especially proud of helping the organization successfully navigate a merger with East Metro and Wisconsin-based ESR in 2019 and guiding the organization through the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, which resulted in a shutdown of support services and staffing furloughs.

Since then, she said she has “worked to expand both employment and life enrichment disability services in new and innovative ways that increase community visibility.”

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The organization, which supports about 3,500 people a year in Minnesota and western Wisconsin, recently transitioned from center-based work programs to community-based jobs in order to comply with state and federal policies.

“We have a lot of community businesses that support the work that we do,” she said. “Community employers need people in their workforce – and people with disabilities can really help fill that need. People with disabilities have really advanced in their ability to work at competitive pay and find jobs in the community, and that’s exciting. It’s a big change.”

Rise officials are working with Cohen Taylor, a national search firm, to recruit qualified candidates for the CEO job; Noren plans to retire when a new leader is in place, which will be before the end of the year, she said.

Rise open house

An open house and ribbon cutting for Rise’s new administrative offices in Fridley will be 3-6 p.m. Tuesday at Rise, 6499 University Ave. N.E., Suite 200, in Fridley.

Ribbon cutting and brief remarks will take place at 4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

RSVP to info@rise.org is appreciated but not required.

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