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You’re not going to sweep your way through the playoffs. No one has — nor likely ever will — go 16-0 en route to an NBA title.

Eventually, you run into an opponent that shoots the ball extremely well for a night or gets every bounce to fall its way.

Or — as was the case with Minnesota on Friday — sometimes you’ll lay a goose egg, as was the case in the Wolves’ 117-90 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 3 at Target Center. Minnesota leads the series 2-1.

For the first time in these playoffs, Minnesota was not the aggressor. It didn’t set any type of tone. It wasn’t the hardest-playing team on the floor. It didn’t move the ball nor bodies.

Minnesota looked far more like the team that got blitzed in its regular season finale by Phoenix than the one that KO’d each of its opponents in its first six playoff contests.

Game 4 is set for 7 p.m. Sunday in Minneapolis. That contest is suddenly imperative. The series is now guaranteed to head back to Denver for a Game 5, the question is whether it will do so at 2-2 or with Minnesota sporting a shot to clinch the series.

The Target Center crowd will surely be rocking for that one, as it was at the start of Game 3 on Friday. The building was jumping prior to the pregame tip. Loud chants of “Wolves in four” echoed through the arena during the team’s pregame hype video.

But the roars were muted throughout the ensuing 48 minutes of gameplay. There wasn’t much to cheer for. Denver was up eight after the first quarter and never looked back from there.

Denver led by 15 at the break and 27 after three.

Jamal Murray — who was awful in the first two games in Denver, both with his play and response to adversity — was the best player on the floor Friday. The guard finished with 25 points on 11-for-21 shooting, hitting a number of tough shots that rendered Minnesota’s generally shutdown defense moot while also tallying five assists and three steals.

Minnesota’s offense was non-existent. Through the first two games, the Wolves moved brilliantly without the ball and shared the rock, which led to a number of easy looks.

On Friday, there was no perimeter movement. Denver’s defensive intensity was heightened in what was effectively a must-win game for the Nuggets, but Minnesota made Denver’s job easy.

Friday marked the worst Minnesota has played against the defending champs all season. The Wolves started to unravel late, piling up technical fouls in a complete role reversal from Game 2.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was upset about a no call late, so the guard got into the official’s face to get a technical foul, then punched a chair on his way to the tunnel. He did return to the bench for the game’s closing minutes.

Minnesota’s task now is to make sure it looks far more like the team it has been all postseason on Sunday than the one that flopped on Friday. Because if both teams compete and execute at the level they did in Game 3, the Nuggets will win every time.

Perhaps Minnesota’s urgency was lowered after handling the Nuggets twice in Denver and returning home with endless amounts of local and national praise. The Nuggets looked dead in Game 2. Perhaps the Wolves thought they’d roll over.

They should’ve known better. There is no excuse for such a mentality on Sunday.

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Let’s be honest. There was no chance the Timberwolves were going to go a perfect 16-0 on their way to the NBA championship. They were never going to sweep the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets to clinch a spot in the Western Conference finals. That was not going to happen.

This was always going to be a heavyweight bout between the Timberwolves and Nuggets, even if that that brutal beatdown earlier this week suggested otherwise.

You knew the defending NBA champions weren’t going to go down easy. At least Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch did. He tried to put his team on notice.

“We’re going to get a championship-level performance from them tonight,” Finch said pregame. “There’s no doubt about it.”

That’s exactly what the Timberwolves got on Friday night at Target Center as the Nuggets landed a convincing counter-punch in Game 3 en route to a blowout 117-90 win.

Suddenly, the Timberwolves are on the ropes for the first time in the playoffs, though they still hold a 2-1 series lead heading into an important Game 4 on Sunday.

It was an absolute clinic from the Nuggets in Game 3. Whether it was everybody’s new favorite villain, Jamal Murray, dropping 24 points in emphatic fashion, Nikola Jokic coming ever so close to posting a casual triple-double, or the rest of the supporting cast actually chipping in for a change, the Nuggets were firing on all cylinders from the jump.

This isn’t at all surprising. There’s a sense of pride that comes with climbing the mountaintop, something the Nuggets have done and something the Timberwolves are hoping to do.

That’s why Nuggets coach Mike Malone knew a response was coming after watching helplessly from the bench as his team get demolished on their homecourt earlier this week. You could hear it in his voice.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that from our group, ever, and I think that’s why it was such a surprise to many people that have come to respect and believe in the Nuggets,” Malone said pregame. “Not only did we get our butts kicked on the court, we didn’t face adversity. We kind of ran from it. We fell apart.”

The script completely flipped in Game 3. This time it was the Timberwolves getting run of the floor. The most hyped playoff game in 20 years did not go as planned.

A sold out crowd hoping for a chance to erupt never got a chance. The biggest outburst came when the Timberwolves let their emotions get the best of them down the stretch with Naz Reid, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Kyle Anderson all getting whistled for technical fouls.

After a back and forth start to the game, the Timberwolves went ice cold from the field, as they made playing offense look incredibly hard for prolonged stretches. They trailed by as many as 20 points before halftime, however, largely because they also made playing defense look next to impossible.

It got even worse after halftime with the Timberwolves trailing by as many as 34 points before emptying the bench. This was not the same team that has been dominating the past few weeks. Not even close.

Until they are dethroned, the Nuggets, not the Timberwolves, are the defending NBA champions. They provided an emphatic reminder in Game 3. Just in case anybody forgot.

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Timberwolves coach Chris Finch showed his own toughness in Denver. And his players followed suit