Mike Conley reached one Western Conference finals appearance over the first 16 years of his NBA career. It came with Memphis in 2013, and it ended abruptly.

The Grizzlies were swept by the Spurs.

Not until last season did Conley return to the final four, only to have Dallas dispatch Minnesota via a gentleman’s sweep. Conley walked out of Target Center after that decisive Game 5 loss with a significant limp after playing through injury and the legitimate thought of whether that was his last legitimate chance to chase an elusive championship.

But Anthony Edwards told the veteran something that evening, that the Wolves would be back the following season.Of course Edwards said as much. Everyone thinks that will be the case when you’re young and only really know success. Experience had taught Conley otherwise. He surely thought numerous title pursuits were to come after Memphis’ ousting in 2013. But they didn’t.

Still, Conley felt some reassurance not necessarily in the message, but in the messenger.

“What you learn about him, he believes everything he says, no matter what it is,” Conley said. “And at that moment last year, I believed him, I believed that we’d have another opportunity together and this wasn’t the end of the road.”

Sure enough, here is Minnesota, back in the West Finals for the second straight season after downing Golden State 4-1, a result secured by a 121-110 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday at Target Center. It marked the first time Minnesota closed out a series at home since 2004. Those firsts continue to pile up with Edwards and Co.

Here the Wolves are, back again, just as Edwards suspected. Though even he likely didn’t foresee this turbulent path to the familiar destination.

“A lot of ups and downs,” Edwards admitted.

To say the least.

Minnesota was 8-10 to open the season, and just 22-21 after a Martin Luther King Day loss in Memphis. The Timberwolves were a contentious bunch after a loss in Toronto, and Edwards called his team “soft” after falling at home to Sacramento. The results were bad. The vibes were somehow worse. A pre-training camp trade that sent out Karl-Anthony Towns and brought in Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle wasn’t immediately working out for Minnesota. No one was playing particularly well.

Randle and DiVincenzo clearly weren’t comfortable. Conley wasn’t healthy. Edwards wasn’t happy.

“You’re just like, ‘Man, are we the same team? Are we even going to have a chance to make the playoffs? Who are we?’ ” Conley said.

All fair questions. This team was broken, and it was fair to question if it was fixable.

“Yeah, you know, every team goes through a lot. Everyone wants to rush the process. Everybody wants everything to be great, compared to what you’ve done in the past,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “All that’s kind of irrelevant, really, when you have a new team coming into the season.”

Conley credited the coaching staff for affording the group time to work through its struggles, even in the face of criticism. At some point in the season, seemingly every player was under fire from the outside.

“For a lot of us, it was a learning curve. They did a good job of just allowing us to stick with it,” Conley said. “A lot of us weren’t playing our best earlier in the season, and nobody got frustrated with each other, nobody was down on how our team was at this moment,

“We knew if we just kept playing, we kept figuring it out — learning from each other as we go — we’d hopefully be in this position today.”

That was certainly Finch’s stance. He never blinked through the struggles, there to offer support to his players in the face of criticism. The coach is known for holding players accountable, but Finch also held his guys up when others attempted to tear them down.

Still, did he see this coming?

“Depends what day you ask me,” Finch joked. “That’s part of the journey. We felt confident in our group once we saw us play how we knew we could play. Let’s put it that way.”

Coming into the season, Finch and his staff challenged the team via a simple question: “Were you a Western Conference finals team (in 2024), or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference finals?”

Everyone wants to believe they’re the former, but there’s only one way to prove it.

“Go out and do it again,” Finch said, “and that was our mission all year.”

Mission accomplished. Well, at least in terms of answering that question. The ultimate goal is to claim the franchise’s first championship. The Wolves are only halfway there. Still, there was plenty of reason to reflect on how far Minnesota had come Wednesday.

There was a different feel in the locker room following this series victory versus Minnesota’s dramatic, seven-game war with the Nuggets a year ago, in which the Wolves ended the Nuggets’ title defense by rallying from 20 points down in the second half of Game 7.

The Warriors didn’t have their best player in Steph Curry for 95% of the series, so Minnesota breezed past Golden State with relative ease. But the Wolves are also keenly aware of what’s on the horizon — a West Finals matchup with either Oklahoma City or Denver, which Minnesota will start on the road either on Sunday or Tuesday.

It’s just the latest example of how this route is so much different than the one taken a year ago. And when comparing the two, Conley noted “this one is way more sweet.”

Because last year’s season was a fairytale. Minnesota busted out of the gates and never really looked back. “Where we’re just playing so well and everything is so smooth,” Conley said.

This year was, well, not that. There was so much adversity and change, so many trials and tribulations.

“It forces you to buckle in. It forces you to fight through some stuff. It tells you that life isn’t going to be all sweet,” Conley said. “That’s why when we’re here right now, standing where we’re at, it’s like, ‘Bro, we had to go through so much together and grow so quickly together in order to even have this opportunity.’ ”

Conley doesn’t sugarcoat it. The Timberwolves were a play-in team over the first half of the season by record and quality.

“We went through a lot of growing pains,” Finch said, “but the team has come together at the right time and is playing its best basketball.”

Minnesota overcame 21 turnovers while surrendering 27 second-chance points in Game 5. It did so with a brilliant offensive performance in which the Wolves tallied 36 assists, scored a 2025 playoff-best 72 points in the paint and shot 63% from the field. It was the type of offensive performance that the February Timberwolves could have only dreamed of delivering.

Conley said this season is one of the biggest 180s he’s experienced over the course of a season. He noted everyone has sacrificed and shined in their redefined roles. Randle, quickly becoming the story of this year’s playoffs, and Edwards have driven the bus and everyone else has fallen in line.

DiVincenzo noted Minnesota is a group that “likes playing with each other.” That statement wouldn’t have passed a lie detector test back in December. Now, it’s an unimpeachable statement of fact.

“Just proud of our group as a whole, our organization as a whole. Just sticking together, having each other’s backs and just battling through adversity together, not letting hard times split us up as a group,” Randle said. “Us having the mental toughness and determination to say we’re going to figure this thing out, because all of us, as a whole, believe how good we could be as a team. I’m extremely proud of everybody within this organization and this team.”

“Just happy to be back in this situation with these guys,” Conley added. “Wouldn’t want to be with anybody else.”