Playoff success was a largely foreign concept to the Timberwolves during their first 34 years of existence. The 2003-04 team led by Kevin Garnett won two postseason rounds, but those were the only two series victories in franchise history until last spring.

After the team knocked off LeBron James and Luka Doncic on Wednesday night to reach the second round in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history, it’s safe to say this current pack of Wolves has a bit more playoff tenacity than the teams that came before them.

Now back in the Western Conference semifinals, the sixth-seeded Wolves are anticipating an even higher climb.

“Our guys fought,” coach Chris Finch said after their 103-96 road win over the Lakers. “They fought through it. I’m happy that they are able to achieve something that no other team has been able to do in the history of the franchise, which is go back to the second round two years in a row.

“Now there’s a lot bigger goals out there, but for the moment we’ll be pretty happy about that.”

The Timberwolves had an outstanding five-game series against the Lakers, demonstrating the team poise necessary to handle the inevitable adversity of a playoff run along with the cool implementation of tactics to slow down elite players — in this case, Doncic and James.

After routing the third-seeded Lakers in Game 1, the Wolves responded to a loss in Game 2 by hanging on for a pair of difficult fourth-quarter victories at home.

The clincher was a strange game, with the Lakers going fully to a small-ball lineup in an attempt to get scoring against the Wolves’ aggressive team defense. That cleared the paint for center Rudy Gobert, who responded with playoff career highs of 27 points and 24 rebounds to keep the Wolves ahead even while his teammates missed 40 of their 47 3-point attempts.

“When (Gobert) does what he does tonight, you see how good we can be as a team,” Julius Randle said.

Pushed to the brink of elimination, the Rockets delivered a playoff gem Wednesday night to beat the visiting Warriors and keep their season alive.

Rockets force Game 6: Fred VanVleet scored 26 points, Amen Thompson added 25 and the second-seeded Rockets extended their first-round Western Conference series with a 131-116 rout of the seventh-seeded Warriors in Game 5.

Game 6 is Friday in San Francisco.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr threw in the towel early in this one with the game out of hand. A layup by VanVleet midway through the third quarter made it 93-64, and Kerr called timeout and cleared his bench.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka followed with about a minute to go in the third and his team up 105-76. He put all his starters back in with about eight minutes left after the Warriors cut the lead to 109-92.

Dillon Brooks added 24 points on a night when all five Rockets starters scored in double figures.

The Rockets went on a 7-2 run after that to put the game away.

Reserve Moses Moody led the Warriors with 25 points.