Brian Murphy: Timberwolves sandblasting decades of calcified angst

The surging Timberwolves lapping the whining Wild, twiddling Twins and vexing Vikings in playoff purpose and market madness is the greatest sleight of hand since Keyser Soze gimped out of an FBI interrogation into Kobayashi’s limo.

One month was all it took for Minnesota’s NBA club, that ageless doormat with the dysfunctional front office and hand-me-down arena, to sandblast generations of calcified angst and set lofty expectations in this perennially underwhelmed sports town.

While their professional peers are forever dawdling, rebuilding and plundering, the Wolves steamrolled the Phoenix Suns, swiped the NBA crown off Nikola Jokic’s heavy head and skulked out of Denver with an historic Game 7 comeback victory Sunday night that has fans marching toward an unlikely parade 35 years overdue.

Four mere weeks for this forlorn franchise to steal Minnesota’s collective heart and feed its championship longing by roaring into the Western Conference Finals as favorites on the backs of its ascendant superstars, celebrated anti-heroes and a hobbled head coach pulling more mystical levers than Willie Wonka.

Totally earned and entirely organic, the Wolves’ accelerating postseason run has all the markings of a cathartic renaissance for the franchise and Twin Cities, which crave a coronation and summer of feel-good vibes no one else seems poised to deliver.

They’re not only playing with house money they are running the table. The bandwagon is fully fueled and taking all comers. Get on board, strap in and step on the gas.

Forget about learning curves and playoff battle scars. The Wolves are not playing for the future. The future has arrived. That pilfered crown is theirs for the taking.

You don’t rally from a 20-point, third-quarter deficit facing elimination against the defending champs on the road only to cherish the experience of catching up with Garnett, Cassell and Sprewell. You go for the jugular. They may never be this fantastically positioned or universally loved again.

Meanwhile, the world is falling hard for these Wolves, who are revolutionizing in real time what it means to be a championship contender.

They are the diverse, defensive-darlings of a league that has been selling us snake oil about player entitlement, marquee dream teams and the myth that raining threes and putting up 130 points a night is what puts butts in the seats and eyeballs on screens.

Suffocating defense, a tenacious bench and relentless resiliency are the hallmarks of an extremely close and supremely confident team that is maturing before our very eyes. The Wolves are alley fighters in a league of red-carpet strutters.

I wouldn’t want to be the Dallas Mavericks wandering into the Target Center cauldron Wednesday night for Game 1 of this improbable third round.

Not after Minnesota went on a 41-17 run in Jokic’s three-time MVP lair, otherwise known as Ball Arena.

Not after the Wolves refused last rites following a Game 5 blowout loss in said arena that had tough-luck obituaries being penned for a postmortem that never came. Twenty years to the day after Minnesota’s last Game 7 win over Sacramento in the West semifinals, the past is no longer prologue.

Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley, Naz Reid … this is their time. Time for Chris Finch to put his face and crutches on the Mount Rushmore of Minnesota coaches alongside Bud Grant, Flip Saunders and Jacques Lemaire and join Tom Kelly as the only head honchos to bring home a trophy.

“It’s a big moment for our club,” Finch said after the 98-90 win in the Mile High City. “Everybody talks about the last 30 years, which mean nothing to me. But it does mean a lot to a lot of people to see this team, (who) root for this team. The city is behind this team. And to beat a team like Denver on their home floor the way we did, of course it was going to mean a lot.”

More than you could ever imagine.