MINNEAPOLIS — Julius Randle might have found a unique way to defend Denver center Nikola Jokic that the Timberwolves might not have tried.

“Probably gotta call God and talk to him for a little bit and ask him for a few favors,” Randle said.

Divine intervention is one tactic the Wolves haven’t called on over the years against the three-time NBA MVP. Anything that might work is worth trying because, generally, the Wolves haven’t had much of a way to stop Jokic.

Even when they beat the Nuggets, they often do despite Jokic having a good game. In one such Wolves victory last season, they won in double overtime on a night when Jokic had 61 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

Game 1 of the Wolves-Nuggets’ best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series is at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Denver.

There isn’t much the Nuggets haven’t thrown coverage-wise at Wolves All-Star guard Anthony Edwards over the years — and they, too, have been mostly unable to find a magic elixir for defending him with their personnel.

“I’ve seen everything now,” Edwards said. “So, nothing they’re going to throw at me that’s unexpected. I know they’re going to put two or three on the ball. I’ve just got to be willing to make the right play and take my shots and live with it.”

Conversely, there’s not much the Wolves can do that will surprise Jokic, whether they send a double-team at him or guard him straight up. If there’s a strategy the Wolves have tended to favor, it’s making Jokic become more of a scorer by not sending a double team at him and trying to shut off his passing lanes that generate open shots for others. That’s a major reason Denver shot 39.6% from 3-point range this season on its way to having the NBA’s most efficient offense.

The most common way the Wolves might guard Jokic is by having Rudy Gobert defend him straight up, but Jokic has found success going toe-to-toe with the four-time Defensive Player of the Year.

“It’s really about trying to slow him down as much as we can, but we try to stop the Denver Nuggets. We try to limit them as a team,” Gobert said. “And so, they’re a very smart team. They make a lot of adjustments, so we have to be able to make adjustments, too, and regardless of what we do.”

But Gobert won’t be the only one guarding Jokic in the series, and Jokic told reporters in Denver that he expected the Wolves to throw different people at him.

Randle is relatively new to the Nuggets-Wolves rivalry and said when he was with the New York Knicks, he didn’t guard Jokic much straight up. But Randle, when engaged on defense, can be a physical presence in the post who can make life difficult for big men. One of his most memorable sequences on defense this season came in a home win over San Antonio on Jan. 11 when he stood up 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama on multiple possessions.

“He’s a tough cover for anybody,” Randle said of Jokic. “There’s not really any way to shut him off or stop him. You just gotta try to make him work, make it tough on him, try to wear him down. … Know he’s going to make tough shots, he’s going to make incredible plays, but stay present, stay in the moment.”

Kyle Anderson and Naz Reid have also taken turns in the past guarding Jokic as the Wolves primarily focused on attempting to shut down guard Jamal Murray and other shooters the Nuggets have.

As for Denver defending Edwards, the Nuggets have never had a lockdown defender singularly capable of shutting him down, the way an opponent like Oklahoma City does. It’s a team approach, with Denver often bringing multiple people to the ball and in the gaps to stop Edwards.

Sometimes it might look like Edwards is taking time to feel out how a team is going to defend him early in the series, but to coach Chris Finch, it looks like something else — Edwards figuring out how best to make the right play.

“Last few times that he started the series has been key to how the series unfolds for us offensively,” Finch said. “That sometimes can be misconstrued as feeling out or not being aggressive. But I think he was taking what the defense was giving him, and a lot of people were benefiting from that.”

Ant denied

Edwards does not qualify for NBA postseason awards because he didn’t play in the minimum 65 games. He appealed, and was denied.

Two other All-NBA players, Luka Doncic and Cade Cunningham, were approved for awards even though they didn’t play in 65 games. Doncic missed two games because of the birth of his child and Cunningham missed 12 games because of a collapsed lung.

Both these situations passed the “extraordinary circumstances” in the collective bargaining agreement, the NBA ruled.

Edwards, who played in 61 games, sat out near the end of the season because of right knee inflammation.

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