(2) Denver Nuggets vs (3) Minnesota Timberwolves - 2024 WC Second Round
- Thread starter InstaFace
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I’ve been on the Wolves winning this series train for a bit, but I didn’t expect Denver to look this poor.
Porter does that leg kick quite a bit. Glad to see it go against him.
And Ant is most definitely HIM, but if the Wolves pull this out, it's because Naz Reid found it after a brutal first half.
And Ant is most definitely HIM, but if the Wolves pull this out, it's because Naz Reid found it after a brutal first half.
I finds Jamal Crawford to be somewhat informative, compared to Reggie's emptiness.
Is it possible that Minny is no longer a stupid team?
Jamal Murray looks like he's struggling.. and it's not like Denver sliced up the Lakers.. they were behind by a bunch in most of those games. You can't keep playing from behind and expect to always come back.
These guys are def a problem.
Phoenix is flawed but a sweep was unexpected.
Wolves now 5 for 5 so far
Phoenix is flawed but a sweep was unexpected.
Wolves now 5 for 5 so far
The rare game that really came down to 2-pt shooting - with a little bit of rebounding. Basically just Ant making jumpers was the difference.
I still love Jokic and Gordon but it's amazing how fast the rest of the team has become easy to root against. I still think they'll be heard from during this series, and Ant (and Naz Reid) won't shoot that well. It's going to be intense.
Wolves were killed for the Gobert trade which is in fact ridiculous but damn if their size isn’t a big problem right now with Gobert, Towns and Reid. With Edwards ascending this is a pretty amazing team construction
Towns is still a complete dope. Picking up his 5th foul in just 28 minutes, fouling Murray on a 3 (turning into a 4 point play), that's vintage playoff KAT. If Reid hadn't caught fire it might have been a real problem.
Could you say more? Both teams tonight have a ton of brilliant skills, focus, teamwork, good coaching... I feel like they're our peers in a lot of ways. I really enjoyed the hell out of our games against both these teams this year.
*squints* I mean, maybe KCP has that ex-Laker stank on him, but yeah in general I agree.
MIN has a lot more guys who are lovable and a lot more guys who are hateable.
It's just the way the Cs hunt the 3 and these teams ... don't. Celtics average 42.5 3PA per game (1st), Nuggets are 30th at 31.2. Minny is 23rd at 32.7. You just see guys passing up threes that the Cs would absolutely fire up, and way more dribble-drive and post-up. Cs are much more spaced out on the floor.
Of course, lots of other ways they're similar - limited turnovers, relatively slow pace, good on the defensive boards, above average in assists, etc.
I mean everything you're saying is true, I just find it hard to regard +25% 3-pointers as being "a different sport", so I was assuming he had a different angle on it.
Sometimes I watch badly-coached teams and have that thought, where they don't seem to want to play together or use teamwork to get around a defense, or get iso-happy. Or where the defense is swiss cheese and they give up a dozen uncontested drive to the basket, "My guy? I thought that was your guy?" plays per game. But to me these teams feel like they have more in common with the Celtics than any other teams in the league do, even if the radar-chart of skills for their starters are very different than for the Cs' guys.
In fairness to myself, I was game-threading while playing indoor basement basketball with my son. And, by saying "different sport" I wasn't making a judgment call on who is a better team (I think it's the Celtics). I don't get to watch a lot of NBA until the playoffs. I might see the Celtics play a team once or twice during the regular season over the winter. That said, stylistically, these teams are different which when I am able to watch the NBA outside the Celtics is unusual. I'll have more to say later but in a nutshell the Nuggets, just to focus on them, are very intentional in everything they do. They are the Princeton offense personified at the NBA level with a unicorn-ish engine player. They are so methodical and not rushed. Their pace is so slow. The drive and kick game is barely there. They run old-school sets and actions, too (Dean Smith would have loved them). They wait for the defense to show and make all their reads based on what is given. And, this is all done (maybe an exaggeration) to get open twos mainly at the rim if they can. The Celtics play a math game and the Nuggets play an older game within the modern NBA if that makes sense. Having not watched a ton of the Nuggets I can see why a lot of media gushes over their offense. Spacing is not as important to the Nuggets it seems. And they have that luxury bc of the Joker.
EDIT: Like imagine having a unicorn like the Joker who can be a point center and still space the floor by himself (not with a cadre of very good three-point shooters) bc you have to respect his range so what do you do? You play him above the arc in the 5-out motion Princeton offense and still you put him in the pivot at the high post and play pinch action with him and run Carolina and UCLA cuts and Jesus the list goes on and on. How many guys can be the passer for teammates coming off these actions and also be the one setting those same screens? And, then I saw tonight him running off a double staggered screen. When will it stop I said to my son?
EDIT: Like imagine having a unicorn like the Joker who can be a point center and still space the floor by himself (not with a cadre of very good three-point shooters) bc you have to respect his range so what do you do? You play him above the arc in the 5-out motion Princeton offense and still you put him in the pivot at the high post and play pinch action with him and run Carolina and UCLA cuts and Jesus the list goes on and on. How many guys can be the passer for teammates coming off these actions and also be the one setting those same screens? And, then I saw tonight him running off a double staggered screen. When will it stop I said to my son?
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Tbf, Murray leg-kicked pretty blatantly on that 3. They probably could have gotten it overturned on review, and the officials called a leg-kick offensive foul later.
He got some body too, and it's not like KAT gets any benefit of the doubt. It's remarkable, referees famously swallow their whistles in the playoffs. This has been a problem for him forever, and it's somehow only getting worse (the last three playoffs, per36 his fouls have gone from 4.1 to 4.2 to 5.5). He's 28, and this is his 4th playoff run. Maybe Ant actually is the reincarnation of MJ, in which case it won't matter.
I only saw the first half, but Minnesota looks like a really tough out. At the beginning of the game, Jokic looked slow, and the Wolves were getting whatever they wanted. Ant has really leveled up with Jordanesque hang times on close-in jumpers (he can be a monster on defense too). Then the Wolves just kind of fell apart, were down by a couple at the end of the quarter, but stayed close. With their defense, if Ant goes off, and he gets a little help, Minnesota will keep the game within reach at least.
Denver shot 42% from three, turned the ball over less than Minnesota, and still lost by seven. Murray seems hampered by his injury, which doesn't help.
At the half, I was thinking this series looks like Minnesota in seven, maybe six, even though they were down by four at the time. In any event, this looks like it will be a hell of a series.
Denver shot 42% from three, turned the ball over less than Minnesota, and still lost by seven. Murray seems hampered by his injury, which doesn't help.
At the half, I was thinking this series looks like Minnesota in seven, maybe six, even though they were down by four at the time. In any event, this looks like it will be a hell of a series.
Minny certainly has a roster to push the Nugs, with three capable bigs, good defensive wings, and an emerging superstar in Edwards. With Murray and KCP hobbled, and an inexperienced bench, Denver is going to need Gordon to step up in Game 2, The Wolves‘ defense got Jokic to turn the ball over seven times.
Even wit’s Denver struggling, they were right in the game until the last few minutes. Reed and Ant made plays, and Minnesota scored on seven of their eight final possessions. Three late misses by Jokic, and a TO by both him and Porter did in Denver. The Wolves basically out-Denvered Denver, with their late game high efficiency
Even wit’s Denver struggling, they were right in the game until the last few minutes. Reed and Ant made plays, and Minnesota scored on seven of their eight final possessions. Three late misses by Jokic, and a TO by both him and Porter did in Denver. The Wolves basically out-Denvered Denver, with their late game high efficiency
From a simple perspective, DEN is not as good as last year (amazing that they would let Bruce Brown go after winning a title) and MIN is better. How much better will be interesting to see. Should be a great series.
I think this is the Denver team that many of us thought would have a very difficult time making it through 3 WC series with each matchup (Lakers, Minn, Dall) one they could struggle with especially now with an injured Murray. I think OKC is their best shot if they get past Minn but I don’t think they get by Dallas. As we expected, this WC postseason is fun!
That Minny-Denver game was fun af. So, so intense. Excited for some more of these--Dallas/OKC should be great too!
More broadly, however, this is why "be close all the time and count on Jokic-Murray to pull it out" isn't really a plan. Minnesota has the guys to make that plan tough, and sometimes the other team makes shots of their own too. The Celtics out-executed Denver in the first meeting, and were very unlucky to not score a lot more down the stretch.
Denver is very, very vulnerable in my opinion, and make-miss against the Lakers obscured how vulnerable they are by a bit. We can give KAT shit, but having KAT+Naz to throw at Jokic is making a real difference, particularly since those guys are good on the other end too.
Nice Thinking Basketball on both Minny's scheme against the 2-man game and Gobert's specific execution in it:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teH9jzsEy98
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teH9jzsEy98
They didn't really have a choice on Brown - he was MLE signing, on a one year deal, and they didn't have Bird Rights on him. So when his market got to what it did (2/$45 mil) they weren't able to compete. Definitely a big loss for them.
Even as the person who said above that it might seem obvious in hindsight if Minny wins easily, I'm starting to worry that people are drastically overreacting to a game in which Ant hit a TON of jumpers, and a lot of other stuff went right for the Wolves.
I'm all for strong reactions when a team has fully solved something about another team, or presents an insoluble problem themselves, but this doesn't feel like that.
If Murray is healthy, there are a lot of ways Denver could get back in the driver's seat quickly. (If not, they're totally boned.)
Agree with this.
Minnesota shot 71% from the floor in the second half against the 2nd ranked defensive team. I don't expect that to keep up (obviously).
The Nuggets are more like 9th defensively but yes, they have a better defense than the hot shooting made it look.