NBA Playoffs – playoffs – working day twenty
Wolves are hungry for success. The team led by Anthony Edwards, the new NBA superstar, and Karl-Anthony Towns has shown its teeth in Denver. The Timberwolves have taken a 2-0 lead in the first semifinal of the NBA Western Conference with insulting impudence. They used their physical power both in defense and attack, exasperating the current champions. Nikola Jokić’s Nuggets are on the ropes after losing the first two games of the series at home. The Timberwolves have the chance to clinch the tie in the next two games in Minnesota, which, beyond being the hometown of the Lakers, does not have a great basketball pedigree.
The Nuggets came out ready to stop Antman Anthony Edwards, who scored 43 points in the first game, including 25 in the first half. They reinforced the defense on him with strong marking and constant help. And they managed to stop the young 22-year-old star. However, the scoreboard said that the plan was not working. Karl Anthony Towns, the 2016 rookie of the year, took over on offense and the entire team pulled out all the stops on defense until they achieved what seemed impossible: nullifying Nikola Jokić, the candidate for best player of the year and the figure dominant in the NBA.
Those in Denver couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Anthony Edwards had only 4 points, but the scoreboard read 20-39 shortly after the start of the second quarter, with Towns unleashed. The Nuggets’ reaction threats were frustrated again and again and at halftime it was 35-61. To make matters worse, they couldn’t even stop Edwards, who had the luxury of hanging from the rim after one of his spectacular dunks with a defiant gesture.
The Timberwolves were enjoying the game. They cheered each other up at every timeout, smiled on the field, congratulated each other. The Nuggets became desperate, frustrated, they protested, they complained. It was being a pain in the ass for them. They competed in the third quarter, but only to score a partial of 25-21 and stand 22 points down in the final stretch of the game (60-82). Their meager score was a reflection above all of the defensive exercise of the Minnesota team, who stole balls and put up blocks without stopping. At the end of the third quarter they had accumulated 10 steals and 11 blocks, some of them against Jokić himself. Veteran Mike Conley, 36, seems to have infected the Timberwolves with the spirit of grit and grind, that effort in every play that became famous during the time he played alongside Marc Gasol in the Memphis Grizzlies.
The distance at the beginning of the last quarter was excessive. Those from Denver tried to make up the result somewhat in the last quarter, but they did not succeed nor did they ever have any real chance of coming back. With four minutes left, the Minnesota team was already taking advantage of the timeouts to celebrate their inevitable victory. In the end, 80-106.
Karl-Anthony Towns finished the game with 27 points and 12 rebounds, after a series of 10 of 15 field goals, including 3 of 5 triples. Ant-man was left with another 27 points, which in his case lowers the recent average. Chris Finch, the Timberwolves coach, allowed himself to give them a rest in the final stretch of the game. From the bench, Nickeil Alexander-Walker added 14 points and Naz Reid, the best sixth man in the league, another 14. For the Nuggets, Jokić was left with only 16 points, although he also added 16 rebounds and 8 assists.
Jokić’s men had turned the Ball Arena into a fortress, partly helped by the height of Denver, to which they are accustomed. Between last year’s playoffs and this year’s first round they had won 13 of the 14 home games played in the playoffs. Now, they’ve lost two in a row.
Minnesota becomes the favorite in the tie. The Timberwolves finished third in the Western Conference in the regular season with just one win less than the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets. In the first match they swept the Phoenix Suns of Edwards’ childhood star, Kevin Durant, 4-0, with an outstanding performance by Edwards, but few were betting on them in a direct confrontation against the champions, their executioners of the year passed in the first round with a clear 4-1. They are playing for the first time in 20 years (and for the second time in their entire history) in the conference semifinals. But they are on their way to winning it.
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