Game 6, which could have ended the series and went straight to the Western Conference finals, the Nuggets suddenly collapsed, and the process was very bizarre. The starting five entered the final 10 minutes of the fourth quarter and collectively sat on the bench to kick off garbage time, losing by a full 30 points. In the final 10 minutes, the full bench was beaten 7-22, and the Nuggets lost by 45 points at 70-115.
This game just added an example to the bizarre nature of the entire series: the defending champions lost the first two games by 17 and 26 points at home, and then went to the Timberwolves to win two games in a row on the road, and then returned to win Tianwang Mountain at home.
However, the speed with which they were defeated in Game 6 was dizzying. After a short 9-2 start, the Nuggets were beaten 20-0 by the Timberwolves, extending to 27-2, and even the climax score was very similar to the fourth game of Guangdong Liaoning.
You can't imagine that this is a matchpoint battle for a series.
The so-called long night dreams, although the tie-break is in the Nuggets' home field, the Timberwolves regained confidence with this big win, and Murray has an injury to his right elbow, the result is too difficult to predict.
The gap is so large that the technical statistics are meaningless, so the data I quote here are all from the first three quarters, although the difference is as much as 25 points, and the maximum is 29 points.
In these three quarters, Jokic had 22 points, 9 rebounds and only 1 assist. The second-in-command Murray was even more bizarre, scoring only 10 points on 4-of-18 shooting. But Murray's true performance wasn't represented by a 4-of-18 shooting, as he was 0-of-5 in the first quarter and 1-of-5 in the second, and didn't shoot his first three-pointer until the third quarter.
Murray not only has an ultra-low shooting percentage of his own, but also has many blind shot selections, and the inefficient offense completely destroys the Nuggets' tactical system. Others also followed Murray's lead, shooting 7-of-31 from three-point range in the first three quarters, with Porter Jr., Jokic and Murray combined for 3-of-16.
Murray said he pinned his right elbow during the game and was still unable to stretch despite applying painkiller cream, saying, "It's not that Edwards defends me well, it's because of my elbow." ”
But there are a few things that are very confusing:
First, Murray's right elbow injury was at 9:54 in the first quarter, and before that, he had already made two hasty layups, which were not well selected and shot poorly.
Second, he was injured so early that he couldn't stretch his arm freely, but then in the next 30 minutes of the third quarter, why did he take another 16 shots and only score 4 goals? He had a layup in the second quarter, which was shocking, because the layup could hit the board too high, shoot too slowly to get covered, and use too much force to get on the bridge, and it was difficult for the fingers to pick out this direction anyway.
Third, Coach Ma obviously knew that the elbow injury was seriously bothering Murray, making him shoot ultra-low, 1-of-10 in the first half, counting the start of the third quarter, a total of 11 shots, so why didn't he ask him to cut back on shots? Jokic, the team's team-leading scorer, also took just 19 shots;
Fourth, with Murray's miserable shooting rate, why didn't Reggie Jackson play the No. 1 position in time? In this game, Reggie looked like he played 12 minutes and 11 seconds, and he didn't score a point in 0 of 6, but in fact, he only played 5 minutes and 37 seconds in the first three quarters and took two shots. He had more time to play in garbage time in the fourth quarter, so the injured Murray played five or six times as long as Reggie in the third quarter.
Fifth, Malone knew that the starting five Tigers were not online, but he was still confident in them and ignored the existence of substitutes. In the third quarter, the three benches Justin Holiday, Braun and Reggie combined, played a total of 31 minutes and did not score a point, while the Timberwolves' three benches scored 15 points.
After losing the fifth, Edwards dropped a sentence: See you in the seventh. It has already shown that they will play a high intensity game at home.
Despite a 9-2 deficit after a hard start, acting assistant coach Norrie called a timeout and they quickly pulled away with a 20-0 lead. Among them, Edwards's stubborn pestering of Murray is the key reason for his ultra-low shooting percentage, but Murray does not admit it.
Edwards was a leader who scored 19 points in the first half and had a personal plus/minus of +25. Edwards himself was also in the process of a breakthrough layup, colliding with Porter Jr. in the air, and the waist hit the ground hard, causing everyone to exclaim.
In front of the defending champions, everyone in the Timberwolves made major adjustments to themselves: in addition to Edwards, who attacked more fiercely, Mike Daniels' bottom corner three-pointers also echoed in time, scoring 21 points; Although Towns didn't score much, he greatly limited Jokic on the defensive end, scoring 10 points, 13 rebounds and five assists in the third quarter; Conley hit two cold three-pointers.
Even if the sixth game is also lost, if the Nuggets and the Timberwolves are inseparable and lose by a small score, then the tie-break will greatly benefit them to advance, after all, at home, and the whole team mentality is in the normal range.
But if they lose such a game by a big score, it's hard to say that they will tie seven, because they don't even know where to start to improve. And the tie-break is 48 minutes, playing for two and a half hours, and as the game progresses, the psychological pressure will increase and increase, unless you are ahead by a big score.
Of course, young or inexperienced teams in the playoffs will also have a seven-tie breakdown, which is a possibility that the Timberwolves need to be prepared to deal with.
Back in 2005, the Rockets played a very disappointing tie-break with the Mavericks in the first round. They have been back and forth in the first five games, with four games between two and four points separated. In the fifth game, the Rockets won by 18 points, and at this time, Rocket fans, including Chinese fans, thought that Game 7 had a good chance of winning.
But unexpectedly, the Rockets lost by a full 40 points in that game, 76-116. I believe many people remember that Yao Ming scored 33 + 10 in that game, and Maddie scored 27 points, but looking at the information of that game, you can find that Yao Ming's plus or minus is -33, and Maddie is -28, that is to say, the loss starts from the starting core.
Wins and defeats are often the same thing in series these days, and the Timberwolves are in a very similar situation to the Rockets. If they could look back at the first half of today's game and find the game where the Rockets and Mavericks grabbed seven in 2005, they might be able to avoid a rout like the Nuggets and the Rockets that year.
The pressure of a tie-break is equal for both sides, and as long as you have the initiative on the field, the pressure on the other side is even greater.
Therefore, the Nuggets and the Timberwolves steal seven, everything may be available, it all depends on the scene.