Text/Water Clear
125-136, the Nets lost to the Timberwolves. Irving 30 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, Mills 5 of 10 three-pointers bombed 21 points, Edwards also had 15 points in the account, so the focus of the loss focused on Harden, who had 13 points, 5 rebounds and 13 assists, but two details confirmed that Harden was really not to blame.
Harden had 13 points, five rebounds and 13 assists; Irving had 30 points, six rebounds and five assists
First, the Timberwolves' defense.
Towns, Russell and Edwards, two leaders and one top, including Vanderbilt, Daniels, Prince and Norville, etc., the Timberwolves do not lack talent, in the past they had a bad record, because the defense is too poor, and now the Timberwolves? A typical picture is as follows:
The Timberwolves snatched and caused Owen to go out of bounds
Mills broke through to find Aldridge, Reid confronted the body, Okogie came to assist in defense, and then the Timberwolves fell to the ground to scramble, and finally Irving received the ball and missed the line. This is the Timberwolves' current defense, although it has not reached the top of the league, but at least the attitude is correct, and with this attitude, their talent can be cashed in on the field, can limit the Nets' offense to a certain extent, not to mention, they have done a better job this game, preventing Harden's connection with the interior.
Hanako steals Harden to counter-attack the layup
With 5 minutes left in the final quarter, Harden broke through to connect Sharp with a hit, and as a result, Towns blocked with his right hand, Edwards completed the steal, and he counterattacked directly to the basket, freezing the score at 129-112 to completely kill the suspense of the game.
Here's the point. In this game, the Nets made a total of 17 mistakes, the Timberwolves used the Nets' mistakes to score 28 points, and the Nets used the Timberwolves' mistakes to score only 10 points, forming a 17-point difference, which is one of the watersheds of the game.
Some fans will say that Harden's 6 mistakes are mainly responsible, note that the reason why Harden will have 6 mistakes, as shown in the figure above, is that the talent of the inside players can not match Downs, Harden is difficult to show the pie to learn, so he uses the way of hitting the ground to connect with Ade and Sharp, the price is high frequency mistakes, is this "whitewashing" suspected? Look at this next.
Second, Ade and Johnson left the field with 6 consecutive fouls.
Aldridge, Sharp, Griffin and James Johnson are the interior combination of Nash in this game, Ader and Griffin have entered the twilight of their careers; Sharp is a rookie with limited talent; Johnson is only the fifth position in the part-time mini-lineup, so when facing Towns, the disadvantages of the Nets' weak inside line become seven inches, two typical pictures:
Towns made Ader offensive foul instantly
In the first three quarters of the game, although Towns only scored 8 points on 2 of 11, he effectively curbed Ader at both ends of the attack and defense, 3 of 7 and only scored 6 points, which also caused him to foul 5 times, and in the last quarter, Okoji caused Ader to cover fouls and then 6 fouls.
Towns 2+1, Johnson's 5th offense
Nash then defended Downs with Johnson, and in the third quarter, Towns cut a layup, Johnson made the fourth offense; then, as shown above, the individual strong layup 2+1, Johnson made the fifth offense; with 4 minutes and 10 seconds left in the game, Towns attacked with the ball on the left, and Johnson made the 6th offense, sitting on the bench with Ade.
Edwards helped Downes chop with one hand
When Ade and Johnson both made 6 fouls, Nash could only use the younger Sharp to prop up the inside line, resulting in: with 6 minutes and 50 seconds left in the game, the Nets trailed by only 6 points at 105-111, but then Towns took over the game: first a three-point steady, above pictured carrying Johnson's 2+1, receiving Edwards' clever passer single-handed dunk, left strong high hit, arc top second three-pointer, one person in just 3 minutes and 20 seconds to score 13 points in the final quarter, Fixing the score at 127-110 has killed the suspense of the game.
Looking at this game at this point, harden really can't be blamed, because the Timberwolves' offensive talent is no worse than that of the Nets, and more importantly, they have the league's top interior down, and the Nets? What they lack is the ability to attack and defend the inside, and Finch is dead set on holding the Nets seven inches, which is the real watershed of the game.