At 7:30 a.m. Beijing time on April 24, the NBA playoff matchup was still in full swing, and the Minnesota Timberwolves continued to sit at home to face the Phoenix Suns. The G2 battle between the two sides is about to break out, in the first game, the Suns defeated the Timberwolves by 25 points, and Durant's ultra-efficient Suns still lost miserably, it can only be said that the Timberwolves are not simple, and the Suns' own lineup structure and tactical system have some problems. On the offensive end, the Suns basically rely on stars to take turns to play alone, lack of players who can organize offense, lack of bench scoring points, and the depth of the lineup is quite limited. The Timberwolves are more balanced inside and outside, with Gobert and Towns' ultimate twin towers on the inside, and Edwards, a future supergiant on the outside, in the first game of G1, Edwards blasted out 33 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists of luxury data.
When talking about how to make adjustments in G2, Durant also said in the interview: "We have to play faster and rush more balls. They are much taller than us, and sometimes when you jump as best you can, the opposing player can still go over your head and snatch the ball. They're too big, so we need to increase the intensity of the physical confrontation, and when we send out a small line-up, we have to settle earlier and make decisions faster. Suns head coach Vogel also said: "We have a lot of respect for the Timberwolves and we saw their quality in the first game. But we still believe we can play better than we did in the first game and are confident of winning. "In this game, the two sides are in the starting lineup, and the Suns sent out:
Booker, Beal, Allen, Durant and Nurkic, the Timberwolves sent on their side, Conley, Edwards, McDaniels, Towns and Gobert. At the beginning of the first quarter of the game, Gobert jumped to win, the Timberwolves took the lead in getting the ball, Conley broke through the glide layup on the left side and scored the first goal of the game, Edwards hit a three-point shot with the help of a block, Gobert ate a cake in the restricted area and hit a heavy hammer with both hands, and the Timberwolves hit the Suns 8-0 at the beginning. Beal's bottom corner three-pointer finally opened for the Suns, Nurkic played high in the restricted area, turned around and scored a defensive layup, Walker hit a big two-point pull-up jump shot, Gobert strode up and made a rebound easily, Booker started at the top of the arc, and the lightning broke through to make a layup into a 2+1.
After a period of time, the Suns also kept up with the rhythm and tightened the score, Booker stepped back to the basket and jumped into the net hollow into the net, Gordon rushed into the interior to score a dunk, and the first quarter ended, and the Timberwolves led the Suns by 3 points at 24-21. At the beginning of the second quarter of the game, Gordon's ultra-long three-point shot at the top of the arc pierced through the basket to help the Suns take the next city, Nurkic scored two points in the restricted area, Beal reflexively twisted his waist and made a layup, Conley flew in the paint area and threw the board to hit, McDaniels stepped on the snow without a trace and grabbed offensive rebounds in a row, and scored a strong rebound. Entering the middle of the second quarter, the Suns began to break the deadlock and relied on continuous interior offense to take a lead of about 5 points, but at the end of the quarter, the Timberwolves also launched a timely counterattack to tie the score, and the scores of the two sides remained at the same starting line.
At halftime, the Suns led the Timberwolves by one point at 51-50. At the beginning of the second half of the game, Yibian fought again, Nurkic hit a high wipe in the restricted area, opening the third quarter of the game, McDaniels cut the basket and flew to throw two points, Downs 45 degree angle large three-pointer hollow into the net, Edwards accelerated to break through to make a foul against the layup, stood on the free throw line and hit two free throws, Booker and Beal shot three three-pointers in a row, in the first half of the third quarter of the game, the scores of the two teams were still very close, and you chased me to catch up with the lead. However, the good times did not last long, and in the second half of the third quarter, the Suns began to collapse, and the Timberwolves fighting at home made an early effort, Walker shot a bow and arrow outside the three-point line in the bottom corner, and McDaniels attacked and repeatedly scored under the basket.
At the end of the third quarter, the Timberwolves led the Suns by seven points at 78-71. In the final quarter of the decisive battle, the Suns completely collapsed, the Big Three were mediocre, and they didn't feel very good, the Suns fell into a scoring drought of more than 3 minutes at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and the Timberwolves side, although the champion Edwards was also very sluggish, with a shooting rate of less than 3 percent, but they also had McDaniels, Conley and other players continued to output internal and external firepower, Gobert also took what he wanted under the basket, and the Timberwolves once expanded the difference to 20 points with a wave of offense. Although the Suns narrowed the deficit to about 10 points in the final stage, there was not much time left on the court at this time, and in the end, the Suns defeated the Timberwolves 93-105 and fell behind 0-2.
In terms of statistics, on the Suns' side, Durant scored 18 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists on 6-of-15 shooting, Booker had 20 points, 3 rebounds and 5 assists, Beal had 14 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists, Nurkic had 10 points, 14 rebounds and 4 assists, and Gordon dreamed of returning to the top and got 15 points and 3 rebounds, but it was useless. On the Timberwolves side, Edwards had 15 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists, McDaniels 25 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists, Gobert 18 points and 9 rebounds, Towns 12 points and 8 rebounds, and Conley 18 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.