On paper | Edwards Jordan-style leap Timberwolves' iron teeth and steel teeth

Little Little Chick MJ

2024-05-06 15:47Posted in Beijing Sports Creators

Let's briefly talk about the Timberwolves vs Nuggets G1.

Let's talk about 3 surprises about Edwards.

The first point is the opening alignment, with Edwards guarding Murray and McDaniels going to Porter Jr. - in terms of size and size requirements, this set of alignments is no problem, but it is not a particularly wise choice to let himself defend the Nuggets' outside arrows at the beginning of the game, from a physical point of view. Both sets of counterpoints have their own reasons:

Huazi anti-Murray, with physical confrontation and tonnage suppression, to give horizontal pressure, anti-Porter is to focus on the lower plate, make it uncomfortable; with McDaniels anti-Murray, it is to look at from the height and give longitudinal pressure, and anti-Porter is to take care of his "big rush" as much as possible and try to block it.

Again, this is a different challenge that Porter faces when facing the Lakers, and against the Lakers' misplaced rotation against Russell/Reaves and others, which contributes to the so-called "Porter is completely unguardable".

To put it simply, both sets of pairs have their own reasons, but it is rare for the main player to directly defend the opponent's core arrow at the beginning of the series. It is more likely that Huazi took the initiative to ask for Ying. After all, there was such a precedent during the regular season this year.

What's even more interesting is that Edwards has been far more effective defensively than expected, and even more effective than Madan in a limited sample (the Timberwolves reversed their expected McDaniels vs. Murray alignment in the second half).

Huazi grabbed more fiercely and faster when he crossed the screen, and of course, this also had something to do with the Nuggets' intention to avoid the Timberwolves' defensive resources in the second half to deal with Yomer's two-man turn. In the 1-on-1 round, Huazi's performance was even more amazing, whether it was just the right physical confrontation, or the shaky and misleading prediction of Murray's potential left and right lane changes, it was quite exciting.

Under such entanglement, Murray did not score a point at the beginning.

The reason why it is "amazing" is because Edwards' opening defensive end exploded and hit the heart of the Nuggets. We can clearly see from the first hand that the main direction of Malone's attack in the first 5-6 rounds is to let Murray dominate the attack and dominate the finish. It's the same rhythm as last season's regular playoff game, which is to play from the outside in.

Especially in the face of the allocation of internal resources like Gobert + Downs + Reed, the opening of the periphery is even more important. However, Edwards' takeover on the defensive end of the game at the beginning disrupted Malone's first deployment, and this is where that 2-14 run came from.

Obviously, Huazi gave the defending champion a dismount.

So, what is the Timberwolves' first move?

As we said in the previous review, the Wolves' offensive mode can be roughly divided into three modules:

The first is the same side of Edwards and Downs off the ball, and Downs may make some fake back-to-back moves. And on the side with the ball, Conley and Gobert launched a first-line offense to compress the defense and find opportunities for the two stars on the weak side;

The second will be on the opposite side of Edwards and Downs, with Edwards holding the ball and initiating a pick-and-roll to attack, while Downs is ambushed on the weak side. Under this kind of offense, due to Edwards' single-point blasting, the rotation after the defense and pinch attack is very prone to the exchange of opponents on Downs' side, resulting in misalignment;

The third is the small tactics of Finch's twin towers or single towers and a shooter's horn position, which is relatively rare in this game.

The Timberwolves broke the game first in this game, using option one, allowing Conley to lead the development of the offense first. Let's take this round to talk about the Nuggets' defensive thinking -

To put it simply, priority is given to encirclement and suppression of the inner line. After the break, make sure that there are at least four people in the restricted area to help defend and swipe, the purpose of this is simple, except for Conley, the rest of the Timberwolves lineup does not have superb passing skills. Especially in the face of the small space in the penalty area, 4 people are tall and strong men.

Therefore, Malone's idea is to let the Wolves break through and encircle the restricted area, lock this area, and force the Timberwolves players to stop the ball and handle the ball and then make mistakes. Due to the lack of masterful passing skills, the first priority for the Wolves players is not to find direct chances in the bottom corner of the weak side, but to get the ball safe first.

In fact, this is equivalent to a trap set by Ma Long when he broke through the positional defense. In such a situation, the Timberwolves had eight turnovers in the first half, which was not excellent, and the second half was in control.

Reed was dizzy in the first half, in large part because he failed to adapt to the Nuggets' defensive intensity (here I complain about the Suns, it's a world of difference), and the defensive strategy-

Here Reed tried to rely on his speed to catch a leak on the wing and rush inside, but he plunged headlong into the Nuggets' encirclement and was intercepted by the swipe defense; Again, in such a high-end game, alignment is a priority factor in positional warfare.

Another memorable round should have been Edwards' first half after a goal into the interior, the restricted area was covered by the Nuggets' five-man encirclement, and finally waited for McDaniels to cut in and tear apart the defense before passing the ball safely.

That's the general idea of the Nuggets, and let's go back to the Timberwolves.

How did the Timberwolves start the game? It's still Edwards, and he probably did three things-

We just said that Conley tore apart the defense on the front line with the ball, causing the Nuggets' defensive line to shrink and the perimeter defense to rotate. In this way, the first thing is that Huazi relies on the change of the counterparty after the sudden split to seize the opportunity of misalignment;

The second thing is still related to dislocation, which is to grasp the dislocation that occurs under the semi-conversion produced after forcibly increasing speed, to attack directly, and not to stay in positional warfare. Still doing well;

The third thing is the cover of Conley and Edwards, in essence, it is still misplaced, and it is still playing Murray. Conley's role in this series has been key –

Not only is he able to control the rhythm of the positional battle very well, as the only reliable No. 1 position in the true sense of the team, to control the number of turnovers, but Conley will provide a lot of opportunities for the two core players to catch the Nuggets' biggest defensive misalignment, and functionally speaking, it also depends on the stability of Conley's outside line to decide whether the Nuggets want to take off this set of blocks, pinch or switch defenses.

In this way, Edwards took over the offense and defense of the opening game, playing the Nuggets with one man and the other with a dismount.

Let's continue with Conley's topic.

At the beginning of the second half, Finch changed his routine, focusing on Downs -

Let's take a look at the round above. In the second half, Conley played three of these stacked screens or direct pick-and-rolls with Downs in a row to create a change of defense. Three rounds in a row ended up with Downs attacking Murray, and all three rounds were completed.

This is another general idea of the Timberwolves' mismatch in the positional battle, and it is also related to another set of defensive logic of the Nuggets:

In addition to the general direction of blocking the inside line just now, the logic of the Nuggets when they encounter cover is probably like this - all the defenses between the 1-4 positions, give one to one, and force dry shots. If it is a breakthrough, go back to the general direction strategy, and use the card to assist in defense and encircle the inside line to block the breakthrough, unless you take a dangerous move such as taking a corner.

When Jokic is covered, if it is Edwards who blocks and picks, he will be weakly delayed to block the route. At the same time, the current Nuggets are at a high level when they are on the front line and at a high level when they are playing Jokic's perimeter in some small areas. To put it simply, try not to expose Jokic to the outside as much as possible, and at the same time delay Edwards.

Including after Edwards' first move, the Nuggets would use early pinch shots to force him out of the ball in some corners of the high post, but not as often as possible.

Therefore, from the perspective of the game of defensive strategy, Malone accepted some losses of Towns playing Murray and Edwards playing Murray under the change of defense.

In general, the offensive and defensive level and pertinence of both teams are very high, and there are two consecutive rounds:

In the first round, Jokic was weakly delayed to the outside after being blocked, forcing Edwards to play the ball, and Gordon made up for it in the bottom corner, missing Towns. Edwards' current level of play and height can't play a one-handed pass directly to Downs, and Conley transitioned to Downs, and Jokic and Gordon's defense returned to position.

And in the next round, Edwards played a fake Warriors gaggle tactic, and all the Timberwolves players fell to the outside to pull Jokic out, vacuuming the inside, and then Towns dealt cards to Edwards, who ran back to the air.

Overall, the Timberwolves continued their deadliest offensive routine of the season — separating Edwards and Towns on either flank, deploying high-quality screens like full shooters and Gobert to attack the defense from both wings.

But again, in such a high-end game, role players are difficult to play, or can become quite inconsistent:

McDaniels, who was suddenly cool in the last round, shot 0 of 7 and swallowed 0 eggs in the whole game;

Conley was 0-of-3 in the first half and adjusted back in the second half;

Reed played a mess in the first half, scoring a crucial 11 points in a row in the final quarter to lay the foundation for the victory;

Walker was 2-of-6 from the field, and the cameo defender also made 3 turnovers and couldn't find any good opportunities.

The same is true for the Nuggets, let's finally talk about the Nuggets' dilemma:

We won't say much about the misplaced 4/5 switch between Gobert and Towns. The cascading effect of specific defensive alignment has been discussed in the past articles, and the defense of this routine has become a common strategy in the league in the past two seasons, and the basic logic is that-

In the face of the super No. 4 or No. 5 position, when a single counterpoint cannot solve the defense, the misalignment is used to solve the initial alignment of the first line + the back line to provide assistance defense and obstruction, and a non-space point in the bottom corner is vacated.

This strategy is not new and unusual, once when the Lakers and Clippers faced off, Tyronn Lue even used Zubac to defend Vanderbilt + Leonard against Davis to solve the interior defense problem. Even two seasons ago, in the playoffs against the Nuggets, the Warriors used Klay vs. Jokic + a four-in-one routine to encircle and suppress the interior, and the essence of the principle was actually much the same.

So I don't want to describe the effect too much. Let's focus on the differences:

Last season, the Lakers were beaten from thick eyebrows against Jokic to Hachimura against Jokic + thick eyebrows, which reduced the production effect to a certain extent;

And this season, when the Lakers played against Jokic from the first hand, Hachimura's defensive effect plummeted, and the 4/5 misalignment was resolved by the Nuggets with a smarter low-post emptying and single-eating, and they were forced to change back to the way of thick eyebrows to defend Jokic.

But the Timberwolves are different—

Towns can provide a defensive effect far superior to Hachimura and others when directly facing Jokic, and Towns' size, arm span and tonnage can match Jokic's, which to a certain extent dismantles Jokic's idea of forcibly emptying and eating alone in the low post. At the very least, even if he eats strongly, Jokic will incur a lot of physical wear and tear as a result.

It's a line of difference, and Gobert's direct protection of the basket on the back line is better than the thick eyebrows. We've said before that the reason why a lot of teams will switch defenses with a 4/5 is a predictable event, but it still doesn't work for Jokic. In addition to Jokic's ability to blow up 99% of the No. 4 position, he can also use passing skills to digest Gordon's space black hole problem to a certain extent, and use empty connections to solve the bottom corner problem.

However, Gobert's presence will make this layer of connection between Gordon and Jokic very troublesome. The most obvious manifestation is that Jokic's air connection in the last moments of the game was directly recognized by Gobert. This is the value of the Timberwolves' defensive resource, and you have to wonder whether Connery has a soft spot for Gobert or is aiming at the "anti-Nuggets armor" built by his old club.

This is the league's only defensive counterpoint value, and even if the Celtics put Horford in the starting lineup and put together the twin towers of Horford + Boshen, it won't provide such an effect.

This is the Timberwolves' containment of Jokic's interior offense and tandem, but the problem and key to the Nuggets' real desire to break the game is still on Murray -

Now the Nuggets want to win the game, there are basically two ways to go: the first is that Murray can improve his game performance, whether it is to get rid of the opposition defense individually, or to force the ball in without getting rid of the defense, or either way, the ball needs to be put in the basket.

If the second one doesn't work, especially if Murray doesn't do a good job of tearing up the defense, it means that many opportunities to go deep into the interior that can only be found with the tearing of the defense, Jokic's easy short-block pick-and-roll opportunities, and the chances of both throwing will plummet. That means Jokic needs to get the ball more away from the basket —

For example, in the above round, Reggie passed back to Jokic on the outside after failing to break through. Jokic made 9 three-pointers in this game, and interestingly, Jokic had a total of two 10+ three-point shots in the playoffs, both of which were against Gobert of the Jazz that year.

Only, those two times, one was 7-of-11 from three-point range, one was 3-of-10 from three-point range, and oh yes, there was another time with 4-of-7.

In this game, Jokic made 2 of 9 three-pointers. Jokic's three-point shooting has fluctuated this season, with his regular-season shooting down 2.4 percent from last season and his playoff three-point percentage down 16.5 percent. (Of course, it may also be purely because last season was too exaggerated)

In this way, against the Nuggets, their offense is roughly divided into three options:

If Murray can open it, then everything will be fine; if Murray can't open it, Jokic will need to use at least 38% of his three-point performance to forcibly digest the outside gap, in other words, improve his game from another dimension; if neither of these can work, Jokic will need to add a lot of low-post hard chisel to break the game.

Of course, this series is far from that simple, as I just said, it is very difficult for the role players on both sides to explode under this defensive quality - they are still in the state of the core players. And Edwards' 43 points, and Downs' efficient 20 points, struggled to nibble away from home.

Let's get back to the big theme at the beginning, Edwards' amazement:

The reason why the Timberwolves were able to nibble the game and withstand the Nuggets' counterattack was that one was Reed's 11 consecutive points, and the other was Edwards' indiscriminate singles - unreasonable, regardless of the Nuggets' defensive strategy, ignoring those swiping cards to help defense, it is a strong solution after continuous dribbling above the free throw line. The opponent he faced was Pope: in the last round, he defended James from Russell and Reeves.

Very early in this season, the author said in an article that there are only two teams in the West that have a way to pick out the Nuggets in terms of configuration:

One is the Mavericks, who are strong enough to make it difficult for the Nuggets to defend the outside line, but the interior doesn't look thick enough, and if they want to win, they have to rely on Eastern Europe to play an incredible series;

The other team is the Timberwolves, who have enough resources on the inside, but Edwards is the only core offensive arrow on the outside, and if they want to win, they have to rely on Edwards to play an incredible series.

Seriously, Edwards has exceeded my expectations for him at this stage: he's improved in terms of handling and offensive consistency so far this year's playoffs. It's not a difficult thing to run amore, but it's hard to keep going berserk.

In an article before this year's playoffs, I wrote this sentence:

There are two players who could make a Jordan-esque playoff leap this year: Doncic, who just knocked out the demons of the Clippers, and Edwards, who beat the defending champions in Game 1.

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