Edwards single-handedly scored 44 points, but he couldn't stop the Nuggets' "champion's heart"

Qing Yang said

2024-05-13 14:33Posted in Anhui Sports Creator

When he was down 2-0 a week ago, Coach Mike Malone cut out all the social media remarks about "the Nuggets are finished" and looped them in the locker room.

A week later, the score was 2-2 and the two sides were back on the same page again, but this time the momentum was undoubtedly back on the Nuggets' side.

In his post-game interview, Coach Malone repeated a quote from Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovic thirty years ago:

"Never underestimate the heart of a champion."

This Timberwolves team is a lot like last season's Nuggets, and not many people actually watched them play and knew about them in the regular season.

So when they led the defending champions 2-0 on the road, like last year's Nuggets' Culpins and Bulls eliminated the Suns and Lakers, people realized

"I'm rubbing, they turned out to be so strong!"

But their strength is different from last year's Nuggets, compared to the former's comprehensive balance and yomu outstanding, the Timberwolves are more like having a super board (defense) and a not stable offensive point.

Many people only notice that the Timberwolves are the first defensive team in the regular season, but they don't know that their offense is only 16th.

Since the playoffs the year before, they have relied heavily on Edwards' individual outbursts.

This is a team that is inherently poor in attack.

In addition to Huazi, the old Conley no longer has the physical fitness to break through with the ball, and the three Towns, Gobert, and Maidan in the front court are all tall forwards, as are Reed and Alexander on the bench.

They are very similar to the Lakers in 2020, with overflowing defensive resources and tall frontcourt, essentially using defense to lead the offense, and relying heavily on the play of their star ball-handlers (LeBron, Edwards) on the offensive end.

But the current Huazi is still not comparable to 20 Zhan.

Although the scoring firepower is explosive, it is still lacking in the ability to dominate the ball, especially in the area of breaking pressing.

This is not only the biggest lead for LeBron and Durant, Leonard, Paul George, and other star forwards, but also the thickest layer of window stickers before young talents enter the room.

In the first two games of the series, the Timberwolves beat the Nuggets with a stick on the road.

The 43 points of Huazi in the first game were important, but Towns' 11 points in the third quarter and Reed's 14 points in the fourth quarter were even more fatal for the Nuggets.

In the second game, the referee allowed high-intensity confrontation to surprise the Timberwolves, and McDaniels made two fouls in the first quarter and three fouls in two minutes in the second quarter to surprise the Timberwolves.

The victory in Game 3 gave the Nuggets a big sigh of relief, and if they were 3-0, they would have almost been declared "death", and the 1-2 score gave them more room for adjustment and trial and error.

The Timberwolves missed the opportunity to come up with three strokes to completely kill the Nuggets, and then it was the turn of the defending champions to fight back.

In today's game, the Nuggets further strengthened some strategies for the victory in the previous game:

(1) Do you still use Downs to prevent teachers and Goebel Yellow Sparrow behind? Okay, then Gordon pulls up to the three-point line, and Jokic singles out Towns.

Gobert's defense? That Gordon projection must be resolute, today he is 11 of 12 shots, 2 of 2 three-pointers, last season's finals to the first round of this year's playoffs, although Gordon is not obvious most of the time, but there is always a break out, which is to remind the opponent:

Let me go and flank Jokic, it doesn't make sense, I can blow you up.

(2) Murray was stared at enough by Maidan and Walker?

OK, Yomu raised a little more blocking, and even many times Murray just crossed the halfway line Jokic came up to create space for Murray to dominate the ball in advance.

Murray was choked on the band in the first two losses, but continued to find his groove today.

The Nuggets led 29-24 in the first quarter, but when Jokic came on the court for three minutes in the second quarter, the score was already 41-28, a wave of 12-4, which made the Timberwolves suffer in what should have been their own strong period.

As for today's midfield whistle, it's more like God helped Murray out of his bad breath, and you bullied me for being short, right?

(3) And most importantly, Jokic should wake up, we are lagging behind.

Jokic lost the first two games, and I don't know if he was careless, or if he was really stunned by the Timberwolves' defense. A total of 16-of-38 shooting was a failing efficiency for him.

But since the last game, he has returned to the teacher form of "you can do anything against him", after scoring 24 points, 14 rebounds and 9 assists on 10-of-18 shooting in the last game, today he took turns to beat Gobert, Downs and Reed.

Against Towns and Reed, he scored with ease, and against Gobert his small toss was slippery like the pork belly on his stomach a few years ago.

Today, the Timberwolves' three interior lines combined only 35 points, which is comparable to Mr. Yoo alone (35 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists).

The Nuggets are essentially a team that relies on offense to overwhelm opponents.

When their Yomu-centered offense can break through the Timberwolves' league-leading defense, the initiative in the series will return to their side.

So although Edwards' personal firepower was still strong after the opening, and he scored 7 points in a row with inside and outside shots, the Nuggets were still able to resist his three-board axe and only fell behind 7-13.

But with Towns and Conley off the court, when the Timberwolves relied on him alone to attack, Reed, Lee Kyle, and Walker on the court became a source of water today.

Today, the Nuggets are very cautious about Huazi's bag, often wrapping up after he starts two steps or even jumps, just to further limit him from leading his teammates.

I don't believe you alone can overwhelm Jokic's team!

The Nuggets quickly overtook in the first quarter, leading 29-24 at the end, and in the second quarter, Murray led a wave of offensive rotation to open up double digits, and the game entered the rhythm that the Timberwolves struggled to catch up.

Edwards' 12 points in the second quarter and 13 points in the third quarter were still unstoppable for the Nuggets' defense.

But the Nuggets welded everyone else with their defense, and today the two benches Walker and Lee Kyle scored only 2 points in total, and the team Towns only scored 13 points on 5-of-18 shooting, and most of it was piecemeal.

But that's not the worst thing, the most helpless thing for the Timberwolves is that they can't stop the Nuggets' offense now.

Today, the Nuggets have an offensive efficiency of 120.8 for the game, 117.8 for the regular season, 112.4 for the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, and 99.0 for the first two losses.

For the Nuggets, the offense started and went smoothly.

Therefore, in the fourth quarter, when Huazi's physical strength declined and only made 2 of 4 shots, the Timberwolves lost the source of motivation to catch up with the score.

In the lamentation of the fans at Minnesota's home target center, they were chased twice in a row, and the big score returned to 2-2.

Today's Huazi shot 16 of 25 again, scoring 44 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists, but for the Timberwolves, who pinned all their hopes on him alone on the offensive end and couldn't stop Mr. Yoo on the defensive end, he said,

If you want to win, Huazi can't win with 40 points, or even 50 points.

At critical moments, they also need two other top-salary Gobert and Towns to play at matching values on both ends of the floor.

To win this game, they all have to be wolves, and they can't go back to the "husky" form of previous years.

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