On May 17, Beijing time, the NBA playoffs continued, and the Nuggets challenged the Timberwolves away in the Western Conference semifinals. I thought that this game would be played extremely fiercely, but I didn't expect a one-sided situation directly, the Timberwolves had a wave of 27-2 super offensive in the first quarter, which opened the point difference, and then completely occupied the initiative on the court, and the point difference continued to widen, and the Nuggets were never able to play an offensive, and the final quarter collapsed directly, and was bombed 26-2 offensive, so that the game lost suspense early. In the end, the Nuggets defeated the Timberwolves 70-115, and the big score came to a 3-3 draw.
This result is still a bit surprising, after all, the defending champions have been very strong in the past three games, and they thought that they would take the series straight away. Unexpectedly, this time it was directly blown up by the opponent, and the opening game took a 9-2 lead, and then it fell into passivity, completely unable to keep up with the rhythm of the opponent, and the score difference was constantly opened, falling behind by 19 points at halftime, 25 points behind after the third quarter of the game, and the final quarter was directly collapsed, and the substitute players came up and couldn't score at all, and the score difference was up to 50 points behind, which was really miserable.
I have to say that the Timberwolves' form this time was really hot, and after losing 3 games in a row, they finally responded and did not let the series end early. This is also the first tie-break battle in the semifinals, I didn't expect it to be the defending champion and the Timberwolves, so the suspense returns again, after all, the variables of the tie-break are still very large, and it all depends on the competitive state of the players.
The Nuggets were really completely blown up this time, and no player could cope with the intensity of the Timberwolves, and Jokic was not bad, but due to the team's sluggish outside hand, he couldn't open up space at all, and he couldn't get closer to the basket. Jokic made 9 of 19 shots in the game, got 22 points and 9 rebounds, and he was already doing his best, but the opponent blossomed more and couldn't be restricted at all. What's more critical is that this time Murray's hand was sluggish, 4 of 18, only 10 points, and finally suffered the most painful defeat.
The Timberwolves responded well, successfully dragging the series into a tiebreaker and retaining their hopes of advancing to the Western Conference finals. This time, Edwards was very strong, with a game-high 27 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists, with a plus/minus of +43. And during a timeout, he also reminded the whole team, "This is what we said before, as soon as you take the lead, you relax, press the accelerator tightly, and continue to rush!" "In the end, the team didn't let up and kept the high intensity. After the suspense of the game was lost, Edwards also made a gesture to tie seven, and then it was up to him to see his performance in the tie-break.