Anthony Edwards believes the Minnesota Timberwolves will beat the Denver Nuggets if Towns can stay out of foul trouble. After the Timberwolves comfortably beat the Nuggets 115-70 in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, Edwards was asked in an interview if teammate Towns was successful in defending Nikola Jokic, and he talked about how important Towns is to the team on the court.
"I think the most important thing today is, like I told him in the series against the Phoenix Suns, that he needs to stay away from foul trouble," Edwards said. That's it, I shouted to him every chance I could, 'Brother, stop fouling.' I think you've all seen it. If Downs hadn't fouled, we would have won almost every game. Today he had 3 fouls but he only had 3 and not 5, so I told him today that we appreciate that you didn't foul because if you foul we lose. Because you're the best player we've played against Jokic, you've done the best with him...... You did your best, withstood his first dribble and he did it tonight. ”
To some, Edwards said Towns was the best candidate for Jokic on the Timberwolves roster, which may sound strange given that new Defensive Player of the Year winner Rudy Gobert is also on their team, but Edwards is true.
According to official NBA statistics, Jokic, under the direct defense of Towns, shot just 40.9% from the field in this series. By comparison, Jokic shot 51.4 percent from the field against Gobert and 56.5 percent when his primary defender was replaced by Naz Reed.
Towns is the best candidate for the Timberwolves to play against Jokic, so the Timberwolves need him to stay out of foul trouble. As for Edwards' statement that if Towns hadn't gotten into foul trouble, they would have won every time they played the Nuggets, that would be a bit of an exaggeration. In this series, Towns averaged 17.8 points, 8.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 0.7 steals and 0.3 blocks per game, and did not have foul trouble in Game 3 and Game 4, but the Timberwolves still lost. In Game 5, Towns received his third foul in the middle of the second quarter and had to leave the game early, and although he ended up playing almost the second half, the Timberwolves still lost. But while Towns' stay away from foul trouble won't necessarily help the Timberwolves win the game, it will certainly help them a lot, and they're clearly hoping that the 28-year-old All-Star star center won't let them down in Game 7 as well.
When the Timberwolves won their first two games on the road, many in the basketball world were blindly optimistic about the young Timberwolves, so they announced that the series had lost its suspense and ended early. But the Nuggets won the next three games and instead took the initiative, and if it weren't for the Timberwolves' strong comeback in Game 6 to chase the overall score to 3-3, it would be the Nuggets who advanced to the Western Conference Finals.
This round of the Western Conference semifinals still came to the tiebreaker, such a situation is always difficult to predict which direction the game will go, having a home court is indeed a big advantage for the Nuggets, but the Timberwolves also won two games at home in this round of the series, due to the ensuing pressure, the seventh game will be a completely different game, who do you think will be the winner of the tiebreaker?