Let the Wolves Out!
And let the wolves out! (Unh)
And let the wolves out! (What!)
And let the wolves out! (Unh)
Let the wolves out!
I've said all season that the Nuggets would lose in the second round. I said it in the preseason, and I said it when the playoffs started. There were a lot of reasons that the Wolves won tonight's Game 7, and a lot of reasons why the Nuggets lost. But I want to start with some visuals:
Overall, Nikola Jokić shot 2-for-10 from three-point land tonight. Five of those misses are the five screenshots you see above. One miss was an end-of-quarter heave, one was well contested at the beginning of the fourth quarter by Naz Reid, and one was semi-contested by Rudy Gobert with 2:35 left in the fourth. He would hit two in the fourth to keep it close after starting 0-for-7. But when you're pointing to the factors that swung this game, you have to start – HAVE TO START – with the three-time MVP missing those five wide-open three pointers. Have to. Look at the last one. There isn't a Minnesota player within 15 feet of him!
The reason he missed those shots? Well, first of all, he's not a great three-point shooter. He shot .359 from three in the regular season. He entered tonight shooting just .279 from three for the playoffs overall, and in the first six games of this series, he shot an even worse .240 from three. So you can question the decisions to shoot nine three pointers (we won't count the heave) before knowing if he even hit them. Especially when he was 11-for-18 on two pointers.
There are two main reasons he took and missed all those threes. One is because his coach decided he needed to play nearly the entire game, and he just isn't built for that. On May 3, 2019, the Nuggets and Blazers played a four-OT game, and in that game, Jokić played a whopping 64 minutes and 58 seconds. Other than that game, tonight was his career playoff high for minutes played. He didn't sit once in the second half, and it showed. Go watch those threes. On more than one, he never even got to the paint. He stopped at or near the three-point line, and chucked those threes because he was pacing himself.
The other reason is that the Wolves – led by Karl-Anthony Towns – made every single shot in the paint difficult. Jokić hit the majority of them because he's really good, but he didn't take more because Towns was bodying him and holding his ground. Towns was incredible. In addition to staying solid on Jokić, he was efficient from the field, shooting 8-for-14 and pulling down a team-high 12 rebounds. A lot of those shots came when Anthony Edwards was relentlessly getting double teamed and off his rhythm, and especially in the first half, Towns showed great patience when the Nuggets put smaller defenders on him. He would end up with five fouls, but the fourth and fifth didn't come until late in the game, and a couple of the calls were borderline. Towns was a huge plus in this game, and it was great to see.
In the second half, the Nuggets were also completely abandoned by anyone not named Jokić and Murray. The duo combined to shoot 12-for-28 in the second half. Decent, but it might have been better if they weren't forced to shoot. But they were, because everyone else on Denver disappeared. The rest of the team shot 2-for-11 for the entire second half. It can't be overstated just how ridiculously poor that is. Two shots by the other six players who played in the second half. Two. You think the Nuggets regret being too cheap to re-sign Bruce Brown yet? His "replacement" Reggie Jackson was a -6 in the 2:40 he played in the second half. He committed one foul, and turned the ball over once. That's it. That's why when Denver's other three starters (Aaron Gordon, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Michael Porter Jr.) shot 1-for-10 in the second half, Denver had to live with that offensive offensive output. They had no choice. The only other player coach Michael Malone gave regular run to this season was Peyton Watson, and Malone buried him under the bench back during Game 5 of the first round.
It was quite the opposite on Minnesota's side. Anthony Edwards was just 5-for-17 in the second half, but he was picked up by just about everyone else on his team. Jaden McDaniels (3-for-3 with two steals), Karl-Anthony Towns (3-for-8 with eight rebounds), Rudy Gobert (3-for-4, including an absolute ridiculous turnaround fadeaway at the end of a shot clock, plus a lay-up where he changed hands Michael Jordan-style), Mike Conley (2-for-3), and Naz Reid (3-for-5) all showed up for the second half. As a team, the Wolves outrebounded the Nuggets 29-15 in the second half. It was a total team effort, beautifully exemplified by Reid picking up Towns when he had to sit halfway through the fourth with his fifth foul, and then Towns picking up Gobert when he fouled out with two minutes left in the game.
Now, Denver has to sit and wonder how they regroup, if they can. Minnesota and Dallas are ascendant, and Oklahoma City is going to be a force given their talent and arsenal of draft picks. The future is bright for San Antonio and Houston, and Memphis is going to come back with a vengeance next season. New Orleans and Sacramento need a couple of pieces to come together, but have solid bases, and the four graybeard teams (Golden State, both LA teams, and Phoenix) aren't going to make anything easy. Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are free agents after next season, and probably the only way the Nuggets would ever be able to trade Michael Porter Jr.'s contract is to take back an equally undesirable contract. Sometimes, championship windows close quickly. Whether Denver's just did is something we can debate over the summer, but the question is certainly on the table.
At least Jokić has all those Hotels.com points.
Beyond the Point of Exhaustion
I've said a few times now that New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau was pushing his players too hard, and the dam finally broke in these final two games. During Game 6, Josh Hart was removed from the game and was diagnosed with an abdominal strain. I had literally never heard of this injury for a basketball player, so I googled it. The first result was from the Cleveland Clinic. Here's what it said (bolding mine):
An abdominal muscle strain, or pulled stomach muscle, is often an overuse injury. It occurs when muscles in the stomach stretch or tear. Football and tennis players are prone to this injury.
Thibodeau ran Hart into the ground over and over, and his bad decision-making reared its head at the worst possible time. Did that stop him from letting Hart play in Game 7? Of course not. And bless Hart, he tried his hardest once again, and made the same hustle plays he's been making. But every shot was front rimmed. A couple of times he drove into the lane and couldn't even really get the ball up on the rim. Once, the refs bailed him out with a foul, but not every time. And yet Hart's injury wasn't the worst.
Jalen Brunson fractured his shooting hand. He already had multiple other injuries, but this one stings because a) it could mess up his shooting form, but more importantly b) it's going to make it harder for such a tireless worker to work on his game over the summer. You'd have to think any last-ditch effort to get on the Olympic team is now decidedly over. It's a worst-case scenario for New York, and I don't think the blame can rest with anyone other than Thibodeau. The same goes for the stunt of trying to run OG Anunoby out for Game 7. Anunoby clearly couldn't run at all, and had to be removed after just five minutes. It was just an incredibly poor decision by Thibodeau to let him play. I can't imagine what he saw in warmups that made him think Anunoby was ready to play. This isn't the 1970's. You can't play on one leg in today's NBA against any team, but especially not against a team like Indiana that likes to run. He's lucky Anunoby didn't further injure himself.
On Indiana's side, it's hard to evaluate this win. On the one hand, they went into Madison Square Garden and won a Game 7. That takes guts. On the other hand, the only Knicks players who had any juice left were Donte DiVencenzo and Alec Burks, and absolutely nobody was keying on Burks. DiVencenzo, on the other hand, poured in 39 in what was a legit impressive effort. Aside from him though, Indiana was just not challenged at all. So, did they shoot 67% from the field because they were great? Or because New York just had nothing? It has to be a little of both, but I'm inclined to point the needle more toward the latter. The Knicks got whistled for a five-second violation, and had multiple careless backcourt turnovers. They had nothing left. And yet, they got to the line 27 times because Indiana couldn't stop fouling them for some reason. New York kept this thing respectable by going 24-for-27 at the line.
Whether you think this win was more New York falling apart or Indiana rising to the occasion, they won four times in five games, and finished it off on the road. That has to count for something, and they are an opponent that needs to be respected by the Celtics. Indiana did give the C's some fits this season, and it should be a fun Conference Finals. As should Minnesota vs. Dallas. Let's go!