2024 NBA Playoffs: West Semifinals: #2 Denver Nuggets vs #3 Minnesota Timberwolves (Series tied 3-3)

[Johnny Firpo]

Jokic has to play 45 in the next game, 40-41 is not going to cut it, unless the Wolves has a bad shooting night.

[CodeBreaker]

Denver loses Game 1

call me Nostradamus

[mcmurphy]

Jokic has to shoot on alot of those running passes. Most times tonight he never even turned toward the basket when he caught the ball on the perimeter. I'm expecting more out of him if he's supposed to be the best player I've ever seen. If the other players struggle it's on him to be more aggressive and carry/lead them.

if Jokic starts playing 1vs5 against the Minnesota defense, Denver has lost before starting because it has to force too many bad shots... if Murray takes 8-10 attempts less than his average in addition to distributing his shots on others also tighten the defense on others... Murray must be less passive but clearly if he is not physically ok he cannot work miracles (or not always)... Reggie Jackson was clearly very useful in the 1st quarter but in the 4th quarter it's Murray time... if he's not okay he better stay out

[jokeboy86]

Starting to believe Ant might really be HIM.

Knew it from day one. Remember watching and thinking I hadnt see a rookie that fearless since Wade. He was then and still is the anti-Wiggins.

[Inspektor1312]

Great first game, Minnesota is hungry and it shows.
I still have the Nuggets in 6 though, I even kinda expected them to lose Game 1.
And yeah, Ant is amazing.

[mcmurphy]

Great first game, Minnesota is hungry and it shows.
I still have the Nuggets in 6 though, I even kinda expected them to lose Game 1.
And yeah, Ant is amazing.

yeap, he did what he wanted

Match up (FGM/FGA against Denver guards)

KCP 8-11
Murray 3-3
Holiday 0-4 (maybe it was Ants' kryptonite but I have little hope)
RJ 2-3
Brown 1-2

[UglyBugBall]

it looks like a 7 games series, like most people predicted

7 game series happen when both teams hold their home court. Denver lost theirs game one. This is now going to be over in 5 or 6.

[BruttoNostra]

it looks like a 7 games series, like most people predicted

7 game series happen when both teams hold their home court. Denver lost theirs game one. This is now going to be over in 5 or 6.

Just last season there were three matchups that went to 7 games - how many road wins there were in the first 6 games:
1. Heat - Celtics - 4 road wins (+ the last game)
https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2023/east-final
2. Kings - Warriors - 2 road wins (+ the last game)
https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2023/west-first-round-3
3. Celtics - 76ers - 4 road wins

The year before there were three 7-games matchups with 0, 4 and 4 road wins in their first 6 games - https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2022/bracket

The previous year - another three 7-game matchups - https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2021/bracket - 0, 4 and 6 (!!!) road games out of the first 6 games.
The last one Mavs-Clippers, it was epic - https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2021/west-first-round-4

[BruttoNostra]

To add to the previous post - there is of course some survival bias here, not denying.
I'm only talking about if you tune up to game 7 without knowing the result of the past 6 games, you can assume there were some road games won in the process (with >50% certainty).

[stoo]

it looks like a 7 games series, like most people predicted

7 game series happen when both teams hold their home court. Denver lost theirs game one. This is now going to be over in 5 or 6.

in that case, if it's 5 or 6, i'm still taking denver

[p0peye]

This series will be determined by how Nuggets respond to Wolves schemes for defending Jokić-Murray two-man game and how consistently great can Edwards at this point in his career be. It will be tough for Nuggets, this Wolves squad is built to stop them specifically and Nuggets looked phazed in first game.

[falcolombardi]

Ant is great but let's not forget about Luka/Shai and mostly Wemby before saying that he's the next face of the league. Likely the best american player though.

He's flat out been better than them all so far. This is the biggest stage and the most important time of the year, and Ant has delivered everything and more.

He has but lets keep thinghs in perspective

It has been 4/6 games of 1 postseason for these guys

Luka has 3 previous run where he played fantastically one of which ended in a wcf run and beatung a 60 win team

Shai is new to the playoffs as a superstar and his games vs pels were not as good but he was playing freaking herb jones whereas ant was playing phoenix guards and 1 game of kcp

Lets not have this much recency bias lol

[B-easy]

Jokic lost them the game by playing way below his average and with 8 TO's. Crazy statement but it's true.

[bananazn]

Aside from Jamal being hampered, Gordon hitting his open 3 would really help denver offense ( he was 18-46 last year)

[hardenASG13]

Jokic has to shoot on alot of those running passes. Most times tonight he never even turned toward the basket when he caught the ball on the perimeter. I'm expecting more out of him if he's supposed to be the best player I've ever seen. If the other players struggle it's on him to be more aggressive and carry/lead them.

if Jokic starts playing 1vs5 against the Minnesota defense, Denver has lost before starting because it has to force too many bad shots... if Murray takes 8-10 attempts less than his average in addition to distributing his shots on others also tighten the defense on others... Murray must be less passive but clearly if he is not physically ok he cannot work miracles (or not always)... Reggie Jackson was clearly very useful in the 1st quarter but in the 4th quarter it's Murray time... if he's not okay he better stay out

He doesn't have to play 1 on 5. He's gotta be more aggressive on the block demanding the ball, and face the basket when he catches on the perimeter more. Lots of times he caught the ball and kept his back to the basket, looking for dribble handoffs. And yes, if Murray isn't delivering or isn't 100%, if Jokic is playing at some all time peak I've spent all season arguing against, he's going to have to be much better. He may need to take and make some bad shots, like almost all superstars before him. Show some emotion and leadership. His I don't care attitude is cool vs. the weak path from last year, I want to see this all time peak deliver for 3 straight rounds vs. legit competition.

If he's going to be compared the prime lebron/mj repeatedly on this board because of some advanced stats, he better not lose the first team in the last two years he's faced that is actually a legit contender.

[Jaqua92]

This is some of it, but you're leaving out that the T-Wolves have three bigs (who can eat all of the minutes and can go small with 6'9 Kyle Anderson for a few minutes). If the Nuggets don't dust off DeAndre Jordan, they only have Jokic and Gordon for all 96 minutes. Those two had 8 fouls between them tonight, which is fine. What is worrisome is the fact that you can't afford either to get into any kind of early foul trouble, especially Gordon. I trust Nikola to play with the fouls more than Aaron.

I've seen some stats saying Jokic isn't being enough of a deterrent at the rim, but the reality is, without a quality backup, he can't afford to pick up cheap fouls trying to block or alter shots too early in the game. Everybody is trying to attack him on that end just to get him off the floor (that was literally the Lakers entire game plan with Lebron and AD pick and rolls). His defense tends to pick up in the 4th, but the Nuggets need to make a concerted effort to get their offense rolling early so that their opponent is forced to play catch up with them for a change.

If the Nuggets keep getting off to these poor starts, this series will be over a week from today.

Dever was down 14 halfway through the first.

They need to figure out their first quarters. They stormed back from 14 down and took control of the game, and then in the second half the defense backed off and Minnesota shot 70% from the field. The fact that they were down 14, and managed to get back in the game and get it down to the wire shows that they simply have a higher ceiling than Minnesota.

Anyone who has watched this team this season may recognize that they have had an extremely difficult time reaching that ceiling this year. All year. the opposite of FrontRunners

I also think they dominate game two. And depending on how that looks, I assume they take game 3 as well. They're the better team, But they're not playing with the same hunger they played with last year.

Frankly, that's the only adjustment they need to make to win this series. If they decide they want it as much as Minnesota collectively, there's nothing Minnesota can do. They're out classed and we saw spurts of that tonight.

If Denver doesn't go down 14 in the first quarter, this is a wire to wire win for Denver, with a lead that bounces between 8-12 all night, and that's with Murray no showing.

I think its premature to call it wrap. They haven't had a good game all playoffs.

So you think every run that the Nuggets went on was proof that they are the better team and every run the Wolves went on was proof that the Nuggets weren't trying..

It was a tie ball game with 6 minutes to go in the 4th quarter and from that point the Wolves outplayed the Nuggets down the stretch. I guess that doesn't count because the Nuggets decided they wanted to come back and tie the game since they are the better team but didn't actually want to win it because they couldn't be bothered to keep trying.

I agree the series is barely started but the idea that Denver is better because they went on a few runs in a game they lost is hilarious.

Whoosh.

No. If Denver didn't sleep walk those first minutes, that close game late is like an 8 point lead.

And this has nothing to do with the Wolves run to start the game. Denver has been down double digits EVERY first quarter of the playoffs this season.

All 6 games. This is a Denver issue.

[Dadouv47]

So much overreaction after one game...Denver can't repeat, Ant is the new MJ, etc.

Seriously speaking, the Wolves and Ant are legit. We knew it when the playoffs started and they are playing even better than expected. Gobert is doing an outstanding job and they have almost no weaknesses since they have guards that are good defensive players too (NAW/McDaniels). Their defense is so scary that only bad offensive performances could stop them.

I expect the Nuggets to bounce back in game 2 but this is gonna be a very close series and the Nuggets will need an healthy Jamal Murray

[donkki]

Regarding Ant stare tech: the league needs to quickly review their stand on these techs. If you deny and take out the emotion from the game, you are only left with an empty shell of game that will appeal to no-one. If something the game needs much more emotion, taunting etc.

[FreeBird23]

Your soon to be 4th time DPOY. Happy for Rudy.

Watch on YouTube

;pp=ygUGZ29iZXJ0

[donkki]

Denver loses Game 1

call me Nostradamus

This was a fairly certain outcome, as Minnesota is a nightmare matchup for the Nuggets. Don't need to be a Nostradamus to see how Minnesota will win this series.