We had two NBA playoff games last night with the Pistons taking down the Magic (and me taking a loss on my play) thanks to an absolutely brutal third quarter from Orlando.
In the other game, the Thunder were able to beat the Suns with ease, but that one game went much closer to how I predicted it would go. Tonight, we have three games that are all listed with tight spreads. Let’s take a look at how we should play the Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 3.
The Nuggets lost home-court advantage in the last game when they dropped Game 2 to the Timberwolves. However, I’m not sure that it matters all that much. Almost everyone expected this game to go at least six games. We aren’t quite there yet as both teams still need to win one more game, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if they split this set in Minnesota. Denver has the best player in the game with Nikola Jokic, so it isn’t like they will lose this series 4-1. That stuff just doesn’t really happen in the NBA.
Denver doesn’t need to do a ton of things differently in order to win a game. They lost Game 2 by five points, so it wasn’t a blowout, and they led the game for 65% of the time. I personally believe the bigger problem for the Nuggets was going up big to start the game. When you get a big lead, teams can tend to take their foot off of the gas. Denver did and the Timberwolves responded.
Minnesota is not without a superstar of their own. Anthony Edwards is probably the most fun player in the league to watch. He is flashy, cocky, and afraid of no one. That typically is a good combination for players to find success in this league. He hasn’t been overly efficient so far in the series, shooting under 40% from the floor and just 25% from deep.
If you’re Chris Finch, the head coach, you don’t want to tell him to stop shooting. Maybe advise him to drive a bit more, but he can hit a ton of threes.
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I also feel like we need to give a bit of kudos to Rudy Gobert. He is a guy who takes a lot of garbage from people. Some of it is deserved, some of it is a little overstated. He has four Defensive Player of the Year awards under his belt and has done as good of a job against Jokic as you could expect. He does need to improve his rebounding and free throws in order to be on the floor at crunch time, though.
For Game 3, there is one key piece of information that I think gives us the correct play. Jaden McDaniels called out the entire Nuggets team on his podcast (honestly, it could be someone else’s podcast; everyone seems to have one in the NBA). He said it before Game 2, but I don’t think it really made its way into the Nuggets’ focus until after the game.
I expect the Nuggets to lock in on defense in this game, as most of McDaniels’ remarks were about how bad they all are on defense. Minnesota should be rocking for the playoff game, but I think the total is too high for them. Specifically, the Timberwolves team total is 116.5, and I think it goes under.
You can say NBA teams don’t play with pride often, but they tend to after being called out.
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