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

[kodo]

17 points from Murray isn't going to get them past Minny.
Last year vs Minny he was 27 ppg on 47%/43%/91% shooting. If he's really just too injured to play like he did last year, a repeat doesn't look likely.

[syrus3]

Bruce Brown chose to take Indy’s money. Quit beating a dead horse.

It was actually KAT going to the locker room that changed the momentum. Minny plays Denver better when he’s out.

[life_saver]

17 points from Murray isn't going to get them past Minny.
Last year vs Minny he was 27 ppg on 47%/43%/91% shooting. If he's really just too injured to play like he did last year, a repeat doesn't look likely.

Wolves did not have McDaniels last year who is Wolves best perimeter defender...both McDaniels and Naz missed entire Nuggets series last year due to injuries

[AleksandarN]

Do the Nuggets blow it up if they swept
Besides Jokic would they trade Murray?

They are not like the Lakers and LeGm who throws their coaches under the bus. Salty laker fans are the best though keep it up lol

[life_saver]

Bruce Brown chose to take Indy’s money. Quit beating a dead horse.

It was actually KAT going to the locker room that changed the momentum. Minny plays Denver better when he’s out.

I don't think there is much evidence for this..KAT despite his stupid fouls, is more important for Wolves in this Nuggets matchup more than any other matchup. In games vs Nuggets, KAT is the primary defender on Jokic and Gobert usually roams and covers Gordon. Jokic will still get his but KAT usually does an okay job in defending Jokic. Also Naz has been bad so far in this playoffs until 2nd half...he has been rushing things a bit and lot of turnovers. Hopefully the 2nd half performance can settle down things a bit

[life_saver]

People see what agrees with their opinions, and don’t see things that challenge them.

People love Naz, so they ignore his horrible first half and only remember his fourth quarter.

People hate KAT, so they ignore his scoring and great passes, and only remember dumb fouls.

yep..Naz has been relatively disappointing so far this playoffs..even today his first half performance was quite frustrating but I was so relieved to finally see him find his groove in 2nd half. He missed so many wide open looks in the Suns series

[jkvonny]

Do the Nuggets blow it up if they swept
Besides Jokic would they trade Murray?

No.

Nuggz in way better shape than LAL.

LAL is old, declining, not so great team. With another coach hiring/firing looming.

Denver is elite, younger. more stability, and will be for years to come. Just won an NBA title last season, banged up now too. Might need to shore up their bench, but nothing like the circus/mess in LA.

[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.

[Mamba Mentality]

Denver’s bench will be their undoing. Bruce Brown and Jeff Green both played massive roles last postseason. Their 6-8 guys this season are a joke.

[Jedi32]

Do the Nuggets blow it up if they swept
Besides Jokic would they trade Murray?

They are not like the Lakers and LeGm who throws their coaches under the bus. Salty laker fans are the best though keep it up lol

You're right ,you're not like lebron or the Lakers they both have more championships than your team all time. Now I don't think the Nuggets will blow it up, but just because someone has an opinion different from yours does not make them salty.

[AleksandarN]

Do the Nuggets blow it up if they swept
Besides Jokic would they trade Murray?

They are not like the Lakers and LeGm who throws their coaches under the bus. Salty laker fans are the best though keep it up lol

You're right ,you're not like lebron or the Lakers they both have more championships than your team all time. Now I don't think the Nuggets will blow it up, but just because someone has an opinion different from yours does not make them salty.

Lol apparently haven’t seen his other posts today. But go a head white knight this guy. Lebron has 4 titles good for him. I prefer to have a player and team who doesn’t need super teams in order to win a championships.

[Oscirus]

Honestly, I wouldnt be skurred just yet if I was a nugget, this was just a wakeup call to show that sleepwalking **** they did against the Lakers won't fly against the wolves. I suspect they'll smoke minny in game 2

[jkvonny]

Great job by the TWolves assistant coach (Nori) as well. While Finch recovers.

[Onus]

Denver just doesn’t look the same as last year. Jokic is going to have to take over like he did last year for them to even have a chance.

Okay, but also Minnesota is a better team than any they played in last year's playoffs also.

Yea the wolves are better and the nuggets are worse and last year Jokic still needed to have big games to beat the wolves. It seems like Jokic is going to need 40 for this to be competitive especially with how Murray has looked all playoffs.

[hardenASG13]

To those complaining about the Nuggets bench after game 1. Look at the top 3 off the bench for the teams they played last year.

Minny: Anderson, prince, Jaylen nowell (starting NAW)
Phoenix: Shamet, Landale, TJ Warren
Lakers: Rui, Schroeder, Lonnie Walker
Heat: Lowry, Martin, Duncan Robinson

It's not exactly a murderers row. This isn't on the bench it's on Jokic, if he's really an all time great. Let's see him get his team pumped up like Ant does. Gotta see some leadership and aggression out of him the rest of this series.

[BigGargamel]

Do the Nuggets blow it up if they swept
Besides Jokic would they trade Murray?

LOL my goodness

Why am I even here? You guys are on some today.

[Mamba Mentality]

Starting to believe Ant might really be HIM.

[Sedale Threatt]

if he's really an all time great

That's not even in dispute anymore.

[Chuck Everett]

To those complaining about the Nuggets bench after game 1. Look at the top 3 off the bench for the teams they played last year.

Minny: Anderson, prince, Jaylen nowell (starting NAW)
Phoenix: Shamet, Landale, TJ Warren
Lakers: Rui, Schroeder, Lonnie Walker
Heat: Lowry, Martin, Duncan Robinson

It's not exactly a murderers row. This isn't on the bench it's on Jokic, if he's really an all time great. Let's see him get his team pumped up like Ant does. Gotta see some leadership and aggression out of him the rest of this series.

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.

[Jaqua92]

To those complaining about the Nuggets bench after game 1. Look at the top 3 off the bench for the teams they played last year.

Minny: Anderson, prince, Jaylen nowell (starting NAW)
Phoenix: Shamet, Landale, TJ Warren
Lakers: Rui, Schroeder, Lonnie Walker
Heat: Lowry, Martin, Duncan Robinson

It's not exactly a murderers row. This isn't on the bench it's on Jokic, if he's really an all time great. Let's see him get his team pumped up like Ant does. Gotta see some leadership and aggression out of him the rest of this series.

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.