For the third time in four years, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets are meeting in the NBA playoffs, and that kind of familiarity tends to breed contempt.
After Denver cruised in Game 1, the Timberwolves evened the series on Monday night by erasing an early 19-point deficit to come back and win, 119-114. The Wolves were led by Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle, who combined for 54 points, as Minnesota seemed to crack the code for attacking the Nuggets’ defense.
As for what the Wolves figured out, Jaden McDaniels offered a blunt response that won’t leave the Nuggets searching hard for a little added motivation heading to Minnesota for Game 3.
“Go at Jokić, Jamal, all the bad defenders. Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team. Just go at ’em,” McDaniels explained after the game.
“Yeah, they’re all bad defenders,” McDaniels confirmed. “They don’t got people that can defend the rim, and if he is there, we’re still more athletic than him and just gotta be able to finish when we do.”
The Jokić and Murray part isn’t exactly bulletin board material, as the book on Denver for years has been to make Jokić defend in space and to take advantage of Murray’s lack of size by putting him in actions on the perimeter. That was how Minnesota began to make its move in the second quarter to claw back into the game, with Edwards and Randle working the two-man game to spark the offense.
When the Nuggets were at their best, they had versatile defenders around that dominant offensive duo to cover for their defensive weaknesses. The question for this current Nuggets team is whether there is that same kind of floor balance to make a run at a title or if they can be picked apart to the degree McDaniels seems to think is possible.
The clip above will get plenty of run in both markets, and you can tell McDaniels really starts to feel it once he moves beyond highlighting Jokić and Murray. By the time he throws in Aaron Gordon — who is objectively Denver’s best defender — he’s really cooking.
A team shouldn’t need any added juice for the playoffs, especially against an opponent that has become one of their main rivals, but the Nuggets will undoubtedly pass this around and hope to make McDaniels eat his words by the end of this series. The Wolves, meanwhile, will love McDaniels’ bravado and try to prove him right by continuing to carve up the Denver defense back home in Minnesota, where they can seize control of the series with two wins to take a 3-1 lead.
