The Timberwolves came into the first round as the most popular upset pick by many pundits. Instead, they looked like the most dominant team in the playoffs (sans the Thunder who ran the Pelicans out of the gym).
Meanwhile, the Nuggets came in as the favorites to come out of the West. They handily dispatched the Lakers in five games — though a little unconvincingly I might add. (The Lakers led for 165 of 240 minutes of the series despite only winning one game.) Maybe the Nuggets are just the most clutch time in history… but it seems a little unsustainable to keep playing that way.
Now, the Nuggets and Timberwolves match up in (easily) the most anticipated second-round series, tipping off Saturday evening. Let’s take a look at what we can expect.
The Jokic Matchup
Nikola Jokic will likely receive a familiar setup on the offensive end as the one he just finished against the Los Angeles Lakers in Round One. The Timberwolves have traditionally preferred to let Rudy Gobert defend Aaron Gordon and roam the paint as a help defender while putting the smaller of their two bigs on Jokic. In four regular season contests, this resulted in Karl-Anthony Towns, Naz Reid, and even Kyle Anderson getting a crack at locking up Jokic.
The Wolves will generally let Jokic go one-on-one against them with help defenders sticking to outside shooters and Gobert under the basket preventing easy layups. When Jokic is defended this way, he tends to look to score more.
In their four games, Jokic averaged a measly 4.3 assists per game — almost five fewer than his regular season average. Conversely, his scoring went up to 33.3 points per game from 26.4 in those games.
On a team level, this defensive strategy seems to have its merits. Across the full season, the Nuggets had a 122.4 offensive rating with Jokic on the floor per NBA.com — tied for second for all players to play more than half of the season. Against the Timberwolves, that number drops to 116.1.
(If you’re unfamiliar, offensive rating for an individual player measures the number of points a team scores per 100 possessions when they are on the floor.)
In particular, the Nuggets had the most success when Naz Reid defended Jokic, averaging 1.39 points per possession when being defended by him — an elite mark. Reid does not have the same strength as Gobert or Towns and can be bullied by Jokic. Look for Jokic to be extra aggressive in getting to his spots when Reid guards him.
The Murray Matchup
Jaden McDaniels does not get a break in the second round. After predominantly guarding Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in Round One, he will spend the bulk of this series on Jamal Murray.
Murray is familiar with McDaniels after being defended by him more than almost any other player during the regular season. The sample size is small but Murray managed to shoot 64.7% against him in 89 possessions (11/17 from the field, 5/5 from three). The Nuggets scored 1.15 points per possession when McDaniels guarded Murray — a pretty reasonable number against such an elite defense.
For whatever reason, in their most recent matchup, McDaniels went under many of the screens for Murray.
Jamal Murray proceeded to cook the Timberwolves for 20 points on 61.5% shooting. I do not expect McDaniels to go under the screens so consistently in this series.
The Edwards Matchup
Like Murray, Anthony Edwards gets the honor of being shadowed by one of the elite perimeter defenders in the league, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Edwards faired well in this matchup during the regular season shooting 17/28 with ten assists and three turnovers.
The Nuggets will likely bring more help in this series than in the regular season. Expect more possessions like the one below where Jokic is on the screener’s hip, preventing Edwards from getting a runway to the rim and Christian Braun overhelps to get the ball out of his hand or force a tough shot. (Edwards takes the tough shot here and still makes it. If only we were all gifted enough to make shots like this.)
The Unknowns
It’s hard to know what to expect from Karl-Anthony Towns. He played the first game against the Nuggets in November but missed all the recent contests. Gordon will defend him giving Towns a much more physical matchup than he got in Round One with Kevin Durant.
Towns only played 28 minutes per game in Round One — I’d expect that number to go up and Kyle Anderson’s minutes to go down in this round. Towns has traditionally been a playoff negative, though he played well in the first round averaging 19 points per game on 52% shooting from three. The biggest knock in his game has consistently come out in the playoffs: he fouls too much. He had at least four fouls in every game last round, many of them being dumb offensive fouls. He needs to be more disciplined.
The Nuggets bench — as always — is a key factor in this series. Against the Lakers, the Nuggets were +19 when Jokic was on the floor — and -8 in the 38 minutes he rested. That’s survivable for the Nuggets. The danger zone for the Nuggets is when they lose every minute that Jokic isn’t playing by multiple points (that’s something 76ers fans have had to face in the Knicks series with Joel Embiid.)
The Bottom Line
This series projects to be a barnburner. They split the regular season matchup 2-2 with the Timberwolves winning by a total of 22 points. (Much of that came in a 21-point win in November — the only game Towns played in.)
The Timberwolves are one of the few teams in the league that can match the physicality of Denver’s frontcourt in Jokic and Gordon — and vice versa with Gobert and Towns. They are foils of each other in many ways.
Denver is an elite offensive rebounding team; Minnesota is a very good defensive rebounding team. Denver is an elite offensive team; Minnesota has the best defense in the league. Minnesota forces more turnovers than almost anyone; Denver does a great job taking care of the ball.
And yet, in other ways, they are similar.
Both teams play at glacial speeds — expect this series to be a slog with very few transition points. Both teams play an old-school, paint-bound game, taking a small number of high-percentage threes. The first team to 100 — heck, maybe even 90 — will win most of these games.
Minnesota will have the advantage in free throws — they had the 5th-highest free throw attempt rate this season. Denver will need to make up for this by forcing turnovers — something that’s out of character for them — and crashing the offensive glass. Minnesota can be turnover-prone, but they can torch a passive defense as they showed against the Suns last round.
I expect this to be a long series with many twists and turns. There will be tweaks to the rotation and strategies employed throughout the series, but both teams know who they are. They will stick to their identity through thick and thin — one, a defensive powerhouse bent on suffocating their opponents, and the other a physical group that plays with a cohesion and togetherness that few have achieved in recent memory.
I’ll take the Nuggets in 7, banking on their playoff experience and home-court advantage (having the best player in the world doesn’t hurt either) to see them through.