The Nuggets and Timberwolves are meeting in the playoffs for the third time in the past four years and the two Northwest clubs have developed one of the NBA’s best rivalries during that time. After Minnesota evened up their first-round series on Monday by stealing Game 2 in Denver, Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels added more fuel to that fire when he was asked about his team’s offensive game plan.
“Go at (Nikola) Jokic, Jamal (Murray), all the bad defenders,” McDaniels said (Twitter video link via Chris Hine of The Star Tribune). “Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, their whole team.”
Asked to clarify whether he was referring to all of those players as bad defenders, McDaniels doubled down.
“Yeah, they’re all bad defenders,” he responded.
The Nuggets had the league’s best offensive rating during the regular season but ranked just 21st in defensive rating, behind sub-.500 teams like Dallas and Golden State. After holding the Wolves to 105 points in Game 1, Denver surrendered 119 in Monday’s loss. We’ll see if McDaniels’ bulletin-board material provides the Nuggets with a spark for Game 3 back in Minnesota.
Here’s more on the two division rivals and their best-of-seven series:
- Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, wasn’t thrilled about not being a finalist for the award this year. Gobert, who finished fourth in DPOY voting, used the perceived snub as motivation in Game 2, holding Jokic to 1-of-8 shooting while he was guarding him, per Anthony Slater of ESPN. After the game, Gobert suggested with his tongue in cheek that he got “lucky” since only a “top-three defender” could’ve slowed down the Nuggets star like that. “Not the first time I’ve gotten disrespected,” Gobert added. “Probably not the last. If you want to disrespect greatness, take it for granted, whatever, soon they’ll realize the impact.”
- The 40 minutes that Anthony Edwards played in Game 2 represented his highest single-game total in over three months, but he grimaced and grabbed at his sore right knee a few times in the second half of the game, Slater notes. Still, Edwards downplayed the issue after the win and suggested he didn’t score his 30 points very efficiently. “I missed 15 shots tonight, two free throws,” he said after going 10-of-25 from the floor. “I’ll be better.”
- Jason Quick of The Athletic profiles Hardaway, who signed with the Nuggets on a one-year, minimum-salary contract and has been an invaluable jack-of-all-trades as the team dealt with a series of injuries to starters and other rotation players throughout the season. Nuggets executive VP of player personnel Jon Wallace referred to the veteran swingman as having “immense value for us,” and head coach David Adelman agreed. “Beyond what I expected,” Adelman said of Hardaway. “He is one of the main, main reasons why we survived this season. The guy won us games. Flat out. Just really, really impactful.”
Jaden McDaniels is a for-real defender. He should work on his offensive game, because he has all of the physical tools to be a very good scorer.
He has! He’s made a huge jump offensively from last year to this year. I anticipate he’ll continue to grow
Popcorn out
Anyone else think the refs were atrocious ? Massively favored wolves after nuggets got better whistle in game 1. That phantom foul that Brothers upheld after review was criminal.
don’t know what to make of it given how lopsided it seemed watching , yet guys out there weren’t complaining as much as they normally would. Just weird vibes
Regardless this’ll be 7 fun azz games
I agree the refs are atrocious so far this series, but in favor of the Wolves? LOL! The first 15 minutes the refs whistled the Wolves for BREATHING on the Nuggets players. Then they didn’t call ANYTHING for a little while and then they called everything inconsistently. Jokic should have fouled out, but doesn’t get called for half of his fouls and yet Rudy boxes him out and Jokic flops and gets an offensive foul called in his favor. NONE of the Nuggets fans should whine about the refs this series so far!
I agree on the reffing. Just crappy. The announcers were all over it, maybe too much commentary about bad calls. I mean McDaniels shouldn’t have been called with his hand on the hip, but I can see why he was: he had his hand on the hip while both players were in the air. Bad call, move on.
I also agree that vibe of the game was weird. Neither team could really get in a rhythm. This is definitely the best first round matchup. Detroit-Orlando has some potential though. NY-ATL seems like a series destined to be defined by which team is going to blow it, not which team is going to win it.