In a surprising twist from last year’s World Championship run, the Denver Nuggets find themselves in a bind as they go down 0 – 2 Versus the Minnesota Timberwolves right in their home court.
If you can recall, last year, the Denver Nuggets only lost a total of four games on their way to the Championship. Right now, they have their hands full versus the versatile Minnesota Timberwolves.
If Game 1 was a nip and tuck, see-saw battle of nerves, this time the Timberwolves clamped down on their defense even without their big-man Rudy Gobert, as they coast to an easy 106 to 80 win.
The supposedly tough Denver Nuggets home court that have teams coming in from the lowlands trying to adjust to the rarefied air atmosphere had been a tough climb literally and figuratively to get a win. And yet the Timberwolves are in the driver’s seat with a rare two game cushion win over the defending champions and now going back to their home court.
Barring Any Adjustments, The Timberwolves Have A Big Chance To Wrap Up The Series In Their Home Court
It is still too early of course to write off the Nuggets despite these seemingly overpowering Timberwolves performance: Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., vital cogs in the Nuggets offense were held scoreless in the first quarter of the second game as the Timberwolves furiously came off the block to lead 28 to 20. The pressure continued to the point that Murray would remain scoreless for the first half while big-man Nikolai Jokic only had eight points, the lowest-combined score they have for the year.
This set the tone and complexion of the game as Denver did not make any challenge anymore the whole of the second half with te Timberwolves’ lead remaining unthreatened and not going below 19 points from that point onwards. Timberworlves stars Anhony Edwards (27 points for the games) and Karl Anthony Towns (27 points and 12 rebounds) did most of the damage ably supported by the rest of the team.
The rest of the statistics showed the difference: the Timberwolves shot at 50.6% from the field and 39.4% from the three point range (13 conversions from out of 33 attempts) while Denver shot a dismal 34.9% from the field and just 30% from the three-point range (9 conversions from 30 attempts)
SIDE NOTES FOR LOST ANGELES LAKERS FANS:
Lakers fans who were greatly disappointed with another first round play offs elimination for their team might get comfort with these facts from the current success of the Minnesota Timberwolves who are seemingly “kontra-pelo” foil for the Denver Nuggets to whom the Lakers lost badly:
- the Minnesota Franchise was the original Lakers Team; originally the Detroit Gems in 1946 it transferred to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1947
- the Lakers moniker is a throwback of the name of the Minneapolis, Minnesota Team that have lakes in their place. Minnesota is the land of 10,000 Lakes
- Los Angeles is in Southern California where Lakes are non-existent thus the misnomer of the Los Angeles Lakers. The Minneapolis Lakers transferred to Los Angeles at the start of the 1960 to 1961 season
- going back to franchise history will show the original use of the LAKERS in the team name adopted later on even if the team was transferred to Los Angeles California. For the LAKERS FAN THEN YOU ARE HAVING AN EXTENSION EXPERIENCE OF BEATING DENVER THRU MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES/LAKERS
–OLP
