Denver’s catastrophe in the third game of the playoff series with Minnesota – Nikola Jokic and the team were already trailing by 20 points in the first quarter and did not threaten the hosts once until the end of the match, as they achieved a convincing victory.
To describe the Nuggets’ play, it is best to start precisely with the performance of the Serbian basketball player, who, truth be told, recorded a seemingly high 27 points, but with a catastrophic shooting percentage of only 26% (7-26, 2-10 for three points), had 15 rebounds, 4 turnovers, and only three assists, the fewest in the entire season.
Precisely that huge difference in the number of assists (31-12) in favor of Minnesota speaks to which team played collective basketball tonight in the spirit of “all for one, one for all,” while the Nuggets’ aces, primarily Jokic and Murray, kept taking shots, leaving little space for others to branch out and catch a collective rhythm.
Murray scored 16, Hardaway 11 points, and that was it from the desperate Denver.
On the other hand, among the inspired Timberwolves, as many as 6 players had double-digit performances, and the best among them was Dosunmu with 25 points (9 ast) whom, let us remind you, the Chicago Bulls discarded as redundant just a few months ago. Excellent performances were provided by McDaniels with 20, Edwards with 17, Randle and DiVincenzo with 15 each, and Gobert, in addition to a performance of 10 points and 12 rebounds, totally shut down Jokic, on whom he even slapped three “blocks.”
David Adelman, the son of the man for whom the legendary Drazen Petrovic warmed the bench for two years, showed that the splinter does not fall far from the log and that the Nuggets have nothing to look for with him in serious playoff matches and the fight for the title. Without an idea of how to break Minnesota’s brutal streak, how to motivate his players, change the course of the game…
Denver plays the next match in Minnesota again in two days, and if they continue in this spirit, it is unlikely the series will last much longer. Hope dies last, although Denver has not given us many reasons for optimism in these three games.
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Author: Antonije Kovačević Photo: AP