The Denver Nuggets, as long as they’re led by Nikola Jokic, are always going to have an elite offense. Their 122.5 offensive rating during the regular season was 1.4 points better than the second-place Boston Celtics.
Many thought the Minnesota Timberwolves would need to score at will in order to have any chance in their opening round matchup. Instead, they’ve held Denver to well under their scoring rate through two games, something that wasn’t seen during the Nuggets’ 12-game winning streak to end the regular season, as they often scored at will.
Denver’s offense hasn’t been as crisp in first two gamesÂ
In winning their final 12 contests of the regular season, the Nuggets’ lowest scoring total in that time was 116 points on March 29 against the Golden State Warriors. In the other 11 games, they finished with at least 121 points, with more than 130 in six of those (two of those went to OT).
Not that the Timberwolves have had a bad offense, but their calling card has been on the defensive end, particularly after acquiring Rudy Gobert. In the first two outings of the opening round, Minnesota has held Denver to 116 and 114 points. In just one of the four quarters in both games have the Nuggets totaled at least 30 points.
During the lengthy end-of-regular-season win streak, Denver shot no worse than 47.4 percent from the field in any of the 12 wins. They haven’t even come close to that low mark in the 2 playoff games, making 43.7 percent of their field goal tries in Game 1 and 44.2 percent in Game 2. The Nuggets haven’t shot that badly from the field since February 27, when they shot less than 42 percent in an overtime loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Even with all the misses, Denver hasn’t done much on the offensive glass and is allowing themselves second opportunities as the Timberwolves have been cleaning up their clanked shots. The Nuggets have accumulated just 13 offensive rebounds over the first two games after averaging nearly 11 during the 12-game win streak.
Gobert has done an excellent job on the Joker and seems to have extra motivation after finishing just fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Jaden McDaniels is talking smack and is always motivated to put the clamps on the opposition.
Everyone’s giving full effort, and that needs to continue in order for the Timberwolves to find three more wins in this series in order to advance.
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