Jaden was an absolute monster. Rudy held the fort down. Whenever he got switched off on one of Suns big stars on the perimeter, he shut them down. Rudy kicks ass. Mike diving on the floor and giving us the punch we needed in the 2nd was big. Our defense has made the high powered Suns offense seem very pedestrian. A lot to like from these first 2 games.
"Come up off your smooth talk player, this raspy. You stuck on Morse code player, this ASCII."
This team is extremely tough to beat when they are allowed to play defense...and so much more fun to watch than those 145-140 games. I'm loving this playoff basketball!
Big kudos to Jaden tonight. He was absolutely phenomenal, offensively and defensively. Keep it up young man!
A$$MAN wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 11:26 pm
This team is extremely tough to beat when they are allowed to play defense...and so much more fun to watch than those 145-140 games. I'm loving this playoff basketball!
Big kudos to Jaden tonight. He was absolutely phenomenal, offensively and defensively. Keep it up young man!
100%.
This is good basketball.
“When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”
Jaden was the one driving the seams aggressively when the ball was being worked around the perimeter. Multiple times, he would attack the off balance defense and get a really good shot at the cup. He just was absolutely working. Was playing harder than damn near everyone and showed. He had the mindset of F this I'm taking the ball to the rim and going to get me a good shot. Well done young Jaden.
Perhaps his best two games of the season in these first 2 playoff games.
"Come up off your smooth talk player, this raspy. You stuck on Morse code player, this ASCII."
Jaden, NAW, Gobert, Conley Jr., Naz and Ant at times have been dominant on D this series so far. They come out ready, not letting the game come to them. Maybe they learned from last year and are maturing. They are crashing the boards as well, chasing down balls. It’s fun to watch. Keep this up, skies the limit. I like Finch’s quick TO trigger, this team needs it at times to stay focused on smart basketball. Use those challenges- can be 4-5 point swings.
LwnmwrMan222 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 10:16 pm
Was out dishwasher shopping since ours crapped out, and having some dinner. Tried to listen in-between stops and made it home in time to catch the last 4 minutes.
Nice to see Jaden have a big game.
Shows the Suns (and national viewers) the Wolves are an extremely balanced and deep team if they can all play without their heads up their ass like they did for a few games.
Hopefully the Wolves get #1 in PHX on Friday.
Get an Asko if you can. Do not get a fucking Samsung.
We have Samsung now. Had it for about 9 years so it served us well. One of the first black stainless when they first hit the market.
Jack Soo 5 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 9:57 pm
Mike and Naz with long locker room interviews on Bally post game. Putting their boy Jaden over big time, along with the fans and how they were huge both games
Reminiscent of this great locker room interview, Chilly said later this was one of his big regrets.
BuDG123 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 6:27 am
Jaden, NAW, Gobert, Conley Jr., Naz and Ant at times have been dominant on D this series so far. They come out ready, not letting the game come to them. Maybe they learned from last year and are maturing. They are crashing the boards as well, chasing down balls. It’s fun to watch. Keep this up, skies the limit. I like Finch’s quick TO trigger, this team needs it at times to stay focused on smart basketball. Use those challenges- can be 4-5 point swings.
I forgot to mention that. At the end of the game, Wolves up by 11-12, somewhere in there, they go down and take a quick shot, miss, Suns come back and make a FG. Finch immediately called a timeout, even though he had just called one a minute or so earlier.
Coming out of the time out, Wolves were definitely slowing the pace, something we here had said often, and why they blew some leads late in games.
When you're up 8-10-12+ points, quit taking quick shots. Run the clock. Just like football. The clock is your friend. No reason to just run down and take a shit within 4 seconds.
Jack Soo 5 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 9:57 pm
Mike and Naz with long locker room interviews on Bally post game. Putting their boy Jaden over big time, along with the fans and how they were huge both games
Reminiscent of this great locker room interview, Chilly said later this was one of his big regrets.
Jack Soo 5 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 9:57 pm
Mike and Naz with long locker room interviews on Bally post game. Putting their boy Jaden over big time, along with the fans and how they were huge both games
Reminiscent of this great locker room interview, Chilly said later this was one of his big regrets.
LwnmwrMan222 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 10:16 pm
Was out dishwasher shopping since ours crapped out, and having some dinner. Tried to listen in-between stops and made it home in time to catch the last 4 minutes.
Nice to see Jaden have a big game.
Shows the Suns (and national viewers) the Wolves are an extremely balanced and deep team if they can all play without their heads up their ass like they did for a few games.
Hopefully the Wolves get #1 in PHX on Friday.
Get an Asko if you can. Do not get a fucking Samsung.
We have Samsung now. Had it for about 9 years so it served us well. One of the first black stainless when they first hit the market.
Picked up a Bosch 800 series.
That’s what we have.
Bosch is very good, but I thought I married a dishwasher….
You could feel it happening at some point in the third quarter Tuesday — a near carbon copy of Saturday’s occurrence — Phoenix submitted.
After fighting, scratching and clawing for 30 minutes to hang with the stronger, more physical Wolves, the Suns eventually tossed in the towel. Such was the case in Game 2 on Tuesday, where Minnesota utilized a 10-0 run — a span in which the Suns were scoreless for four minutes — to turn a three-point deficit into a seven-point lead.
Minnesota led by six early in the fourth, before an 11-0 run essentially closed the contest as the Wolves pulled away for a 105-93 victory.
After a pair of blowout victories, Minnesota leads the series 2-0 with Game 3 scheduled for Friday for the first of a pair of weekend contests in Phoenix.
At this point, who knows if a Game 5 back at Target Center will be necessary.
A “Wolves in 4” chant broke out at Target Center late in the fourth quarter.
The Suns either can’t or won’t box Minnesota for 48 minutes, and it’s likely a combination of the two. After being routed in three regular-season bouts with Phoenix, the Wolves have turned the first two playoff games into a street fight.
And the Suns can only take so many punches.
“We have guys who like to guard. Guys who take a challenge,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “They have guys who can really score it. So every single time down you’re in a fistfight, and our guys are doing it right now. Rudy’s providing all the help needed behind them.”
Minnesota’s defensive physicality has clearly worn the Suns down. They make silly turnovers — 20 giveaways Tuesday led to 31 Minnesota points — and, by game’s end, they’re too tired to run in transition or compete on the defensive end.
It all stems back to the defense, which makes you work for every single bucket. And, especially in these playoffs, the crowd seems as energized by a stop as much as anything else.
It’s all feeding into each other right now, creating an atmosphere that will be difficult for any intruder to thrive in.
“It’s huge. Especially with a team like that – that’s an offensive-minded team. And, for us, I think when we’re playing defense, that’s kind of what matters. I’ve been saying all year that’s our identity. So everybody feels the energy, everybody feels that excitement and things like that. It feels good to get a stop,” Naz Reid said. “So I think you work hard and you put your best foot forward into that possession and those possessions I think you kind of want that credit. So the crowd feels that energy, we all feel that energy – the coaches, the players, everybody. Everybody has that fire under them.”
And, in turn, it depletes Phoenix. The Wolves simply wear you out. Reid noted he can feel it at a certain point in the game.
“For sure. We can see it. I can feel it. I can see them. It’s tough. No one likes going against the type of defense that we’re playing right now,” Gobert said. “Jaden, Ant, Mike, all these guys, are being really tough on the ball. Then you have me and KAT on the backside. It’s a total team effort. We really try to compete every single possession. Obviously, they have some generational talent offensively, so it’s a big challenge for us. I’m really proud of the way guys are taking that challenge.”
The Wolves wear you down with an army of talented players that runs as deep as any roster in the NBA. In Game 1, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Reid and Anthony Edwards led the charge.
On Tuesday, Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert were brilliant in the first half while Minnesota struggled to find its way offensively. Conley had 14 of his 18 points in the first half.
Gobert tallied 18 points and nine rebounds. and the star of the night was Jaden McDaniels, the two-way wing who has struggled at times with his offense this season. But he was effectively aggressive Tuesday to the tune of 25 points and eight rebounds while hounding Phoenix’s star perimeter players on the other end.
Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Brad Beal all logged more than 40 minutes in what felt like a last-gasp effort for Phoenix. Frankly, they have to play big minutes given Phoenix’s thin rotation that lost a key contributor in the third quarter when Grayson Allen left with another ankle injury.
But Phoenix’s “Big 3” certainly don’t seem to fit that moniker at the moment. None of the three ever were able to truly take charge of the game. There was no rhythm established. The Suns played like a desperate team in the first half, like they knew they needed to win that game.
They stuck to their defensive principles. They were much more competitive on the glass. They ran a number of actions designed to get their best players some separation.
None of it mattered. Minnesota withstood it all. Beal, Durant and Booker all looked incredibly ordinary.
This series pitted the NBA’s No. 1 defense against the team full of offense firepower. The former is currently winning with ease.
“When we sat down in training camp and said what team do we want to be, we said we wanted to be a defensive-minded team and be the best in the league,” Gobert said. “We can be unique, but it comes with a price. It comes with doing the dirty work, it comes with doing the things you don’t see on the stats and doing it consistently. I really felt like from Day 1 of training camp, everyone really bought in to be that team.”
It doesn’t feel like the Wolves’ best game is required to beat Phoenix. Because as long as the Wolves play with the requisite effort and intensity they figure to deliver every time they step onto the floor for a playoff contest, they’ll simply outlast the Suns.
They have too much ammo for this fight. Too many bodies to send at you. Too much effort and physicality to contend with.
As a result, this fight is quickly devolving into a “no contest.” Minnesota is two wins away from its first series win since 2004.
“It’s super satisfying, but it’s not over. You’ve got to kind of continue that and actually up it,” Reid said. “We’re trying to get to somewhere that we’ve never been. Two games don’t get it done. I think everybody has understood and knows the assignment and I think everybody is going to up it. I think we’re all ready for it.”
I say it now...if they can keep this defensive intensity the whole playoffs...no one will beat them. They may pull off a game if they are really lucky, but no one will take a series.
Catalyst wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 7:43 am
I say it now...if they can keep this defensive intensity the whole playoffs...no one will beat them. They may pull off a game if they are really lucky, but no one will take a series.
Denver vs. the Wolves is gonna be the real Finals this year
“We will protect the fanbase from Glen Taylor” -Alex Rodriguez.
Marc Lore - “I don’t care if that wrinkly old chicken roaster has a few more hairs on his head than I do, a deal is a deal.”
LwnmwrMan222 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 10:16 pm
Was out dishwasher shopping since ours crapped out, and having some dinner. Tried to listen in-between stops and made it home in time to catch the last 4 minutes.
Nice to see Jaden have a big game.
Shows the Suns (and national viewers) the Wolves are an extremely balanced and deep team if they can all play without their heads up their ass like they did for a few games.
Hopefully the Wolves get #1 in PHX on Friday.
Get an Asko if you can. Do not get a fucking Samsung.
We have Samsung now. Had it for about 9 years so it served us well. One of the first black stainless when they first hit the market.
