The Minnesota Timberwolves have been arguably the most impressive team in these playoffs. The Timberwolves swept the Phoenix Suns in the first round and are up 2-1 against the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Semifinals and LeBron James explained what their advantage is over every team in the league.
“Obviously, Minnesota’s advantage, which they have in our league in general no matter if it’s versus Denver or versus anybody, is their length that they have at the wing positions,” James said on his Mind the Game podcast. “You don’t look at Mike Conley as a tall guy, but his length. He has a lot of length out there.
“Obviously, (Anthony) Edwards, a lot of length. Jaden McDaniels, length. (Karl-Anthony Towns), length. Rudy (Gobert), length,” James continued. “They come off with Nickeil Alexander-Walker, length. Naz Reid, length. Who else? Kyle Anderson. They just continue to barrage you with length, length, length, and then guys that also know how to play, too.”
“So it’s been their biggest advantage cause they’ve bought in to coach Finch’s defensive schemes or whoever their defensive coordinator is there,” James stated. “And those guys have bought into the defensive end. And it’s not only that they bought into the defensive end, they got guys that want to defend and make their mark on the defensive end, so that creates havoc for any team.”
(starts at 0:30 mark):
The Timberwolves zigged when so many others zagged. While teams went small in order to duplicate the kind of success that the Golden State Warriors had, Minnesota got bigger. They doubled down on that by trading for Rudy Gobert to pair him with Karl-Anthony Towns.
It wasn’t viewed as the smartest of moves at the time, but the Timberwolves are now reaping the rewards of it. Their size gave the Suns a ton of headaches and helped put the clamps on the Nuggets in the first two games of their second-round series.
The Timberwolves have now limited their opponents to just 45.0% shooting from the field, which is the lowest in these playoffs. They limited the Nuggets to just 80 points in Game 2, which was their lowest tally of the season (regular season and playoffs combined).
In Game 3, however, the Nuggets put on an offensive clinic to win 117-90 and it will be interesting to see what kind of adjustments the Timberwolves make in Game 4. In some ways, I think that contest is a bit of a must-win for both teams and the winner might well end up winning the series.
LeBron James Also Spoke On The Lakers’ Loss To The Nuggets
The Nuggets set up this clash with the Timberwolves by beating LeBron and the Los Angeles Lakers in five games in the first round. In this episode, James also spoke on the Lakers’ playoff exit to the Nuggets.
LeBron felt LA had many opportunities to win some of the games they lost. The 39-year-old added that if a couple of plays here and there went in their favor, they could have won the series.
James did admit, though, that the better team won at the end of the day and that the Nuggets deserved credit for getting the job done. The 20-time All-Star stated that you can’t make mistakes against a team like that and the Lakers just made one too many of them.
Thank you for being a valued reader of Fadeaway World. If you liked this article, please consider following us on Google News. We really appreciate your support.
