NBA Fans Blast Nikola Jokić, Nuggets as Anthony Edwards, Wolves Take 2-0 Series Lead
Scott Polacek@@ScottPolacek
Featured Columnist IVMay 7, 2024
The reigning champions are on the ropes.
The Minnesota Timberwolves shocked the Denver Nuggets with a 106-80 victory in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series on Monday at Ball Arena. Minnesota won each of the first two contests on the road and now has a 2-0 lead with the chance to win the series in the next two games at home.
And it won Game 2 without its defensive anchor since Rudy Gobert was out for personal reasons with the birth of his first child.
Anthony Edwards (27 points and seven assists on 11-of-17 shooting from the field) and Karl-Anthony Towns (27 points and 12 rebounds on 10-of-15 shooting from the field) helped make up for his absence, while the Minnesota defense set the tone from the start.
Nikola Jokić had 16 points, 16 rebounds and eight assists, but Jamal Murray went 3-of-18 from the field while the Nuggets as a whole drew criticism for their performance:
All the pressure was on Denver since the Timberwolves already stole home-court advantage with their Game 1 win. That the visitors were playing without Gobert only made it feel like more of a must-win for a Nuggets team facing a playoff series deficit for the first time since 2022.
And Denver cracked under that pressure.
Minnesota stunned the crowd by jumping out to a commanding 26-point halftime lead with Towns and Edwards expectedly leading the way. It was far from just the stars, though, as the Timberwolves' team defense stifled everyone but Aaron Gordon in the first half and turned Jokić into a turnover machine at times.
Frustration was the prevalent theme for Denver, so much so that Murray even threw a heat pack onto the court from the bench as the game was ongoing:
It's been a long time since the second half of a Nuggets playoff game was largely a formality because they were the ones trailing by so much. But that was the reality Monday, which is a testament to Minnesota's incredible performance and Jokić and Co. looking uncharacteristically terrible.
Even when the home team took some momentum into the fourth quarter by trimming the deficit from 32 to 22, the Timberwolves answered with critical three-pointers from Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Towns and Edwards.
The latter even added more fuel to the Michael Jordan comparisons with a shrug celebration:
The result was an outcome that was never truly in doubt, and the Timberwolves will now look to pull further ahead of the Nuggets when the series shifts to Minnesota for Friday's Game 3.