There’s no doubt that the Timberwolves headed into Game Three with the confidence of winners. Having emerged with victories in the high-altitude lair of the Nuggets, they figured on consolidating their preeminent position by holding court at the Target Center. Unfortunately, they looked flat from tipoff, and the seeming nonchalance with which they greeted the task at hand was all the opening the defending titleholders needed to show that the series is far from settled.
By the time halftime rolled around, the Timberwolves stared at a 15-point deficit borne of a striking inability to keep pace with the well-prepared Nuggets. If they thought they had any advantage that brought them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven matchup, it was promptly disabused in the face of the competition’s systematic thwarting of their efforts. Clearly, champion head coach Michael Malone spent the intervening days between Games Two and Three breaking down film and coming up with resilient countermeasures.
To be sure, the Timberwolves appeared to have been thrown off by the tighter officiating that allowed the Nuggets to execute with precision. The latter saw fit to resort to the Nikola Jokic-Jamal Murray high-screen-and-roll action early and often, and the quick whistles of the arbiters prevented them from resorting to the constant physicality that they employed in the two previous contests. And with the baskets came the self-assurance that hitherto appeared to abandon the blue and yellow.
In any case, the Timberwolves stayed ill-equipped in the third quarter; in fact, they were even worse. And by the time the final canto began, the outcome was all but a foregone conclusion. Certainly, lethargy overcame the supposedly lethal duo of Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns. ‘I’ll take the blame for this loss. I came out with no energy at all. I can’t afford to do that for my team. I let my team down, coaches down, fans down,” the 22-year-old two-time All-Star often compared to all-time-great Michael Jordan admitted.
The good news is that today is literally another day, and if there’s anything that bench tactician Chris Finch has underscored, it’s his capacity to use any intervening time to make critical adjustments at least as well as Malone does. He knows how important Game Four is to their cause. Prevail, and they subsequently get three chances to advance to the conference finals. Suffer another setback, and they will have reduced the series to a two-out-of-three affair. In short, their destiny is theirs to carve.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human esources management, corporate communications, and business development.
T-Wolves vs Nuggets
Philippines Pandemic
إرسال تعليق