Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Nuggets dropped Game 2 as Jokić and Murray went cold in the fourth quarter

It didn’t take long for Nuggets versus Timberwolves to become a special series. This is the third meeting in the last four years, which has built up animosity and on-court respect, and Game 2 should be remembered as a classic.

The Wolves took a bit longer to join the party at Ball Arena, going down 19 points in the first half as Jamal Murray pieced them up from short, middle and long range, plus they fouled three 3-point shots. They followed up cranking up their pressure and ball movement, which put snipers in rhythm, while Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle broke past defenders to the cup. 

It was a stalemate at intermission, and Nikola Jokić, who had a dormant first half, was the Terminator in the third quarter, making hooks, layups and a 3-pointer while carving up schemes with his passing. Such activities usually avert a crisis, but the Wolves kept hanging around because that was the Nuggets’ best shot of the game. 

Jokić and Murray subsequently went colder than blizzard as the outcome hung in the balance. Rudy Gobert, the four-time Defensive Player of the Year, deserves tons of props for slowing down Jokić to one of eight attempts, and he jammed a mean putback over him with two minutes left. On top of that, Naz Reid, Jaden McDaniels and Donte DiVincenzo’s offensive labor crushed Denver’s spirit. 

It gets worse. The Nuggets were down three points after Randle buried two freebies with 19 seconds left. Murray then ran a screen-roll with Jokić, but the Wolves were well prepared covering the arc, and he pulled up inside it, bricking it, which turned into DiVincenzo’s fastbreak dunk to close the curtains. 

The Nuggets lost 119-114 after seven ties and 15 lead changes. They got massacred in the trenches, as the Wolves scored 20 second-chance points to their three. Additionally, it didn’t help them that they stopped trusting Aaron Gordon. He’s one of the NBA’s most macho players, being irrepressible at close range so he should have got more touches. 

There’s no doubt, either, the epic comeback brought back memories to Nuggets players and supporters of when the Timberwolves came back from down 20 points to eliminate them in Game 7 two years ago in round two. One wonders how psychologically damaging it’ll be for the Nuggets that this team stays on them like a shadow. 

They now find themselves in the danger zone with home court flipping to Minnesota since Edwards can be much better from 3-point range, and the Wolves are not typically bad enough to blank 11 free throws, too (63.3 percent). Since coach David Adelman is not relying on the bench outside of Tim Hardaway Jr., and Bruce Brown, more weight is on the shoulders of the team’s top three to deliver.