How the Timberwolves shut down the Nuggets in Game 6

Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post

On the Timberwolves, who took a step back to blaze their way toward a Game 7 showdown with the Nuggets.

A common adage when it comes to seven-game playoff series is that there comes a point where adjustments cease to matter; where execution, talent and will take over. To a certain extent, that rings true for most high-level contests between two elite teams, including the current one between the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

With their backs against a 3-2 series wall and toiling for answers against Nikola Jokić and his teammates, it felt like the Wolves’ defense had nothing left to offer the Nuggets — or at the very least, nothing new to offer. The disadvantage of showing your cards early in a series is that once they are seemingly solved, panic often ensues, which can lead to identities being lost.

The operative terms: identities lost. It can be as simple as going away from what worked, or sticking with what worked but not executing them to the same degree. The Wolves fell into this trap as easily as they sprung their own to open the series with a 2-0 lead. Two massive steps forward were met with a pushback that drove them a step behind where they started.

How were they to respond? The answer — brilliantly displayed by the Wolves during their 115-70 shellacking of the Nuggets to send the series to a do-or-die Game 7 — was to take a step back in order to blaze forward.

In this sense, stepping back meant not changing any overarching coverage choices and not doing anything mind-blowingly new (or so it seemed). They practically played the same old cards they flashed the Nuggets’ way — a risky proposition against a team whose ability to adjust is nearly unmatched.

But just as there was a method to the madness that was Jokić trying to score in isolation against the four-time Defensive Player of the Year, there was also a certain amount of madness in returning to an extensively scouted coverage.

But Chris Finch and Micah Nori’s calculated gamble worked to perfection, and to see why, look no further than this specific coverage the Wolves employed in Games 1 and 2:

And compare it to this one in Game 6:

Even if you squint hard to try and find any discernible difference, the truth is that there is none — which is exactly the point. All instances involve the same coverage: Jokić being guarded by the four-man (either Karl-Anthony Towns or Naz Reid), with Rudy Gobert roaming off of Aaron Gordon to stay close to the rim.

In Games 3, 4, and 5, the Wolves faltered with this coverage and were forced to minimize its usage, which resulted in Gobert having to defend Jokić in single coverage — to less-than-ideal results. Running out of ideas fast, they simply remembered another common adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Their mistake was thinking that their initial coverages were broken in the first place.

Another operative word: execution. The Wolves eliminated all the kinks in execution that allowed the Nuggets to storm back and take control. The name of the game heading into this series was simply to not allow Jokić to be in a position to dictate the half-court offense, whether as a scorer or as a passer. Most teams are often forced to choose between the two poisons; the Wolves found a way to take both options away during the first two games.

The aforementioned coverage took away Jokić’s decision-making chops as the short-roll passer, which was the theme of the Wolves’ defensive plan in Game 1. They unsheathed another method of taking way Jokić from the half-court offense during Game 2: sending doubles from the top of the key during Jokić post-ups, forcing the ball out of his hands, and relying on their rotations behind the double to plug the gaps.

The trickle-down effect of the first coverage not working is that having Gobert guard Jokić one-on-one means the Wolves have little reason to send a double toward the post — which meant the usage of the second coverage considerably dropped. But in Game 6, the Wolves doubled down by doubling almost every Jokić post-up, no matter who was on him.

The rotations behind the double, as expected of the best defense in the league, were pristine:

On the surface, the crux of the matter for the Wolves was solved by adjusting their way to an old tactic. But it wouldn’t be completely accurate to say that they did nothing new altogether.

A key pressure point the Wolves had to respond to was Jokić finding his way toward Gobert and isolating against him in the post. The Wolves obviously had no problem with this — but that also meant rolling the dice with a defender whose greatest strength lay not in one-on-one situations, but in team defense concepts with him as its central anchor.

The Nuggets were aware of this unique Gobert quirk and did all they could to exploit the matchup — including having Gordon either bring the ball up and come off Jokić ball screens, or have Gordon set inverted ball screens for Jokić.

The Wolves’ response in Game 6 was to switch things up by literally not switching — instructing whoever was guarding the ball handler duck under the screen, which did not give up the Gobert switch onto Jokić:

Another problem the Wolves had to solve heading into Game 6: Gordon bringing the ball up the floor to relieve pressure on Jamal Murray and force the Wolves into scrambling their individual matchups in the halfcourt.

With Gordon filling that role in Game 5, the Wolves stuck to their overarching principle of putting full-court or 3/4-court pressure on ball handlers. They deployed Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels on Gordon — which meant that Gobert was left guarding either Michael Porter Jr. or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, two knockdown shooters.

The solution to this: simply choose not to pressure bring-up ball handlers not named Jamal Murray, have Gobert guard Gordon, top-lock/deny and play aggressive coverages against Murray, and let Gordon create against Gobert:

Limiting Jokić to 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting and Murray to 10 points on 4-of-18 shooting is certainly proof that this approach of old and new was an astounding success. There’s also no denying that a few missed open shots here and there could’ve changed the tenor of this game and the entire series. But the Wolves still deserve their flowers for pushing all of their chips forward and cashing their way into a Game 7.

According to another old adage, if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then the Wolves have insanity to thank for staying alive for (at least) one more game.