Jay Skapinac: “The gigantic story in this series is the Timberwolves defense, who seemed to have the Nuggets number in the regular season. Denver scored fewer than 100 points in only eight games out of their 82-game regular season, with the Timberwolves delivering two of those defensive performances -- including holding Denver to 89 points in one of them, which was their third-lowest scoring total of the year.

In the regular season Denver finished 0-8 in those eight games where they failed to hit the 100-point mark, and they were just 7-17 in games where they didn't score at least 110 points. Needless to say, the Nuggets are offensively oriented and they have hit their defensive kryptonite, as they have now scored under 100 points in four of their six meetings with Minnesota this year, and the 80 points last night is their new season low.

Soon to be three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic for his standards has played outright lousy in this series and frankly hasn't been quite himself in these entire playoffs. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. A player as decorated as him does deserve some criticism for the way this series has gone, but for their seven games in these 2024 playoffs Jokic is averaging 27 points, 15 rebounds, and 9.4 assists on 54% shooting from the field. Ultimately, he is the best player and he will shoulder the lion's share of the criticism for this. Jokic has had an incredibly limited supporting cast for his entire career, as he is now 29 years old and in his ninth NBA season has yet to ever play with a single All-Star for his entire career.

In fact, only two players he has EVER played with have ever made an All-Star team at any point of their entire careers, and that was Paul Millsap and DeAndre Jordan. Many have been raving about Jamal Murray since last season's playoff run and trying to paint him as some kind of a perennial All-Star caliber guard who has been systematically snubbed for years. But Murray, who is now 27 himself and in his eighth year, has never made a single All-Star Game or All-NBA selection. He is just a 17.5-point per game career scorer. A glorified third option who did play out of his mind in last season's title run. A run for him that started against these Timberwolves in last year's first round where Murray averaged 27 points per game for that five-game series, and shooting 47% from the field and 42% from three. He has fallen drastically short of those levels in these playoffs. Murray had just eight points Monday night on 3/18 shooting, two assists, and four turnovers. For his postseason now in seven games, Murray is averaging 20.4 points per game on 21.7 shots per game, and is shooting just 37.5% from the field in these playoffs, and only 28.5% from three

Speaking of threes, the Nuggets entered last night's game 12th out of 16 playoff teams in three-point percentage -- shooting just 32.5%, and it was more of the same Monday night, as the Nuggets again struggled from beyond the ark, shooting just 9 of 30. Jamal Murray, who reached peak bum mode Monday night, was 0/4 himself.

Ultimately, this is a make-or-miss league and the Nuggets are struggling mightily to make shots at the moment. A large part of that is credit to the best defense in the NBA all regular season and playoffs, as the old football adage goes ‘defense wins championships.’ For the first time in a long time in the NBA the Wolves have brought that mindset back.”

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