How the Wolves clamped the Nuggets 

"They got KD but we got Jaden McDaniels" is a quote that will go down in history

Kat deserves all the praise. He stepped up big time in game 7.

This series was a masterclass in Basketball tactics and strategy.

The level of missed open 3 shots by Denver was extremely surprising. Also, Jokic played almost the whole of game 7. The nuggets lack of shooting and depth was the huge problem

47 minutes Jokic, while 3 centers switch on him, Minesota did a good job tactically, defensively and overall. Malone should have rested Jokic more, when they had 20 points lead that was the perfect time. But the bench is non existant anyway... even starters were terrible. They miss Bruce Brown and Jeff Green a lot. How could you expect to play so many playoff games with only 2 big guys? (Jokic and AG)

Denver not even fouling with 45 seconds left speaks to how defeated they felt.

I was so disappointed when Draymond kept criticizing Gobert’s defense as if he could do better 1 on 1 against Jokic. Both of them are SYSTEM defenders that shine most when their rosters are communicating and working off eachother, but I guess that’s Draymond for ya.

Ant shut the water off second half on Murray

All that said and done their bench scored 13 and nuggets bench had 5. That's your game. Losing Bruce brown was devastating. He was a major force off the bench for them last year.

It doesn't work if the Nuggets hit open 3s. Jokic missed a ton and the role players come up zero> And THAT was because they played only a 6 man rotation. 7 is the minimum viable.

Even though so many of the games were blowouts, this series was on par with the bubble Celtics vs Raptors series in terms of back and forth adjustments from Stevens and Nurse. Definitely need a third rendition of this next year once the Nuggets make their roster adjustments and Timberwolves face the wrath of the CBA with NAW extension and Mcdaniels contract kicks in to see who really runs the north west division

The transformation of this Timberwolves team since last season is incredible!! The times when the Rudy Gobert trade was seen as an all-time fleece is way past us now. Love this team and the intense ball pressure they bring on defense!!

Thinking Basketball uploads, I click. That simple.

In the 90's I use to crave for some beautiful offence, never imagine how beautiful would be to see or watch some nice defence... back to the basics..! I love it..!

6:14 gobert pushing naz reid into jokic preventing space making over naz reid. Great defence

Respect for breaking this one down as well 🫡

The Wolves hounded the Nuggets and the physicality took its toll. Plus the Nuggets bench is almost non existent offensively. They didn’t solve Jokic but made him work and the other guys didn’t show up enough, especially in game 7. Edwards didn’t have a great night offensively but the other guys did. Even Rudy was good, drew a bunch of fouls on the Nuggets. Wolves are championship material, even more so with the rules of emphasis.

I've been listening to the Thinking Basketball Podcast for 4 Years now. It's really amazing to see the steady incline in quality and personality over the years, not only with the podcast, but with the RU-vid side of things as well. For whoever is only consuming the yt thinking basketball content, I wholeheartedly recommend listening to the pod. Not only is it hart hitting analysis (as cody would say), but the charm and chemistry these two have is really something. For long stretches of the regular season, this podcast is really what keeps me into following the NBA. I am not much of a commenter most times, but I really had to get that out :) Much love from Germany

If my memory serves me correctly KAT was a great defender in college and funnily enough, was one of if not his greatest strengths on his scouting report going into the draft. Donovan Mitchel is another guy who was touted as a strong on-ball defender but was a traffic cone in Utah. I believe Rudy brought that gritty, defensive culture to Minnesota and with ANT being a great leader they just have this absolute unit of defense together. Rudy is the heart of that defense and people are delusional to think he isn't worthy of DPoY. He moves well and positions well and with every score Jokic got he was still contesting. The reality is great offense beats great defense and you couldn't ask for a better defensive big than Rudy because he knows his role and embraces it entirely. He also hit clutch free throws when they needed it and that crazy fade away for good measure.

People will just hate his game, because he's not an American to be considered by this murican people as among of their basketball heroes. Jokic dropped an almost 40/20/10 game, and they still want more from him. They didn't even consider that he's the lone all-star from his team, thereby no one from his team will carry the other load as much as he do. His weight requires more energy, yet he played an entire game 7, while being considered an unathletic person, isn't it commendable? But muricans from this comments section will still hate his game and will blurt some fantastic words, such as defense, as if muricans know how to play defense, whilst losing FIBA world cups against non-NBA players, yikes!

Before the series started Edwards said "they got the MVP but we got Jaden McDaniels" and people laughed. Jaden McDaniels dropped 20+ pts in game 7 on 7/10 shooting. McDaniels was the X-factor, it's hilarious that when Edwards said that that it ended up being all too true.

Goon under a 7 footer’s ball screens makes sense to me. The NBA treats every player like they’re Steph Curry, it makes no sense. If Jokic wants to shoot pull up and off the dribble threes, let him.

Spoelstra tried this on Jokic last year, iirc in game 5, and Jokic went 3/6 or something like that in the first quarter so they stopped leaving him open. His 3 needs to be consistent for Denver's offense to work, it can't be off for an entire series.

These breakdowns are outstanding every single time.

I knew Ben would cover this game! Hyped for this drop

gobert somewhat beating the playoff dropper allegations is something i did not see happening but that wolves coaching staff deserves alot of credit. great chess match kind of series

Jokic went 34/7/19. This wasnt a “we figured out Jokic” type of effort. This was KCP, MPJ and Murray not showing up for 4-6 games. Murray decided to play for a half. Anyone who watched this saw how many wide open shots were missed by the Nuggets. What you qualify as a tough 3 really isnt. This went down as a team wanting it a lot more than the other. The Nuggets should feel embarassed.

This is the best breakdown I have seen of the wolves defense!!!

The Nuggets played like they were in North Korea.

Ive been waiting so patiently 😅...❤

Amazing job with this one

Brilliant analysis!

We better get a Mavs video on how we stopped a top 5 offense/defense #1 defense by being better defensively 😎

Thank so much, this truly allowed me to appreciate what the Wolves did. Excellent. Subscribed👌(great logo btw)

At last an analysis I agree 💯 Well done

What a series! Probably going to be the best/ most back and forth series of the entire playoffs when all is said and done! There were some highly competitive games!

great vid about the defense turning into offense

Man that’s a great video

This wolves team is the best defensive team I have had the pleasure of watching in my lifetime. Huge Nuggets fan so it sucks. But this was a masterclass and is how I imagine people felt in 04 when the pistons made their unlikely run to the title upsetting big names along the way

As a Nuggets fan this was painful to watch but this was a great breakdown. This loss will sting for a while but you gotta keep moving forward.

I was so confused why Kat ran past those screens! It looked so weird. Thank you for the great video explanation.

I literally have been waiting for this since the game ended.

mike conley played an important part in this series as well, his ability to make smart and unselfish decisions helped the team to stay cohesive on both ends of the court. very underrated player and the game he was missing you could see that the team was simply not there.

This is the best video of the month for me, about how the best defense stopped the best player in the league. La crème de la crème!

Love this analysis - great series evolution by the Wolves

Very good analysis

This is a great video, and I think it goes to show that even with the modern system of offenses/defenses, it comes down to: 1. The team that wins has to make shots 2. Pick your poison, make Jokic score rather than pass 3. In a 7-game series, it comes down to how much energy is left After all the strategies and tactics, we've come full circle.

Minesota did an amazing job I am very suprised. Biggest problem I think was MPJ for Denver.

It would be interesting to see what fatigue effect more, shooting or driving. You would image drive requires more gas, but one can sort of still make a decent drive on sheer will despite fatigue. On the flip side, when you are fatigued, your shooting muscle memory just naturally become worse, and will power doesn't really help that much. Of course, those are just guess. You need to somehow use data to see if the guess is true.

This series is a masterpiece

Finally Thinking Stupid Basketball drops

They didn't solve Jokic, but Denver. The whole team played as if they were sleeping the whole playoff. Jokic was the only one who gave himself.

Something interesting to me is that, yeah Jokic is a great shooter, but its primarily a counter. The wolves defense is always keeing in mind guarding the *entire system* more than just Jokic, and makes them beat them with their worst counters. What drives the offense is his post game, passing, and screen action. Even if Joker makes his jumpers, his teammates aren't comfortably doing their jobs either. Gobert is skilled enough to takeaway Gordon cuts, and the wings are aggressive enough to turn it into a Jokic shoot out. Denver is fine with that if it's in the post since Jokic is so dangerous in isolation. But the wolves have body after body to throw at the two man game, even their sixth man can do well on their best scorers.

Over the final three games, MPJ was held to 6 points a game on 19% shooting. Awful.

Good god, was there a memo that went out mandating the words "master class" be used in every video, podcast, and tv broadcast. Sheesh.

Kat finally showed heart in that game. Legacy game fr

Everyone better listen when Mister "I wouldn't pick Luka for these POs at all" shares his infinite wisodm.

Looking forward to the analysis of the Mavs series. Sounds weird to say, but I massively underestimated Kyrie’s impact, he was getting to the basket at will in the first game. Edwards was absolutely gassed in Q4 when Luka then did the damage. Mavs back court is going to be a tough problem to solve! Can’t wait to see the adjustments in game 2!

I've been waiting for this video. I'm sad that my nuggs lost, but I wanted the breakdown to see why

Always enjoy your video. This game is such a big turnaround, especially for a game 7. It would be nice if the analysis is on both teams, instead of just the cume back by the Wolves, because nuggets jumping out to a twenty point lead into the third quarter is very impressive on its own. What did Nuggets do right early on? Did Wolves play the same way during the deficits, but Nuggets' shots just falling? Did Wolves make big adjustments to make the come back possible? Too bad this video only tells half the story.

Amazing series

Joker had to take more midrange shots imo. Man was deadly from there last year and it feels like he abandoned it

Jokic averaged 24.7/5.7/10.1 in the series. 34/7/19 in game 7. Jokic is not to blame for this series loss.

fantastic video as always but that wolves offensive graph at the end needs tweaking, that middle green bar should not be that low relative to the others

solved? i would say they wore him down and they picked the lesser of two evils giving up so many wide open 3s, jokic was completely burnt out and i think fatigue played a big role in all those misses, plus he probably felt the weight of the world on his shoulders with none of the role guys making their wide open jumpers either. mpj was terrible in this series, murray probably played 5 good quarters the entire series, plus murray seems to be made of glass these days, gordon was so incredibly inconsistent all playoffs(i felt like jeff green playing mentor to him last year was a big deal), kcp was invisible, his impact couldnt be felt on the defensive end either with the size differential, the bench was mostly invisible throughout the series, the wolves are just a terrible matchup for denver and even with denvers flaws i feel like they couldve beaten everyone else in the playoffs besides minnesota. give the wolves so much credit though that generational defense made those role players and murray suck.

I think it's very weird that so many people are looking at the denver game 7 and saying, "ahh well Dallas is going to give the wolves different looks they haven't seen yet" and then lists a bunch of stuff the wolves saw in round 1 and earlier in the denver series. Like, yeah, Dallas is going to be a fundamentally different kind of challenge than GAME 7 against Denver after each team made a bunch of adjustments and counter adjustments, but it's not like Minnesota has no idea how to deal with two good shooters. That's literally what the suns series was

The shooting that made jokic unstopable last year was missing this year. Wolves game him wide open 3s.

I think its pretty simple to see, Jokic imploded when he is trying to do everything for his team. His zone defense was weak because he was too worried about the other bigs. Hes cooked at the perimeter if conley or Ant have the ball. He was gassed so his shots got sloppy. The entire denver team relies jokic to be playmaker, shooter, and rim protector. T-wolves had better transitions and a lot of relief from the bench. No matter how much you hate the nugs, jokic and jamal nearly beat the best defense in the league single-handedly. Jokic was far from perfect that game but he was still able to keep it within striking distance of winning. T-wolves deserve this win in the end. A lot of changes need to be made to this nugget team before their next playoff run.

No mention of the RG fadeaway? Not even in passing? Seems like the most weird shot of the series. Probably would have fit in the Denver half court defense section.

Man, Rudy got a lotta flack after g5…hope people start to understand it’s not all about guarding guys 1v1

I didnt realize how poorly Jokic ended up shooting from 3 by the end of this season, good point!

the impact of gobert is the most overlooked

Man this is HIGH HIGH LEVEL coaching from both teams. Unfortunately someone had to get bounced

0:18 I FUCKING LOVE THIS, especially since it has so much peak defense, but it's also balanced with great offense as treat.

T-Wolves had Gordon and MPJ on their side as well in that game 7.

Mavs and pacers have won 2 hard fought series but lets only cover the wolves for 3 videos straight

What were the percentages of players guarded by Anthony Edwards? Just from watching a few games it couldn't have been high. He is a good defender.

Denver needed a player that can get to the rim, simple as that. No team can defend 3pt line and protect the rim, at the same time. The inability of Nuggets guards and SFs to do anything about it, was the thing that gave Minnesota's coaching staff "the how to". Once you limit their attempts at going to the rim, they only had 3pt line left, to go to and when you are forced to take a lot of contested 3pt shots, numbers go down.

Ben have you ever thought of moving into a coaching position within the league. I feel like a team such as Denver could use a basketball savant such as yourself.

finally, a video about wolves

will you make a video on the Mavs Thunder series?

Bro hit us with the hard 🦆

We gonna see Denvers bad defensive breakdowns or slow motion plays and graphs??

Naz and kat being noticeably better post defenders than jokic was something that I wasn’t expecting lol

Bro finally had the courage to respond 💀

I do recall joker missing 7 wide open 3s. Had he hit his average of 38% the wolves go home. Dame with mpj. That's why the warriors were so insane consistent jump shooting does not happen

I'm still surprised Denver didn't run more Iverson staggers for Murray into empty side handoffs.

Damn we really are living in NORTH KOREA

We all wondered if t-wolves had enough defense to beat the nuggets and I thinl that is their most important asset

Reminds me of SAS Duncan/Robinson Or Det Rasheed/Ben counter to Shaq

Really good video, but does not explain that how come after the 20-point lead and with Jokic struggling from downtown, they did not adjust to running the offense through Gordon or MPJ. And the very fact not even mentioned either that Denver's starters and bench players stayed in one-digit point score, but Jokic and Murray. That leads to a question of how comes that Denver's offense can only be run through the Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll despite having other quality players too.

Maybe now that TB has shown how good Rudy was defensively, his haters can shut up for 5 minutes. That would be nice. Just five minutes, please.

Honestly, I think 3 point shooting is what Jok will work on (if he’s not horse riding lol) for the off season. Jok is a great roll man but if pick and pop becomes a staple in his game, that’ll create a defensive problem for a lot of teams. Maybe it’s just me but if my big can pop threes and against the Minnesota defense, 5 out would be hard for them to defend. Either you’re giving up an open lay or an open 3.

My love for Thinking Basketball outweigh my love for Jokic that's why I'm watching this.

In game 5 the nuggets dared the dpoy to guard Jokic. In game 7, the twolves dared the mvp to make wide open shots. Really interesting chess match considering the awards on both sides

I think the series between Dallas and Minnesota tells us what a true All-Star is. You don't care about elite defense, you're gonna get yours if you want it. Jamal and MPJ, good as they are, aren't Luka or Kyrie. Joker needs a true All-Star with him if they want to defeat the Wolves (they will be better next year too). If Jamal's injury is the real reason he's not playing his usual Playoff self then they're gonna be fine next year. But if Minnesota's defense is his ceiling then sad to say he needed to be traded. It's win-now for Denver, Jokic is gonna be 29.

When that Minneapolis crowd is chanting D-FENSE it hits a little different

This summer, we need a break down of some of the best defenses in league history. How did they work? What's changed over time?

Yes KAT deserves credit. But just as much credit to Finch/Nori

If by small adjustments you mean refs thencyes i agree. Denver made some small adjustments