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https://t.ly/A6HXa
這篇寫在金狼戰G7之後，忠實呈現了G7比賽中改變比賽的變因，以及那些造成氣勢轉換的
理由，我看了覺得很生動，翻出來跟大家分享

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The Triumph of the Timberwolves'Three-Headed Center Monster
灰狼三頭中鋒怪物的凱旋之歌m


The story of Minnesota’s earth-shaking Game 7 comeback—and, in many ways, of
 the series overall—is the story of Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Naz
Reid. In the most important game in franchise history, the Wolves’ gigantic
trio took on Nikola Jokic and knocked off the reigning champs.


The fate of the Minnesota Timberwolves was out of Anthony Edwards’s hands.
The Denver Nuggets made sure of it, pressuring Minnesota’s ascendant star
with so many defenders that it was impossible for him to take over Game 7 in
the way he would have liked. Those sorts of traps are a test—of a team’s
game-planning, of its coordination, of its sense of purpose. And in those
clarifying moments, the ball found its way, time and again, to one of the
Wolves’ three bigs.


It’s those three centers who set the Wolves apart, and it’s those three
centers who made the most critical plays in the most important game in
Timberwolves history. Together, they ground the gears of a defending champion,
 punching Minnesota’s ticket to the conference finals for the first time in
20 years. “I think they’re built to beat us,” Jokic said after the game. “
Just look at their roster.” And built, more specifically, to beat him.


Towns never gave Jokic a moment’s reprieve on Sunday, forcing him to fight
for every step while Gobert loomed in help. And when all those bumps and holds
 finally got Towns into foul trouble in the fourth quarter, Reid tagged in to
body up the three-time MVP with even fresher legs—blocking his shot twice in
crunch time alone. There was something resonant in Jokic trying, desperately,
to get his shot up inside, only to see it devoured by a pack of Wolves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnc5RkTTxqo

To watch Jokic down the stretch was to see the best player in the world
without answers, utterly exhausted from fending off big, physical opponents
while dealing with the mental overhead of Minnesota’s swarming help. Over the
 course of this series, Jokic had his shot blocked 11 times by various
Timberwolves—the most, by far, in any series he’s played to date. Even when
Jokic played well, he was off his usual rhythm; the 34 points, 19 rebounds,
and seven assists he put up in Game 7 are impressive by any standard, but by
game’s end he couldn’t muster the certainty or force needed to overcome a
front line like Minnesota’s. None of the Nuggets could.


This was the Timberwolves'design from the start of last season and the
vision that Tim Connelly—who originally drafted Jokic in Denver—brought to
life. No team can match Minnesota’s collective size. The only real means of
scoring on the Wolves is to go well out of your way—to take circuitous routes
 around all the long arms and ferocious contests in the hope that there might
be some sliver of daylight on the other side. Often, there’s not. But Denver
painstakingly built a 20-point lead on Sunday, only to give it back as all
that roundabout execution took its toll. Towns and Gobert, the reigning, if
maligned, Defensive Player of the Year, made the Nuggets work for everything
they got.
這是灰狼從上個賽季就開始的設計，是Tim Connelly(就是他最初在丹佛選中了Jokic)


The value in a player like Gobert doesn't come through in how he guards Jokic
 one-on-one, but in how he makes Jokic second-guess himself even when he isn’
t guarding him. Gobert’s presence simply demands to be accounted for; if an
opponent goes up too slowly or softly or indecisively, their attempts are
likely to suffer the same fate as this double-clutch try from Jamal Murray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSNXOHz6w9w

Denver converted just 48 percent of its shots around the rim in what would
become the final game of its season. That’s Gobert—often behind Towns or
Reid, putting an added layer of resistance between the Nuggets and the easy
buckets they were desperate to create. In these playoffs, the Wolves have run
through a premier jump-shooting team that was supposed to give them trouble
and a title-winning juggernaut that was supposed to get the better of them.
The Wolves outscored the Suns and the Nuggets by an incredible 19 points per
100 possessions with Gobert on the floor and were outscored by 10, in turn,
when he sat. A 7-footer makes for a convenient lightning rod, it turns out,
but a better defensive anchor.


The coverage overall was breathtaking—perfectly calibrated by Gobert and his
fellow bigs at every step, allowing Edwards and Jaden McDaniels to hound the
ball with relentless abandon. All of which explains how a Wolves team that
could at times barely scrounge up points was able to pull off the biggest
comeback in Game 7 history. Scoring can be notoriously hard to come by in
these winner-take-all affairs, but in a bit of a plot twist, Minnesota found a
 kind of ragged stability through Towns. The career Timberwolf has struggled
in playoffs past to find his place in things, floating through possessions
when he needed to be assertive and hard-charging into mistakes when he needed
to be patient. Yet with Edwards contained in the first half, Minnesota turned
to Towns in the post, and he came up with some crucial, life-giving offense en
 route to 23 points and 12 rebounds on the night.
灰狼隊的防守令人驚嘆 -- Gobert和他的隊友每一步都完美協調，使Edwards和Jaden


“He made all the right plays tonight,” Edwards said. “He only took 14 shots
. He’s always super efficient from the field, and he carried us tonight.
Every time we needed a bucket, he was there for us.”
「今晚他做出了所有正確的決定，」Edwards說。「他只出手了14次。他在場上總是非常
高效，他今晚帶領了我們。每當我們需要得分時，他總是站出來。」


You could say the same for all three bigs. When the Wolves went scoreless for
over five minutes bridging the first and second quarters, they found a
lifeline by dumping the ball to Gobert inside against mismatches—and relying
on him in a way that the Jazz never did. He drew enough fouls to keep the
Wolves alive. He also hit an honest-to-goodness fadeaway jumper in the heat of
 the fourth, taking a two-point lead to four:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR3wZr2AheI

“I think when Rudy hit the turnaround, I was like, ‘Yeah, we probably got ’
em,’” Edwards said. “I know that’ll kill you. I know that’ll kill
everything.”
「當Rudy命中後仰跳投時，我心想『是的，我們大概搞定他們了』」Edwards說。「我知
道這會讓他們崩潰。我知道這會摧毀一切。」


Yet at the game’s most critical juncture, late in the fourth, it was the
Wolves’ third big who upped the ante: first with a post score, then a drawn
foul on the offensive glass, followed by a stunning putback dunk. Reid and
Gobert led the Wolves in fourth-quarter scoring, with eight points apiece.
Minnesota mashed Denver on the glass in the second half to work its way back
into the game, which added to the war of attrition and made it all too fitting
 for Towns to end the game with a spectacular second chance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru1IP0xz90M

This is what it takes to win a heavyweight series: supreme effort, steely
resolve, calculated execution, and a few breaks that—like the soft arc of a
Gobert fadeaway—seem to defy explanation. Denver was up 20 at home and lost.
Minnesota shot 39 percent from the field and won, with its best player scoring
 just 16 points. That’s the magic of a Game 7. It doesn’t matter who does
what, as long as it gets done. “Everybody has the trust of the next person,”
 Reid said in the visitor’s locker room after the win. “The support system
between each guy is crazy—I’ve never seen it on a team like that before.”


This is a year of firsts for the Timberwolves, a long-suffering franchise that
 now has so much to celebrate. An unprecedented regular season. Their first-
ever sweep in a seven-game series. A statement series against the defending
champs. And now, in two days’ time: a chance at another breakthrough, and to
see what all these historic firsts are worth.


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※ 作者: windown 2024-05-21 11:28:49
※ 文章代碼(AID): #1cJ1Jr_r (NBA)
※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/NBA/M.1716262133.A.FF5.html