Sports Warm Winter Creation Season
The Timberwolves, the first in the West, faced the Thunder, the third in the West, away from home, and the focus dialogue between the two young "dark horses" ended with the Thunder winning by 23 points. This is a game between the size of the "twin towers" and shooting skills, and only in terms of results, the size is not worth mentioning in front of shooting.
Throughout the game, the Timberwolves failed to defend Holmgren. Defending Holmgren is not a one-on-one single defense in the usual sense, limiting the score on Holmgren's data sheet to a thin number. Defending Holmgren is more about breaking down his tactical role. Holmgren, on a tactical level, is the foundation of the Thunder. He is the lethal spatial five who shoots, and every game, he can draw the opponent's tallest rim-protecting center outside the three-point line, thus creating space for his teammates to break through. Alexander, the Thunder's top star, has benefited from the offensive space created by Holmgren and can show off his rich and powerful individual skills. Dort and Giddey are the two big space black holes on the outside of the Thunder, but they benefit from the offensive space and can also cover up their projection shortcomings by breaking through. Arguably, every team's first priority in defending the Thunder is to destroy Holmgren's tactical value.
When it comes to undermining Holmgren's tactical value, the Timberwolves actually have a unique advantage. The Timberwolves are a two-tower lineup!The twin towers meant that one of the Timberwolves' centers was drawn to Holmgren outside the three-point line, and another center was under the basket to protect the rim. Obviously, the Timberwolves did a little homework before today's game. They deliberately arranged for Towns to defend Dort, once the number one frame guard center Gobert was hoisted outside the three-point line by Holmgren, Towns, as the Timberwolves' No. 2 center, could play the role of protecting the frame by letting go of Dort, ** to the basket. The Timberwolves' defensive strategy can't be said to be a big mistake, but the small mistake is that the Timberwolves may have misunderstood Towns' defensive ability, and this misunderstanding led to the Timberwolves losing all the games.
To put it bluntly, Downs is completely incapable of defense, and it is difficult to describe a series of aspects such as concentration, position selection habits, and the timing of assisting. How can such a defensive "Tie Hanhan" understand the task of shrinking and assisting in defense?Let's enjoy Downs' clumsy defensive performance: At 8 minutes and 59 seconds in the first quarter, Jalen Williams named Downs, and Downs had a "you don't come" expression and had no choice but to pay for the foul;At 8 minutes and 30 seconds, Holmgren received the baseline ball and slipped to the basket, and Towns, who should have helped protect the frame, had another pair of "Who am I, where am I?".Holmgren made an empty basket;At 8:07, the Thunder's Giddey cut into the restricted area, and Towns, who should help the defense, entered the "sage time" again, hoping to use pious prayers to make Giddey throw a simple empty basket.
Towns will be incompetent and drag down the entire Timberwolves defense. After seeing Towns' timid frame protection, Gobert, who was outside the three-point line, tried his best to do his best, and he wanted to take care of both the three-point line and the defense under the basket at the same time. This again involves two defensive problems: first, to defend against the blocking and dismantling of Alexander and Holmgren, Gobert chose to retreat to the free throw line and crouch, and the crouch was trained by Alexander's mid-range jumper;Second, Gobert's defense kept retreating, and he retreated to 9:08 in the third quarter, and he almost completely let Holmgren shoot a three-pointer, and Holmgren received the ball and hit two consecutive shots, leaving Gobert in an embarrassing situation at both ends.
Gobert was far more than the only one influenced by Downs. Theoretically, the Timberwolves' defensive posture is a relatively conservative type and will not produce a large number of auxiliary defensive fills. But because Towns can't protect the frame, the Timberwolves outside players are anxious and try their best to help Towns defend and wipe their butts, so the Timberwolves' defense has changed from relatively conservative to an extremely aggressive style of "moths to fire". Wipe Downs' butt, and it will leak the Thunder's outside space, which is very deadly. The Thunder are too accurate on the outside, everyone can throw it, and let a lethal shooter like Isaiah Joe hit consecutive shots in the open space, and that's a wave to take the game away!Dort was one of the few space black holes on the Thunder's perimeter, but he hit five three-pointers in a single game, which became the last straw that crushed the Timberwolves' defense.
The Timberwolves' defense collapsed, but it is not difficult for attentive fans to find that the Timberwolves have a clever way to reverse the predicament. Why not swap the roles of Downs and Gobert?Downs can't protect the frame, don't protect the frame if it doesn't work, let Downs be like a "strong dog", close to Holmgren defensive intensity, this is a more reasonable use. Gobert, who has a stronger frame, should let Dort go and become the "patron saint under the basket" of the Timberwolves.
It's a pity that this trick waited for four full quarters before the Timberwolves showed it. On the contrary, the new tricks displayed by the Timberwolves have made fans more and more confused. By the end of the third quarter, the Timberwolves actually removed a center and changed to a single-tower lineup, and by 5 minutes in the fourth quarter, the Timberwolves even removed all the twin towers and played the "five smalls"!That's not how you fight!The fight should emphasize playing its own biggest advantage, and the biggest advantage of the Timberwolves is the huge size of the twin towers!Relying on the twin towers, the Timberwolves still have the power to "stab each other" to win the game, but the Timberwolves removed all two centers, and in the field of small lineups that the Thunder is best at, the Timberwolves have no hope of winning.
The Timberwolves lost by 23 points, but at the end of the first half, the Timberwolves lost by just six points. In the case of unreliable defense, the key to the Timberwolves' ability to bite the score is nothing more than offense. The two pictures are very telling: in the second quarter 11 minutes and 47 seconds, Downs took the ball with his back in the elbow area, turned around and thundered two double strikers with a height of 1.98 meters, Downs directly used the "power of the wilderness", and pushed the two "dwarfs" to the basket like a tank, and scored strongly under the basket by relying on his heightIn the 50 seconds of the second quarter, Downs was in the corner position, receiving the ball and killing inside, and one person broke up the defense of the Thunder and the two, and then he made a wonderful pass to Gobert, and the Thunder, who had been scattered by Downs, could no longer block Gobert's impact.
The above two rounds are the basketball that the Timberwolves should play, they want to play the size advantage, and they want to play the relay impact of the "Twin Towers", under the impact of a series of giants, the Thunder a group of "dwarfs" are unstoppable. But the Timberwolves took the initiative to give up their advantages and followed the Thunder to play five small, is your five small shot accurate?Lee Kyle's poor shooting level, how to touch the Porcelain Thunder a group of outside shooters. Does your five know how to handle the ball?Jaden McDaniels's ability to control the dribble that is lost as soon as he passes and drops as soon as he dribbles, what kind of air-cut coordination can he play?McLaughlin couldn't throw a single ball on the court, and a player of this level was forced to let him play in order to make up five minutes. The Timberwolves played like this, and they deserved to swallow a fiasco.
Personally, I think it's a pity that the Timberwolves didn't play at the level they should have in this game. Originally, the Timberwolves were one of the few teams that had an interior configuration to test Holmgren's true ability. Holmgren's current popularity and combat power are somewhat due to some misplaced advantages, he himself is playing in the No. 4 position, playing in the No. 5 position against major traditional centers, and can rely on flexibility and projection to complete military training, which has become the strength of the Thunder. If Holmgren doesn't have a mismatch advantage, can the Thunder still be that strong?Unfortunately, the Timberwolves' defense is completely wrong, and perhaps only by waiting for the next meeting between the two teams will this question be answered.