Rudy Gobert felt like a proud father as he watched the Timberwolves dismantle the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets on Monday night.
This was true in the literal sense because Gobert cradled his son, born earlier that day, as he watched Game 2 on TV back in the Twin Cities. But he also felt a dad's satisfaction as his teammates harassed and frustrated the Nuggets with one of the finest defensive performances in NBA playoff history.
Ah, kids. They grow up so fast.
"I had a little bit of emotion at the end because it felt like it was something special," Gobert said.
The defense the Wolves put on display, the first half in particular, was breathtakingly relentless and ruthless. They swarmed the Nuggets as if the game was being played eight-on-five.
They attacked like Mike Tyson in his prime bolting from his corner at opening bell. The Wolves finished with 12 blocks and 11 steals while forcing 16 turnovers.
The Nuggets looked panicked. They whined to officials. Their body language screamed, "Help!"
It was a masterclass that had legends of the game gushing.
"This is one of the best defensive teams I've ever seen. Ever," Charles Barkley said on TNT.
"This is the defensive version of what the Warriors did for offense when the league wasn't ready! Defense that sells tickets!?" Kevin Garnett wrote on X about his former team.
Sports long ago became obsessed with offense. Three-pointers and dunks in basketball, home runs in baseball, touchdowns in football.
Highlights packages almost always begin with offense.
The Wolves make defense look sexy. Their ability to smother shooters and squeeze offenses like a boa constrictor trapping its prey is just as compelling as what happens when they have the ball.
Sure, nothing puts a charge into the arena quite like Anthony Edwards soaring for a dunk. But watching all five players on the court move and flow on defense as if connected by a string is a thing of beauty.
"Intentional" is a new buzzword in corporate America. The Wolves are intentional about being pests on defense.
"The hard part about defense is that it takes a lot of work and you've got to do it every single time down," coach Chris Finch said.
The Wolves took an oath to do that. Gathered as a group on the first day of training camp, the players asked themselves a question: Who do we want to be?
"Everyone said we want to be a defensive team," Gobert said. "We said, 'OK, we're going to hold ourselves accountable and do that every day.'"
Finch noted that the addition of Gobert alone last year gave the team a chance to become a top-five defense. Gobert's defensive brilliance was rightfully recognized this week with his fourth NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.
He is the anchor who makes everyone around him better defenders. But one man alone doesn't account for the Wolves transforming into the league's best defensive team. That takes total buy-in from every player, all committed to the cause, all willing to commit as much effort and focus to defense as anything else.
Basketball teams often talk about their chemistry on the court. Normally, the first assumption is to think about offense and the byproduct of five guys working together in a free-flowing system that keeps everyone involved in the action.
The Wolves are demonstrating what tight chemistry on defense looks like. Individually, they are tenacious. Collectively, they have each other's backs.
They rotate to help one another. They communicate when opponents try to create mismatches. They swarm when a ballhandler is in trouble.
"Chemistry starts from watching everybody put the same amount of effort in," Finch said.
Nobody shirks that standard. Finch doesn't have to worry about hiding players on defense to avoid being exploited. The Wolves not only make opponents uncomfortable with their size and Go-Go Gadget arms, their perimeter defenders treat their assignment like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
Fun fact: the Wolves rank second among playoff teams in scoring, which might come as a little bit of a surprise. It's easy to overlook that part because what we are witnessing with their defense is special.
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