So Ant Edwards played 45 minutes and was a +5 meaning the Wolves were -13 in the 3 minutes he was on the bench as was pointed out in a post above. I was curious where those 3 minutes were and what happened during them.
They mostly happened at the start of the 2nd quarter. The Wolves took out both Anthony Edwards and Towns to start the period. Edwards sat out for 2 and a half minutes. In those two and a half minutes, Denver made a 12-2 run.
Justin Holiday hit 2 threes. They got 2 layups. One from a drive, the other a fastbreak layup. And Jokic hit a short shot in the paint going iso.
The Wolves lineup was
G: Conley
G: NAW
F: Jaden McDaniels
F: Slow Mo
C: Naz Reid
Meanwhile, the Nuggets were running a strong lineup of
G: J Murray
G: C Braun
F: Justin Holiday
F: M Porter Jr
C: Jokic A Gordon
Edit: My mistake. I misread the line. Jokic was resting for this 2:40 time period. DEN went small with A Gordon at center and MPJ at big forward. That makes more sense.
So they had 3 of their 4 stars on the floor but not their MVP and two bench dudes. Minnesota had sat all 3 of their stars (Ant, Towns, Gobert). Minny had their 2 other starters on the floor, their 6th man of the year plus 2 other bench dudes. It is clear the Minny coach made a bad decision to run such a weak lineup out there against a strong DEN lineup.
Jokic had some trouble defensively when Slow Mo and Naz Reid played together in Gm 2. Not enough dangerous offense out there to exploit his discomfort though. Need Ant to attack the paint while Jokic is pulled out of the paint. Conley, NAW, Jaden are not aggressive enough attackers off the dribble. They should have given Ant a rest when Jokic rested.
They took Ant out for a brief moment in Q4. Only 19secs. The sub was in the middle of two Gobert FTs. Gobert made one. Then Braun hit a 3 pointer. Ant came back in for NAW. That lineup had the starting frontcourt on along with Conley and NAW. So a strong lineup this time while Ant got brief rest. Unlike Q2.
