JAKARTA - Karl-Anthony Towns scored 27 points and won 12 rebounds, Anthony Edwards also scored 27 points and led Minnesota Timberwolves to beat Denver Nugets 106-80 on Monday 6 May or Tuesday morning WIB. Minnesota is now leading 2-0 in the West Region semifinals.
Minnesota won the game without center player Rudy Gobert, who missed the team due to the birth of his first child. Timberwolves, with a clear advantage over the NBA defending champion, returned to Minneapolis for Game 3 from the best of seven series on Friday, May 10.
Even without Gobert, who has been the Best NBA Defending Player three times, Timberwolves managed to limit Denver from scoring the lowest number of points this season. Jamal Murray scored eight points with a 3-18 shot but managed to win 13 rebounds, while Nikola Jokic made 16 points and 16 rebounds.
"When you don't have the Best Defending Player, you have to improve your game," Towns told TNT. "We all understand the challenges of facing defending champions."
Aaron Gordon leads Nuggets with 20 points, and Justin Holiday scores 13 points off the bench. Total Jackson left the game in the fourth quarter due to a seemingly severe ankle injury.
Naz Reid and Nickeil Alexander-Walker each scored 14 points for Timberwolves, who had started the playoffs with six wins in a row.
"We hope to win no matter who is with us or not," Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. "We're fixing things up a bit with a game plan and against them."
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Minnesota went smoothly in attack, led by Towns who scored 20 points in the first half and a team that scored 54.5 percent of the shot from the field before rest. Timberwolves used the dominant attack between the first and second half to take control.
Leading 18-17, Timberwolves then outperformed Denver 24-5 to lead 20 points after Reid's 3-point shot with 8:05 remaining in the first half. Nuggets were close to a score of 43-28, but Minnesota ended the second quarter with a strong lead of 61-35 in half-time.
Denver continued to struggle in the third quarter and Timberwolves took advantage of it, winning up to 32 points after a 3-point shot from Alexander-Walker with 7:20 remaining in that period.
Nuggets found a better rhythm of attack towards the end of the third quarter to cut it to 82-60 towards the last quarter.
Jackson opened the last quarter with a 3-point shot to cut the deficit to 19, but Denver then missed two long shots. Towns made two free shots and Alexander-Walker then scored his fourth 3-point shot to score 87-65 with 9:18 remaining.
Another explosion pushed the lead to 97-72 as Minnesota closed the game.
"This will be a challenge (to come back in this series)," said Denver coach Michael Malone. "The body language of our players is not what they should be, but we really lost at home to us - we were ashamed in front of our fans. The good news is we didn't play until Friday."
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