The Minnesota Timberwolves‘ head coach Chris Finch recently discussed Nikola Jokic and his impressive performance for the Nuggets in Game 5 of the Western Conference semi-finals. To those who might not be aware, the Timberwolves and Nuggets matched up after defeating the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers respectively.
Although the Timberwolves started this series very strong and won both their road games against the Nuggets to take a 2-0 series lead, the Nuggets rallied to make a comeback and have won 3 straight games in a row. Despite having a commanding league, Finch and his squad are now facing elimination for the next 2 games of this series. Now that the context has been provided, a closer look at Finch’s thoughts about Jokic is required.
Nikola Jokic had a 40-point double-double performance in Game 5
After going down 0-2 to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the majority of the NBA world believed that Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets would end up losing this series. However, they managed to win both games in Minnesota and went into Game 5 with the series tied at 2-2. Jokic continued to establish his dominance by scoring 40 points, 13 assists, and 7 rebounds in Game 5.
In the aftermath of this impressive performance in a series-changing game, Chris Finch was interviewed and asked about his thoughts on Jokic.
“He had an MVP best player in the world performance. We tried to do a bit of everything on him and he had it all going so we didn’t really have an answer for him and honestly we haven’t had a great one for the past couple of games so…”
It is certainly a high compliment when the coach for the opposition claims to have absolutely no answer to stopping a player. Finch is not the only one on the Timberwolves who holds Jokic in high regard and gives him his due respect.Anthony Edwards concedes that Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world
Anthony Edwards has proven himself to be an elite young talent in these playoffs. However, even he claims that Jokic is the best player in the world and is very difficult to stop or even slow down. Since the media tends to go with the wave, the hype surrounding Ant has gone down as the success of the Nuggets has increased.
In any case, the Timberwolves must find a way to stop Nikola Jokic and the rest of his squad in this upcoming Game 6. After all, they will be eliminated from postseason contention if they end up losing to the defending NBA champions.