"Would have at least put up a fight": Lakers fans ride Timberwolves coattails as Nuggets lose homecourt 0-2
LA Lakers fans after suffering another year of agony under the hands of the Denver Nuggets, are enjoying the defending champs’ recent misery. In the second round against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Nikola Jokic and Co. have been exposed in the first two games of the series. If Game 1 was a shocker, the following matchup two nights later was even more brutal for the home team.
Without Rudy Gobert who was attending the birth of his first child, the Timberwolves put on an eye-opening show. Behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, Minnesota’s top-ranked defense crushed the Nuggets, 106-80. It was so embarrassing that even Jamal Murray, Denver’s poised point guard threw a heat pack on the court.
Lakers fans promptly went on X, formerly Twitter, to react:
“Lakers would have at least put up a fight”
@UnbiasedHoopsLA spelled it out for every LA fan:
“We slipping good tn s/o ANT”
Somebody had to ruin the night for the Purple and Gold followers:
“lol this make LA look worse. Antman won't more games than them in 2 years”
Another fan gave the prognosis of why LA was so terrible against Denver:
“The nuggets suck. I've been saying it. If we had a competent coach and Rui was benched for Vando we sweep them. They lack effort and a good defense and they have terrible character when things don’t go their way. Jokic is crying on every play and Murray is throwing things."
Many LA Lakers fans expected their team would have put up a better fight than the Denver Nuggets. However, LeBron James and Co. won just one game against the Nuggets in 12 attempts. That’s how consistently better Jokic and his teammates have been against LA. Notably, Anthony Edwards has won more games versus Denver in two years than Los Angeles has had.
Los Angeles had trouble dealing with the Nuggets’ size, an advantage they used to punish teams with less formidable frontlines. LA’s frontcourt would have been dwarfed by what Minnesota has. But, Laker Nation can use the Nuggets’ back-to-back losses to soothe their broken hearts.
Lakers fans may have more reason to rejoice as the Nuggets-Timberwolves series shifts to Minnesota
After winning both games in Mile High City, the confident Timberwolves will now head to Minnesota to host the series. There’s a big chance the Nuggets may have played their final game this season in front of their fans in Game 2.
If Minnesota’s defense was unforgiving on the road, the intensity of that juggernaut would only likely become more menacing at home. Denver’s offense, which used to be surgical, couldn’t get going consistently. The Timberwolves didn’t have Gobert and they shut down the paint, limiting the reigning champs to 34 points while dropping 52.
Even the Nuggets’ bread-and-butter play of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray was bottled up for nearly the entire game. Jokic, Murray and Michael Porter Jr. committed 12 turnovers as a trio, which is the same number of errors Minnesota coughed up as a team.
If the trend continues, many LA Lakers fans will likely be unabashedly enjoying the Nuggets' failure.