Nikola Jokic showing a vulnerability that Timberwolves will dare him to fix

We’ve seen the Nuggets blow games before. We’ve even seen them blow playoff games before. We’ve even seen them blow playoff games to the Timberwolves before, and that’s why Monday night’s loss shouldn’t be completely shocking. The Wolves team is good, it’s battle-tested, and it knows it can beat the Nuggets.

You could see the confidence coming out as the game went on, and they erased a 19-point deficit in Ball Arena. All of the Nuggets went cold down the stretch, but it was notable to see Nikola Jokic struggling so badly with his shot, especially from the outside.

His three-point shot has fallen off ever since he returned from his knee injury, and he has apparently been dealing with a wrist injury. But on Monday night, it looked like a real weakness, and as the game went on, the Wolves seemed more and more content to make him shoot it.

Jokic goes 1-7 from three-point range in Game Two

The Joker finished just 8-20 from the floor and 1-7 from three, some very uncharacteristic numbers for him. A lot of that came from strong interior one-on-one defense from Rudy Gobert, but a lot of it came from the Wolves choosing to stick to Jamal Murray on pick-and-rolls, even if it meant leaving Jokic wide open at the top of the key.

Time and again, Jokic failed to make them pay, with some ugly-looking shots, especially late in the game, with an airball, and another attempt that barely grazed the rim. The whole Nuggets team looked tired out there as Minnesota cranked up their pace and physicality big time in this one.

Jokic hit the 40-minute mark for the second straight game, and in this one, the Nuggets chose to bypass Jonas Valanciunas' backup minutes in the second half, going with Aaron Gordon as a small-ball five. It was the right choice, as Big Val looked unplayable in his second-quarter stint, but this overtaxed AG and forced Jokic to check back in quickly.

And in the final frame, the Nuggets scored just 21 points, with Jokic shooting just 1-7 from the field and 0-2 from three. He didn't shoot a free throw, recorded only one assist, and perhaps most telling of all, he passed up a wide open floater that would have tied the game with 20 seconds left in favor of a difficult, contested pass that was nearly stolen.

Nuggets looked exhausted in crunch time

The result was the Nuggets’ big three of Jokic, Gordon, and Murray, who all looked gassed in crunch time, and let the T-Wolves go out and snatch the game from them down the stretch. Now, the Wolves have confidence and momentum as they head back to Minnesota with homecourt advantage.

On top of that, they seem to have found some things that are really working, and they know that they can wear out the Denver big three and force Jokic to beat them by making shots. Through two games of the series, he’s just 3-14 from outside, and considering all the ways he can hurt teams, the Wolves are going to live with that and then some.

Suddenly, the Nuggets are on the ropes. They have time to rebound, and nobody would be shocked to see them coming back to Denver up 3-1, but they’re going to have to find a way to clean it up, and a lot of it stems from Jokic knocking down three-point shots. The Wolves are going to keep daring him to make them until he makes them pay.

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