Nuggets must avoid familiar letdown after promising game one victory

The Nuggets should be feeling good after a strong showing in Game One of their first-round playoff series, pulling away late to beat the Timberwolves, 116-105. There was a lot of talk about the Wolves matching up well, and about Denver making a mistake by going for the 3-seed and drawing the Minnesota matchup, so it must have felt good to quiet the noise with a resounding victory to start the series.

But their work is far from done, and they can’t afford to take their foot off the gas one bit. In the grand scheme of things, they’ve accomplished very little, and in their last five Game Twos, the Nuggets have gone just 1-4, with the lone win requiring a 20-point second-half comeback.

At the same time, the Nuggets have gone 8-1 in their last nine Game Ones. So this is all too familiar territory, and is bordering on becoming a pattern. They consistently come out and kick off their series’ with a win, then suffer a letdown, and drop Game Two to give that advantage right back.

Nuggets must seize 2-0 series lead

So, while it was a good win for Denver, they can’t rest on their laurels and need to approach Game Two with a sense of urgency. They can take a stranglehold on the series and force the Wolves to beat them four out of five times to move onto the second round.

But if they let up and fall in Game Two, they’ll give the Wolves belief and momentum, heading back home having stolen homecourt advantage with renewed confidence that they can beat this team. Even if the Nuggets still win, those are extra miles they can ill-afford if they hope to survive the Western Conference gauntlet that still must go through San Antonio and Oklahoma City.

Timberwolves are going to play better

Anthony Edwards is almost certainly going to play better than his 22 points on 7-19 shooting in Game one, Julius Randle can do a lot better than his 16 points on 7-16, and Naz Reid is sure to give them a lot more than his 5 points on 2-6.

On top of that, after all the conversation around the whistle, you can’t expect the Nuggets to have a +14 advantage in free-throw attempts as we saw in Game One. Chris Finch is already jockeying the media for calls, and I’m sure one way or another, the discrepancy will be a lot smaller moving forward.

The Wolves can play a lot better and get a lot luckier; if the Nuggets aren’t careful, they are more than capable of stealing one in Ball Arena and quickly shifting the tides in this series.

The good news is that the Nuggets can play a hell of a lot better as well. They pulled this one out late, but they left a lot of food on the table. Hopefully, they realize that and come into Game Two with the proper level of focus and intensity, making sure they head to Minnesota with a commanding 2-0 lead.

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