Will the switch be flipped? Nuggets/Wolves Game 1

[FNG]

Are the Wolves going to flip the switch? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? Ant?

I have to admit I've grown tired of hearing about the Wolves' ability to "flip the switch"...it's right up there with "boots on the ground" for me. But I'm a hopeful Wolves fan and I've seen them do this before, so I'm now very interested in flipping the switch. But it's "prove it" time.

We've done it each of the past two seasons, but there are some barriers to us doing it again this time. The first barrier is how good the Nuggets are. We're facing them at exactly the wrong time, because despite some nagging injuries, they are the hottest team in the Association with 12 wins in a row. Meanwhile the Wolves are stumbling into the playoffs as a .500 team the past few weeks. Jokic, Murray and Gordon might be the best threesome in the league...surprisingly, they only played 26 games together this season, but they had an absurdly good net rating of 19.9 in the minutes they played together. And they will all play today. I actually think the Wolves are better than the team that beat the Nuggets two seasons ago. But I think the Nuggets are much better than they were.

The second barrier is Ant's knee. He's listed as questionable today, but I doubt there is anyone here who thinks he won't play. But the fact that he is on the injury list with the same injury that had Curry out for weeks is troubling. I'm still unhappy about the coaches allowing Ant to play in a meaningless game a few weeks ago when he was obviously trying to get to the 65 game threshold, only to fall short because of an illness in the next game. We'll never know if coming back too soon in a game where we didn't need him is a factor in this injury continuing to linger, but it may have been. In any event, Ant is the #1 switch flipper on our squad, and it becomes much more difficult if he's not 100%

So I'm on board in the other thread predicting a gentleman's sweep for Denver...Nugs in 5. But there are some glimmers of hope. First, I (and many of us here) had the Wolves losing in the first round in each of the last two seasons, and instead we won easily. It could happen again. Secondly, Watson being out today (and maybe for the entire series) is a huge loss for the Nuggets. He was the most likely candidate to try to guard Ant, and Ant has a much better chance to go off without the bigger Watson hanging on him. He's also their 4th leading scorer and a 41.1% 3-point shooter. The Nugs will miss him, but we won't.

But our biggest chance of springing an upset is Ant. Chris Hine had an interesting take on his pod with Dane Moore this week. He attributed our success against the Nuggets the past two years to Ant's burning desire to show the world he is better than Jamal Murray. Ant sees Murray as a competitor for top 10 status (before some of you scoff, understand that Murray ranked better than Ant this season in more deep analytic measures), and the past two seasons went into each Nuggets game with the intent of showing the world he is better than Jamal. But Hine says it was different this season...the burning desire more often than not was replaced by lethargy and boredom. And the Wolves didn't fare well against the Nuggets this season. We can only hope that Ant's knee doesn't hold him back too much this series, and that the competitive drive that was often absent this season reappears.

Nugs are favored by only 6 1/2 today, so Vegas doesn't anticipate a blowout. Stealing game one like we did in the semifinals two years ago would be huge. Let's Gooooooooooo!

[Leado01]

The switch will be turned on

[Phenom]

LFG!!!!! If Ant's knee is good, its on!

[AussieWolf3]

A lot of people keep saying this Denver team is better than the 24' one and I'm having trouble buying it.

Their overall starting 5 is worst, with the only caveat being that Gordon and Murray are better players now.

Much has been made of there depth moves in the off-season but the big Val experiment has by and large failed and Bruce Brown just isn't that good anymore either. A healthy Watson would be HUGE for them but I doubt he plays at all, so that leave Hardaway Jr who has been a run away success signing, but let's not forget that he is a huge liability on defense. The question is can the Wolves exploit that?

Cam Johnson and Christian Bruan are not better Porter Jr and CCP.

All in all I think everyone is really overrating the Nuggets right now because of an end of the season 12 game win streak

[FNG]

For what it's worth, we get Zach Zarba's ref team today. I know very little about him, but it's good that I have no negative memories of him pertaining to the Wolves. I think the Wolves' best chance of winning is taking the OkC approach to defense...play physical and foul a lot, hoping the refs don't call a lot of them. I know there are referee stats out there that measure things that might be relevant (number of fouls called per game, home vs visitor favoritism, etc), but I don't know how to find them. Anyway, we have Zarba today.

Edit: I notice Eric Dalen is on the team also. Eric played football at Minnetonka and the University of Minnesota. Come on, he has to be a Wolves fan, right?

[BloopOracle]

Get this stupid game over with so we can watch the wolves

[thedoper]

Im worried about JV, he always kills us.

[AussieWolf3]

Im worried about JV, he always kills us.

Guarantee he's out of the rotation by game 3 at a minimum

[thedoper]

Im worried about JV, he always kills us.

Guarantee he's out of the rotation by game 3 at a minimum

That would be a good sign for us. Hope youre right.

[FNG]

F^*# Prime...game has started and no coverage,