Did the Timberwolves rope-a-dope the Suns in regular season finale?
Did the Wolves let the Suns crush them in the final game of the regular season?
After sweeping all three games in the regular season, the Phoenix Suns are the betting favorite to advance past the Minnesota Timberwolves in the best-of-seven playoff series that begins Saturday in Minneapolis.
It makes sense, but did the Timberwolves perform a bit of a rope-a-dope by acknowledging their situation in Sunday's regular season finale against the Suns and save their power punches for the playoffs?
The Suns rocked the Wolves 125-106 in the final game of the regular season, never looking back after opening a 44-22 lead in the first quarter. It was ugly and set an ominous tone for Minnesota fans who are hoping the Wolves will advance out of the first round for the first time in 20 years, but assistant coach Micah Nori has suggested that the Timberwolves didn't show their hand in Sunday's game because they were confident that Phoenix would be their first-round opponent.
Why so confident? Because the No. 3 seed was their likely fate no matter what happened against Phoenix because the Thunder and Nuggets were heavy favorites on Sunday, and if the Wolves had beaten the Suns and claimed the No. 2 seed, the Suns would have ended up in the play-in and likely would have played Minnesota as the No. 7 seed.
"Point being, Phoenix was going to be the matchup so we didn't want to show an awful lot," Nori told KFAN-FM 100.3's Power Trip Morning Show. "There's some things we can do that they haven't seen that hopefully will help us. Game 1 will be very, very important to get that one at home and be off and running in the series."
Nori said the Suns are unlikely to make many adjustments after they "beat the heck out of us" during the regular season, which gives Minnesota the advantage of catching the Suns by surprise with adjustments on both ends of the court.
One key will be letting Suns stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant do what they do while trying to shut down Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen.
"We know that Booker and Durant are going to do what they do. They're going to score, they're going to do what they do. So that means we have to pay more attention to those guys such as the Grayson Allens, who led the NBA in 3-point shooting, and Bradley Beal, who's averaged 25 points against us in the two games that he's played."
Allen and Beal killed the Wolves on Sunday. Allen had 20 points and six rebounds while Beal stuffed the stat sheet with 36 points, six rebounds, five assists. The duo hit a combined 9-of-9 shots from 3.
The question now is if Allen and Beal were extremely effective because Minnesota didn't reveal how they plan to defend them in the upcoming series. If that's the case, then Saturday's Game 1 (2:30 p.m. CT on ESPN and Bally Sports North) will reveal a clearer picture of how the series will go.
