In the NBA league in recent seasons, the young Thunder has made great progress under the leadership of Alexander. In the regular season of this season, they once again played the best record in the Western Conference and advanced to the playoffs. Alexander also won the first regular season MVP trophy in his career with his outstanding personal performance and proud team record. After the start of the playoffs, the Thunder still performed strongly. In the first two rounds, they defeated the Grizzlies and Nuggets and entered the Western Conference Finals. After the first two games with the Timberwolves, they took a 2-0 lead.
On this game day, the Thunder ushered in the first away test of the Western Conference Finals and went to Minnesota to challenge the Timberwolves. The referee of this game obviously relaxed his whistle scale and encouraged the players to confront each other. This reduced Alexander's personal offensive threat sharply. The Timberwolves, who played at home, also seized the opportunity and established a huge lead of 40+ early, and finally overturned the Thunder with 143-101!
[Game Highlights]
Although Alexander's personal performance and statistics this season are very impressive, his frequent fouls and free throws in the game have caused considerable controversy. In this game in Minnesota, Alexander will definitely not be favored by the referee. In the case of not being able to get a lot of free throws, whether he can lead the Thunder to escape from the away game has become the biggest highlight of this game.
[Game Review]
As expected, after the game started, fans could clearly feel that the referee's whistle scale encouraged players to confront each other on the court. The Timberwolves, who were keenly aware of this, also began to double-team Alexander on the court and did not give him an easy chance to shoot. This move also achieved obvious results. In the first half, Alexander only hit 3 of 10 shots, scored only 9 points, and made as many as 4 personal mistakes.
The Thunder's core players were completely locked up, which was also the fundamental reason why the team fell behind by as many as 31 points at halftime. Alexander, who had 14 and 15 free throws in the first two games of the Western Conference Finals, only stood on the free throw line 4 times in Minnesota. The fans at the scene also shouted in unison: "Master of Touching Porcelain" mocked the new MVP.
Alexander, whose killer was ineffective, performed mediocre in this game. He only played 4 of 13 shots at the end of the game, and only got 14 points, 2 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 block. This is also the reason why many fans joked that without the protection of the referee, the MVP was lost in the crowd.
In the absence of Alexander's personal offensive threat, other Thunder players also performed poorly. The second-in-command Jaylen Williams had an efficiency of only 3 of 9 in this game. Although he handed over 13+4+2 data, he also made 4 mistakes. The Thunder's proud bench was also completely defeated in the duel with the Timberwolves' second lineup. The all-round defeat made the Western Conference's first away defeat a reasonable thing.
In the history of the NBA, there have been 82 times in which the score was 2-0 after the first two games of the conference finals. In 76 of them, the leading team won the game and advanced to the finals. This is also the reason why the outside world is optimistic about the Thunder's prospects of advancing after the first two games of this round of series. However, with the Timberwolves' home victory in this game, the suspense of the Western Conference Finals has been restarted, and the two teams will have a wonderful matchup next.
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