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Aldridge: Timberwolves are using throwback defense to stump the Nuggets

Published

2 years ago

May 11, 2024

Aldridge: Timberwolves are using throwback defense to stump the Nuggets

One suspects Michael Malone isn’t surprised by what he’s seeing.

The Denver Nuggets coach was taught first-hand about championship-level defense by his late father, Brendan, a lifer in the game and a longtime assistant coach for the Detroit Pistons. He was on Chuck Daly’s staff for the 1989 and 1990 championships. Most relevantly, Brendan Malone was the defensive mind behind “The Jordan Rules,” the Pistons’ blueprint for how to keep Michael Jordan from dominating playoff games, the way Denver’s Nikola Jokić does now.

The Rules were pretty simple, actually.

Detroit’s Hall of Fame guard Joe Dumars, one of the best on-ball defenders of that era, would do everything he could to keep Jordan from getting to his favorite spots on the floor, contesting when Jordan rose for a jumper. If and when Jordan beat Dumars or other Detroit defenders off the dribble, they would funnel Jordan into the paint, where any number of long-limbed and ornery Pistons defenders were waiting: Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, John Salley, Dennis Rodman, James Edwards. They would converge on Jordan like a pack of jackals, forcing him to shoot over their length. If Jordan tried to elevate, one or more of them would send him hurtling to the ground.

Over the course of a six- or seven-game series, the overt physicality would wear Jordan down. If Jordan didn’t get offensive help from elsewhere, the frustration between him and his Bulls teammates would only grow. It took Chicago years of playoff futility before it finally vanquished Detroit in 1991.

Accordingly, Michael Malone knows full-well the psychological underpinnings of what the Minnesota Timberwolves have done to his defending NBA champion Nuggets in the first two games of their Western Conference semifinals series.

Minnesota hasn’t just won the important moments in the first two games in Denver to take a 2-0 series lead back to Minnesota, where a raucous crowd at Target Center awaits Friday and Sunday nights. The Wolves have taken the Nuggets’ heart as well, the way the Pistons — and, ultimately, Jordan’s Bulls — used defense to demoralize and rattle opponents.

“You can’t lose the game and the fight. You have to win one of them,” Denver’s Reggie Jackson said after Game 2.

There were the long, seemingly limitless arms of Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, jumping Denver’s Jamal Murray at midcourt in Game 2, attacking him with relentless energy and movement — while not fouling him. They forced a 24-second violation early in the second quarter Monday night.

There was Rudy Gobert’s defensive paint presence in Game 1, before Gobert missed Game 2 to be with his girlfriend for the birth of their first child and before he won his fourth NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. In Game 2, without Gobert, the Wolves didn’t miss a beat, with Karl-Anthony Towns and Naz Reid, neither of whom was known as a shutdown defender before this season, each putting a physical body on Jokić all game.

For someone who has lamented the surgical, years-long campaign by the NBA to remove all but the most rudimentary elements of defense from the game, culminating in not-watchable All-Star Games in recent years, watching the Wolves harass and disrupt the Nuggets has been delightful. It is like putting a VHS tape into a Panasonic PV-V4522, watching NBC’s vaunted Thursday night lineup, circa “A Different World”/”Cheers”/”L.A. Law,” and washing down dinner with a Bartles and Jaymes cooler.

Mama, I’m home.

You can still play defense in the NBA, if you’re allowed to do so.

The league’s de-emphasis on calling every little bit of contact, as its officials did the first half of the season, hasn’t harmed the game one bit in the postseason. In fact, the playoffs have been spectacular, with plenty of offensive wizardry on display, starting with Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards. But there’s also been Jalen Brunson, Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving, Donovan Mitchell, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Maxey, Paolo Banchero, Tyrese Haliburton … do I need to go on?

Minnesota has dominated, and won, its first six playoff games with its ferocious defense, just as Oklahoma City and Boston have. Minnesota defenders aren’t pushing and shoving or hacking; they’re moving their feet, beating the Nuggets to their favored spots on the floor and not giving up those spots easily. The Wolves aren’t doing anything dirty. They’re just making manifesting misery for their opponent.

This was Denver’s second possession of Game 2.

“He threw it away,” said TNT’s all-world play-by-play man, Kevin Harlan, of Jokić. But Jokić didn’t throw it away — Kyle Anderson punched the ball out of Jokić’s hands with his off hand, just as the Joker started his post-up move.

This Denver possession was three minutes into the game.

Murray is limited with his calf injury. But he, like all the Nuggets, feast off opponents who double-team Jokić. That’s Denver’s whole raison d’être: Jokić’s brilliance with the ball, slicing up defenses with his 360-degree view of what’s happening on the floor. This time, Towns inhaled Murray’s drive, with guard Mike Conley swiping at the ball down low.

David Adelman, who’s been Michael Malone’s right-hand man as his top assistant coach, has surely seen this before.

His father, Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman, had to try to traverse the Pistons and the Bulls with his great Portland Trail Blazers teams, led by Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler, in the 1990 and 1992 NBA Finals, respectively. Portland got both the best of Detroit’s defense and the Bulls’ venerated “Dobermans” — the moniker for Chicago’s defense, conjured up by Bulls assistant coach Johnny Bach.

The Dobermans, initially, featured Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant. When Grant left for Orlando in free agency after Chicago’s first three-peat, Chicago reached for Rodman — who, by then, had worn out his welcome in San Antonio. Rodman, in a totally different way from Grant, lifted the Bulls’ defense even higher; Chicago led the league in defensive rating in his first season (1995-96), and the Bulls were top five in each of his three seasons there, all of which ended in championships.

Jordan was, especially early in his career, amazing in his defensive anticipation. He was Defensive Player of the Year in 1988, using his long arms like a scythe, cutting the ball away from opposing ballhandlers.

Pippen, though, made Chicago impenetrable.

His length, smarts, physicality and ability to jump passing lanes made him one of the best all-time defenders. Chicago used him everywhere, against anyone, from Magic Johnson to Charles Barkley.

The Wolves have played like those Pistons and Bulls teams. They’ve made it hard for their opponents to do what they want. They haven’t given an inch. The game is at its absolute best when a simple question is answered: Who can, with their talent and will and coaching and toughness, overcome the physical objections of their opponent?

Minnesota’s defense has been sophisticated in its planning and well-executed in real time. Like other teams in the Jokić Era, the Wolves often aren’t guarding him with their center.

In Game 1, they dropped Gobert into a roaming position off Denver’s power forward — usually Aaron Gordon — and let Gobert stray to protect the front of the rim. That led to Gobert, in what may have been the key play in Minnesota’s win Saturday, being free to tip and steal a Jokić lob to Gordon out of the dunker spot with three minutes left and the Wolves clinging to a five-point lead. The Wolves got out in transition, and Edwards got fouled, making two from the free-throw line. What could have been a three-point game was instead a seven-point game.

Minnesota’s had the top-ranked defense in the league all season. It allowed the fewest points in the league (106.5 points per game) and was No. 1 in opponents’ effective field goal percentage (51.5), which accounts for the extra value of 3-pointers.

Different sites have different ways to determine stats like defensive rating. No matter the source, the Wolves are top-ranked in that category.

StatMuse has Minnesota No. 1 in defensive rating at 109.0, an edge of more than two full points over second-place Orlando (111.3). It’s the biggest gap between the top- and second-ranked defense in that category as StatMuse determines it, in eight years, since the 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs held a 2.4-point edge on the second-place Atlanta Hawks (101.4). Minnesota had the best defensive rating this season at 108.4, according to NBA.com’s calculations, 2.2 points ahead of the Boston Celtics. Basketball-Reference.com has Minnesota at the top in both its unadjusted and adjusted (for schedule) defensive ratings metrics.

You can’t implement “The Jordan Rules” now; the NBA has legislated most of the physicality that was at the heart of them out of the game. That’s OK. Everything has to evolve. But the relentless defense, in spirit and body, that was at the heart of Detroit’s championship teams — and then Chicago’s — is still applicable. Minnesota’s showing that it can coexist with the incredible offensive talents in today’s game.

It’s a fight. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Required Reading

(Photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

Related Topics:denver-nuggets Featured Minnesota Timberwolves NBA

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2026 World Cup Odds: How Far Can Mexico Go After Winning Group A?

Published

7 hours ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

2026 World Cup Odds: How Far Can Mexico Go After Winning Group A?

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After its massive 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday night, Mexico has won Group A and officially clinched a spot in the knockout round.

El Tri will play its Round of 32 game in Mexico City, and will face the third-place finisher in either Group C/E/F/H/I.

This is the fourth time that Mexico has topped the group stage of a World Cup, with the other three coming in 1986, 1994 and 2002.

With the win, Mexico remains unbeaten in World Cup group games at home, going a combined 6-2-0 (W-D-L), with two wins and a draw in 1970 and 1986, and now two wins in 2026.

Before the tournament began, Mexico was listed at +6500 to win the World Cup. Now, after winning its first two games of the tournament, Mexico has surged up the oddsboard to +5000.

Can Mexico build off its first two matches and make a deep run in this tournament? Let’s check out the updated odds for El Tri as of June 19.

This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.

Team Mexico — Stage of Elimination

Last 32: +125 (bet $10 to win $22.50 total)
Last 16: +135 (bet $10 to win $23.50 total)
Quarterfinals: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Semifinals: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Runner-up: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Outright winner: +5000 (bet $10 to win $510 total)

Mexico is currently +5000 to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup after winning Group A (Getty Images).

Mexico’s Past World Cup Results:

1930: Group stage
1934: Did not qualify
1938: Withdrew
1950: Group stage
1954: Group stage
1958: Group stage
1962: Group stage
1966: Group stage
1970: Quarterfinals
1974: Did not qualify
1978: Group stage
1982: Did not qualify
1986: Quarterfinals
1990: Banned
1994: Round of 16
1998: Round of 16
2002: Round of 16
2006: Round of 16
2010: Round of 16
2014: Round of 16
2018: Round of 16
2022: Group stage
2026: TBD

What to know: Mexico has made a habit of being in the running, but never really being in the running. Make sense? Consider this: El Tri made it out of the group stage in seven consecutive World Cups (1994-2018), but never made it past the Round of 16 in any of those years. In 2022, Mexico failed to make it out of the group stage, and it will look to get back to its winning ways in 2026 after a great start to the tournament. With its win Thursday night, Mexico has now advanced to the knockout stage in eight of the last nine World Cups. It is important to note, however, that Mexico has never made it past the quarterfinals at a FIFA men’s World Cup.

Sports

Goalkeeper Raúl Rangel’s elite play and South Korea’s mistake help Mexico advance

Published

8 hours ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

Goalkeeper Raúl Rangel’s elite play and South Korea’s mistake help Mexico advance

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Three and a half years after its biggest failure on the World Cup stage in half a century, the Mexican national team needed only two games to advance to the knockout round of this year’s tournament as winner of Group A.

Mexico’s defense held off a spirited final push by South Korea, earning a 1-0 win on Thursday night at Guadalajara Stadium in front of a fiery announced sellout crowd of 45,522.

“It was a very tough game,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said.

Goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu made a mistake in the 50th minute, failing to stop what appeared to be a simple cross and bobbling the ball. That allowed Mexico’s Luis Romo to easily tap the ball into the net and claim a 1-0 lead.

“In the end, a mistake was going to tip the scales,” Aguirre said.

Mexico goalkeeper Raúl Rangel blocks a shot from South Korea’s Son Heung-min during their World Cup match at Guadalajara Stadium on Thursday.

(Natacha Pisarenko / Ap Photo/natacha Pisarenko)

“You always want to be there; I felt it, and I got the chance,” said Romo, who started the game after starting the opener on the bench — a strategic change by the Mexican coach that paid off.

South Korea put pressure on the Mexican team throughout the game. Late in the scoreless first half, Jae-sung Lee came close to giving South Korea the lead. Aguirre hoped his team would shake off nerves following the emotional opener at Azteca Stadium and show more bite in its second game against South Korea, but his team didn’t have much power behind its attack during the game’s first 45 minutes.

The crowd in Guadalajara grew frustrated and began booing the Mexican national team’s performance at the end of the first half.

Mexico, however, won back their cheers when it capitalized on South Korea’s costly mistake and converted it into a goal.

Obed Vargas replaced Romo in the 71st minute and was close to scoring a spectacular goal if not for Seung-gyu’s save.

El Tri earned a win without any other goals thanks, in part, to a great night by goalkeeper Raúl Rangel, who stopped a header by Cho Gue-sung in the 87th minute. Captain Edson Álvarez helped turn away South Korea’s attack late, holding up relatively well despite having left ankle surgery during the past year.

“It was just a reflex,” said Rangel, whose club team Chivas plays at at Guadalajara Stadium. “I was very focused and stepped up when the team needed me, and I’m happy about that.”

LAFC star and South Korea captain Son Heung-min fired one shot over Mexico’s goalkeeper in the first half, but Álvarez cleared it off the line before the referee ruled Son was offsides.

South Korea finished controlling possession 58% of the time, but it only earned two shots on target.

“It wasn’t a good game because they didn’t let us do much,” Aguirre said.

Mexico was coming off a comfortable 2-0 victory over South Africa, while the South Koreans had defeated the Czech Republic 2-1, marking their first World Cup opening-match win since 2010.

During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Mexico was eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 1978, breaking a streak of seven consecutive appearances in the knockout rounds. However, playing on home soil, the team’s goal is to emulate El Tri’s achievements in 1970 and 1986, when they reached the quarterfinals — the country’s best World Cup finish.

Due to the new 48-team format, Mexico would need to win two knockout-round matches and reach a sixth game to realize its goals.

“We’re taking it one step at a time; first, there’s the third game,” Romo said.

Mexico's Luis Romo celebrates with his teammates after scoring during a match against South Korea at Guadalajara Stadium

After the win over South Korea, Mexico will close out group play against Czechia at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Wednesday. El Tri will get to play the first two games of the knockout round — should it win the first one — at Azteca Stadium, a venue where it has never lost a World Cup game.

South Korea has four points and will be favored when it plays South Africa Wednesday in Monterrey. If South Korea wins the match, it would be the Group A runner-up and advance to play the Group B runner-up on June 28 at SoFi Stadium.

“We want all nine points,” Vargas said of Mexico’s goal entering its next game against Czechia.

Sports

2026 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot Race Tracker: Lionel Messi Is Alone At The Top

Published

17 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

2026 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot Race Tracker: Lionel Messi Is Alone At The Top

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Who’ll win the Golden Boot at the 2026 FIFA World Cup? The race is on for who’ll score the most goals at the tournament, and it is set to be one of the tournament’s most closely watched storylines.

Several of the world’s top forwards will be aiming to finish as the competition’s leading goalscorer. Kylian Mbappé enters the tournament after winning the Golden Boot at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, while Harry Kane, Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi, and Mikel Oyarzabal are among the other players expected to challenge for the award.

And check out our list of all the 2026 World Cup goals, ranked!

Favorites To Win The Golden Boot

Harry Kane: +310 (bet $10 to win $41 total)
Lionel Messi: +350 (bet $10 to win $45 total)
Kylian Mbappé: +350 (bet $10 to win $45 total)
Erling Haaland: +1000 (bet $10 to win $110 total)
Kai Havertz: +1300 (bet $10 to win $140 total)
Vinícius Júnior: +3300 (bet $10 to win $340 total)
Folarin Balogun: +3500 (bet $10 to win $360 total)
Mikel Oyarzabal: +3500 (bet $10 to win $360 total)
Lamine Yamal: +3500 (bet $10 to win $360 total)
Raphinha: +4500 (bet $10 to win $460 total)
Michael Olise: +4500 (bet $10 to win $460 total)
Romelu Lukaku: +4500 (bet $10 to win $460 total)
Viktor Gyökeres: +4500 (bet $10 to win $460 total)
Cody Gakpo: +5500 (bet $10 to win $560 total)
Cristiano Ronaldo: +5500 (bet $10 to win $560 total)

3 Goals

Lionel Messi (Argentina)

2 Goals

Johan Manzambi (Switzerland)
Harry Kane (England)
Erling Haaland (Norway)
Kylian Mbappé (France)
Harry Kane (England)
Elijah Just (New Zealand)
Yasin Ayari (Sweden)
Kai Havertz (Germany)
Folarin Balogun (USA)

1 Goal

Granit Xhaka (Switzerland)
Rubén Vargas (Switzerland)
Ermin Mahmic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Michal Sadilek (Czechia)
Teboho Mokoena (South Africa)
Jáminton Campaz (Colombia)
Luis Díaz (Colombia)
Daniel Muñoz (Colombia)
Abbosbek Fayzullaev (Uzbekistan)
Caleb Yirenkyi (Ghana)
Jude Bellingham (England)
Marcus Rashford (England)
Martin Baturina (Croatia)
Petar Musa (Croatia)
Yoane Wissa (DR Congo)
João Neves (Portugal)
Marko Arnautović (Austria)
Jude Bellingham (England)
Marcus Rashford (England)
Yoane Wissa (DR Congo)
João Neves (Portugal)
Caleb Yirenkyi (Ghana)
Ali Olwan (Jordan)
Romano Schmid (Austria)
Leo Østigard (Norway)
Ayman Hussein (Iraq)
Ibrahim Mbaye (Senegal)
Bradley Barcola (France)
Ramin Rezaeian (Iran)
Mohammad Mohebbi (Iran)
Maxi Araújo (Uruguay)
Abdulelah Al-Amri (Saudi Arabia)
Emam Ashour (Egypt)
Alexander Isak (Sweden)
Viktor Gyökeres (Sweden)
Mattias Svanberg (Sweden)
Omar Rekik (Tunisia)
Amad Diallo (Ivory Coast)
Keito Nakamura (Japan)
Daichi Kamada (Japan)
Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands)
Crysencio Summerville (Netherlands)
Felix Nmecha (Germany)
Nico Schlotterbeck (Germany)
Jamal Musiala (Germany)
Nathaniel Brown (Germany)
Deniz Undav (Germany)
Connor Metcalfe (Australia)
Nestory Irankunda (Australia)
John McGinn (Scotland)
Ismael Saibari (Morocco)
Vinícius Júnior (Brazil)
Breel Embolo (Switzerland)
Gio Reyna (USA)
Mauricio (Paraguay)
Cyle Larin (Canada)
Jovo Lukić (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Ladislav Krejcí (Czechia)
Julián Quiñones (Mexico)
Raúl Jimenez (Mexico)
Hwang In-Beom (South Korea)
Oh Hyeon-Gyu (South Korea)