Rudy Gobert was up to the challenge of defending Nikola Jokić one-on-one on Monday night.
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DENVER — Rudy Gobert knows you don’t believe in him.
He knows that nothing delights you more than opening your phone to see video of that one time a guard caught him in an ISO and hit a step-back 3 over him. He knows you chortle so loudly that the Cheetos dust sprays from your mouth as you repost the clip and comment in all caps, “THIS Y’ALL’S DPOY?!?”
He knows because he hears you. Some NBA players mute the volume on social media. They couldn’t care less about what anyone says about them because the money and the stats and the wins do all the talking. Gobert is not one of those players. He is keenly aware of his place in the NBA discourse. His pride won’t let him look the other way as the disrespect flows in.
Rudy Gobert knows you do not appreciate him.
The Minnesota Timberwolves big man knows that no matter how overwhelming his on/off splits are, it will never be enough for many of you to look past the missed layups or the fumbled passes to see him for who he is — one of the greatest defensive players to ever play the game.
He knows because he sees you. He examined the vote tallies for the Defensive Player of the Year award, which were released on Monday. That Victor Wembanyama won it unanimously was not a surprise to anyone, including Gobert. That Gobert finished a distant fourth, 19 points behind the Detroit Pistons’ Ausar Thompson for third place, rippled through the Timberwolves’ locker room before, during and after one of the best quarters of defense he has ever played in Monday’s 119-114 victory over the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
Gobert — in Year 13, with a record-tying four DPOYs on his resume and more than $250 million in salary earned — is finally starting to realize that you don’t matter. Not when he has almost single-handedly turned a franchise long known for defensive ineptitude into one of the stingiest groups in the league. Not when he has been a primary figure in the golden age of Timberwolves basketball, which includes playoff appearances in all four of his seasons in Minnesota and back-to-back runs to the Western Conference finals.
Not when Anthony Edwards pulls him aside before the start of Monday’s fourth quarter, knowing the Timberwolves’ season essentially hinged on the next 12 minutes, and looks to Gobert to be the one to save them. In that moment, the Wolves were down 93-90 in the game and 1-0 in the series. Falling behind 2-0 in a best-of-seven against the high-octane Nuggets would have meant almost certain death. In that moment, Edwards craned his neck up to stare the 7-foot-1 Gobert in the eyes and deliver a challenge that bordered on the impossible.
Nikola Jokić, the three-time MVP who averaged a triple-double and became the first player since Wilt Chamberlain in 1968 to lead the league in rebounds and assists in the same season, was on the other sideline. He may be the most unstoppable offensive player the game has ever seen. He has made mincemeat of every big put in front of him, including Wembanyama, and including Gobert on many a night. But unlike you, Edwards knew Gobert was up to the task.
“We ain’t bringing no double team,” Edwards told him. “You gonna guard him one-on-one all night.”
That would seem to be as close to basketball heresy as a team could get. Jokić put up 56 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists against the Wolves in a Christmas Day win. Last season, Joker went for 61 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a loss to Minnesota.
But Edwards, and the rest of the Timberwolves, know more than you. Truth be told, some of them get as frustrated as you do when Gobert turns the ball over or flubs a layup. They also see the impact he has made in Minnesota since he was acquired from Utah in 2022 in what many of you, at the time, called the worst trade in NBA history. They have watched him turn the Wolves into a top-five defense. They have seen how opposing drivers don’t even think about going to the rim with Gobert in the vicinity.
So they didn’t hesitate to put a generational defensive player on a generational offensive player and tell him to go to work. Gobert responded with one of the best performances of his life. After being mired in foul trouble for much of the first three quarters, Gobert held Jokić to 1-of-7 shooting in the fourth. Jokić missed both of his 3-pointers, including one airball, didn’t get to the free-throw line and had one assist. The Timberwolves outscored the Nuggets by 10 points in Jokić’s eight fourth-quarter minutes, outscored the best offense in the league 29-21 in the quarter and completed a comeback from 19 points down early in the second quarter to even the series at 1-1.
“I think Rudy’s probably the most misunderstood player in the history of the game,” said Wolves point guard Mike Conley, who has played 7 1/2 seasons with Gobert in Minnesota and Utah. “The way that he impacts winning, just because it doesn’t look pretty all the time or is not the sexiest thing, people bypass the other 95 things he does for our team.”
Gobert said the fourth-place finish in DPOY didn’t give him any extra juice. But he wasn’t very convincing.
“I know who I am,” he said. “Not the first time I get disrespected, probably not the last. I’m going to keep being myself. If they want to disrespect greatness, you can just take it for granted, whatever. Sooner or later, they realize the impact.”
The Nuggets have seen it first-hand in this series. Jokić had 25 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists in the Game 1 win, but he also turned the ball over five times and was 2 of 7 on 3s. On Monday, he finished with 24 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists, but he turned it over three times and scored just four points on 1-of-8 shooting with zero offensive rebounds in 21 minutes with Gobert on the floor.
Anthony Edwards guts out a Game 2 road win, and more takeaways from Timberwolves-Nuggets
After trailing by 14 to end the first quarter, Minnesota fought back to steal Game 2 on the road. Here’s what we learned.
As absurd as it sounds, Gobert may have had Jokić shook. In the closing seconds, with the Nuggets down 115-113, Jokić finally got a little bit of space. As he lumbered down the lane, he had a clear look at the kind of short floater that he makes in his sleep, which would have tied the game. Instead, he hesitated and dumped the ball to Christian Braun, who was fouled. Braun only made one of the two free throws.
That’s like striking out Barry Bonds four times with the bases loaded. That’s stuffing Earl Campbell at the goal line on three straight runs. That’s knocking Taylor Swift off the top of the charts a week after she released her latest album.
“He’s making me make tough shots,” Jokić said. “He’s big, long, he can reach the ball from any kind of angle or position. He’s a really good defensive player.”
The 30th meeting between these two rivals in the last four years was as unhinged as so many of the ones that have preceded it. The Timberwolves opened the game with a 12-minute brain fart in the first quarter. They shot 33 percent from the field, refused to drive against Denver’s non-existent rim protection and allowed the Nuggets to shoot 67 percent from the field, 67 percent from 3 and 90 percent from the line. At one point, they fouled Denver shooters on three straight 3-pointers, and the Nuggets turned all of them into four-point plays.
Less than one minute into the second quarter, the Wolves were down 19 points. Bones Hyland committed three fouls in four minutes, including an inexplicable decision on a three-on-one when he declined to give the ball up to either Randle or Reid and instead plowed into Tim Hardaway Jr. for an offensive foul.
But the Wolves have been here before, in this building, against the devastating two-man game of Jokić and Jamal Murray, down big. Just like in Game 7 of the 2024 West semifinals, they never succumbed. When they finally started attacking the basket, turning Jokić into a turnstile and blowing by any perimeter defenders the Nuggets put out there, the game turned in their favor.
“Go at Jokić, Jamal, all the bad defenders,” said Jaden McDaniels, who scored 14 points. “Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team. Like, just go at them.”
There was more spice where that came from. Edwards and Jokić got into a brief shoving match in the fourth quarter. Braun barked at the Wolves bench after hitting a 3.
Julius Randle bounced back from an awful Game 1 with a bully ball Game 2, hammering the Nuggets around the rim and scoring 24 points with nine rebounds and six assists. Playing on one leg, Edwards put up 30 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks, and Donte DiVincenzo had 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists. Hyland overcame the foul trouble for 13 points in 10 minutes, and Naz Reid had 11 points and nine boards.
After trailing 44-25 early in the second, the Wolves outscored Denver 94-70 over the final 35 minutes.
“We was on one cord, I feel like, on the defensive end tonight,” Edwards said. “Especially once they went on those runs.”
After the game, the Timberwolves couldn’t stop talking about Gobert’s performance against Jokić. They know how much criticism he takes from players and league observers. Even if they might utter some similar annoyances under their breath every once in a while, Gobert is one of their brothers. It is OK for them to go at him in private. But any time someone outside the family starts insulting him, they fight for their brother.
“Everybody’s gonna say this about Rudy. He’s this. He’s that,” Edwards said. “They don’t understand what he means to us when he’s on the floor. People don’t want to lay the ball up around him. People just don’t want to go at Rudy. Regardless of what they say about him on the offensive end of the floor, he’s a four-time Defensive Player of the Year for a reason. He’s been doing it at a high level for a long time, and we need him on the floor.”
When the rest of the league was laughing at president of basketball operations Tim Connelly for trading all those draft picks and players for Gobert in 2022, the Wolves paid them no mind. They knew what they were getting and what they needed, a culture changer on defense and one of the hardest workers in the league to ensure that the young core of Edwards, McDaniels, Reid and, at the time, Karl-Anthony Towns, could get some real playoff experience.
Gobert has been all that and more for Minnesota. There have been times when he has struggled, when it looked like this experiment wasn’t going to work. But in aggregate, over the course of four years, with all of the playoff games he has helped deliver, he has been worth every pick, every player, every joke made at their expense along the way.
“He’s an outstanding defender, he’s an outstanding professional, he’s an outstanding human,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “He’s about the right things, and it’s just laughable, small-minded and petty all the crap that people decide to give Rudy.”
Gobert has opened this rubber match with two excellent games, including a 17-point, 10-rebound effort in the Game 1 that slipped away from the Wolves in the final five minutes.
“He knows, in his mind, he’s the best defensive player in the world,” Conley said. “He approaches every game that way. He wants every matchup. He wants to guard the best, regardless if that means some nights they score a lot on him, he’s taking that challenge. A lot of people run from that. He’s somebody that doesn’t run.”
Game 3 is Thursday night in Minnesota. Gobert knows that Jokić will probably get the better of him sooner or later. He is far too talented not to have an explosion at some point. But he will keep throwing everything he has at the best player in the world.
You may have given up on him a long time ago, but Gobert knows his teammates and his coaches stand shoulder to shoulder in his corner. And that is all that matters to him anymore.
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Jon Krawczynski is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA and the Minnesota Vikings. Jon joined The Athletic after 16 years at The Associated Press, where he covered three Olympics, three NBA Finals, two Ryder Cups and the 2009 NFC Championship Game.
