How the Timberwolves Shut Down Giannis Antetokounmpo

How the Timberwolves Shut Down Giannis Antetokounmpo

For the better part of a decade now Giannis has made NBA basketball look way too easy it seems like at this point no matter what defenses throw at him he’s unfazed and can Cruise his way to an efficient 30 but missing both Lillard and Middleton and hosting the League’s

Number one defense he got held to just an inefficient 17 the different strategies Minnesota implemented and how their personnel was able to make it work really highlights how good this unit truly is priority number one was making it as difficult as possible for Giannis to even touch the ball this one starts

With him setting a screen and the Wolves just switch to not let him roll then when he posts up ant aggressively plays the entry for a steal pretty much any time he tried to catch the ball inside the ark he was being fronted by one of Minnesota’s Wings this time it’s

McDaniels and he’s fighting so hard for position that he actually picks up a foul the goal was to make the Bucks find offense in the hands of others here’s a play that’s designed to get Giannis a post up on an open side of the floor but with McDaniel’s aggressively fronting

Andre Jackson instead decides to isolate goar which ends up in another turnover here’s another example McDaniels is fighting for position while Rudy also slides down from the corner so that the entry isn’t even an option Giannis clears out and you again end up with someone isolating going bear not exactly

A great recipe for Success the Bucks found themselves with multiple possessions of offense that they just straight up don’t want like Bobby poris initiating ball screen action and pulling up for a jumper or Brook Lopez isolating from the perimeter like I said taking Rudy oneon-one probably isn’t the

Best option even with the Wolves trying their hardest to keep the ball away from him he of course still got his touches and once he does you’ll notice that the entire defense immediately shifts towards him not a double team but certainly not leaving him in single coverage the risk of aggressively

Helping like this is that in the event he finds the open man and the ball keeps moving you’re forced into a tough scramble and likely will end up conceding some open threes but the thing is Minnesota’s defensive Personnel is crazy so they routinely get away with overh helping this one starts with

McDaniels on the ball Alex Ander Walker sliding to the nail and goar parked in front of the rim Giannis kicks it to the corner but the close out is perfect and Porta steps out of bounds this time it’s McDaniels who’s helping at the nail before recovering to the perimeter he

Runs his man off the line only to chase him on a drive and obliterate his floater from behind then he does it again on the second chance opportunity loading up on the nail was their primary way of deterring Giannis cat stands in front of him with goar once again parked

On the Block and ant just sits at the free throw line from one pass away basically telling Giannis that there’s no way he’s getting to the rim the reason they can get away with helping from one pass over once again comes back to the Personnel this time it’s Nas Reed

Who rotates a solid 10 ft from the corner and as soon as that pass is made he’s moving on a string to block a three it didn’t matter who was guarding Giannis who was the closest helper that guy was coming over to essentially Corner him forceing Baseline then trap

And he really can’t do anything to get out of it just for some perspective here’s what it looked like on the few occasions that Minnesota didn’t load up he has way too much space to utilize his oneofone physical tools and easily gets to an open layup and here’s one more

Example he faces up for an isolation Reed helps but doesn’t fully commit leaving him with a slight Lane to step into OB obviously the entire goal of Milwaukee’s offense is to get Giannis downhill as much as possible one way they like to do that is with the use of

High ball screens except they ran into the same issue as goar only cares about protecting the paint from a drive not even worried about recovering toris on the pop a few times Giannis tried to take advantage of all that space by attacking goar in his deep drop coverage

But Rudy might just be the best drop Defender we’ve ever seen so that’s it’s a pretty tough task it also doesn’t help that when McDaniels was on the ball he did everything in his power to go under the screen this time baiting Giannis into a pull-up three exactly what they

Want later in the game the Bucks actually tried setting the screen from like 70 ft out to get McDaniels out of the play while Giannis builds aead of steam to attack goar with the same result though as the three-time defensive player of the year shuts him

Down Rudy and Giannis do DED quite a bit throughout this game here’s a post up and with Reed digging from up top the only angle to attack is Baseline where he turns it over that didn’t stop him from going right back to the block a play later though he once again attacks

Baseline but throws a nasty counter spin to get back to the middle and throws it down in these spots both had their wins and losses this time goar does a great job of holding his ground and forcing Giannis into a tough release angle but on this next one he catches in close and

Spins into a little jump hook I really like how the Wolves trusted Rudy to take this match up one-on-one though for everyone else it was a lot of Walling up over aggressively helping but there’s a reason this guy’s the favorite to win his fourth award all that’s to say

Without both his second and third options yanis was at an automatic disadvantage but I still really like how the Wolves took him out of his comfort zone Zone for one he really didn’t get out in transition at all and despite touching the ball 86 times he only

Attempted 14 shots and seven free throws compare that to his season averages of 19 field goal attempts 11 free throws and you’ll see what I mean because typically Stars see an increase to those categories after losing key players it wasn’t just that he wasn’t attempting as

Much but also not converting only 49 8% true shooting while the team had an abysmal 105.6 offensive rating very rarely do we see a team truly shut down Giannis but this Timberwolf Squad is a pretty rare defense if you enjoyed this breakdown make sure to drop a like subscribe and

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You thought of this game as always I hope you all have a great day and I’ll catch you guys in the next One

It’s very rare for a player like Giannis to truly get “shut down”, but the Timberwolves and their #1 defense did exactly that.

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