While the Timberwolves have plenty to say about the Nuggets’ defense, they also have thoughts about their defensive anchor, Rudy Gobert.

“It’s a joke that he wasn’t a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said after his team’s 114-109 Game 2 win at Ball Arena.

A four-time winner of the award, Gobert has looked like his best self to start this first-round NBA playoff series against Denver. Finch called Gobert “by far” the Wolves’ best player in Game 1, and even though the team’s biggest run to come back from a 19-point deficit in the second quarter of Game 2 came with Gobert on the bench, they couldn’t have stood tall in the fourth quarter and picked up a pivotal win without the Frenchman.

“It’s not gonna show up in the box score, but what he did, especially in that fourth quarter — (Anthony Edwards) challenged him — and how he guarded (Nikola) Jokic in the end was super inspiring to the team,” Julius Randle said. “It was huge for us.”

The stats made the rounds after the game, but in case you haven’t heard, Jokic went for 1 for 8 from the field in Game 2 with Gobert as the primary defender. Seven of those shots came in the fourth quarter, when Jokic missed six straight before getting a dunk on Gobert in the final minute.

“A top-three defender cannot do that, so I was lucky,” Gobert said with a smile in the postgame locker room.

Jokic finished with 24 points on 20 shots, dishing out eight assists with three turnovers (two of which came with Gobert guarding him) while registering zero offensive rebounds. 

Gobert ultimately finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting behind Detroit’s Ausar Thompson, Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama. The latter is Gobert’s countryman who became the first unanimous winner of the award.

“No extra juice,” Gobert said of the voting. “I know who I am. It’s not the first time I get disrespected, probably not the last. If they want to disrespect greatness, take it for granted or whatever, sooner or later, they’ll realize the impact.”

Minnesota understands the impact right now.

This is the fourth time Gobert is facing off against Jokic and the Nuggets in the postseason and his third with the Wolves. It’s the first time since the 2020 bubble in Orlando, when Gobert was still with the Jazz, that he’s drawing a one-on-one defensive assignment on Jokic the majority of the time.

The previous two postseason matchups between Denver and Minnesota featured Karl-Anthony Towns, who thrived as the team’s power forward alongside Gobert, often matching up with Jokic so Gobert could roam and play a “free safety” type of role and provide help when needed.

This time, though, Towns is on the Knicks and Randle, the Wolves’ current starting power forward, doesn’t have the same size to take on Jokic one-on-one for large stretches, although he did for parts of Game 2.

When it counted most, though, Gobert was the one the Wolves leaned on to stop one of the best offensive centers of all time. They’ll do so again in Thursday’s important Game 3 (7:30 p.m. Prime Video).

“Rudy’s our Defensive Player of the Year,” Donte DiVincenzo said. “If anything, his numbers have been showing it all year long. His on-off (splits), all that stuff. We have all the confidence in the world and we trust that matchup, trust it one-on-one. (Jokic) is a hell of a player, MVP candidate, but at the end of the day, us giving (Gobert) that confidence, he’s going out there and playing his (butt) off this season.”