Jaden McDaniels Was the Best Player in Wolves-Nuggets series

Jaden McDaniels came to talk and play.

Without Anthony Edwards and multiple key scorers for the back half of the first round, the Minnesota Timberwolves relied on McDaniels on both ends of the floor to win Game 4 and Game 6.

Let’s study the six-year pro’s tape. 

McDaniels’ Offensive Game Blossoms

With the Wolves down their primary shot creators, McDaniels stepped up.

In Game 6, McDaniels scored a career-high 32 points to close out the Nuggets.

The Nuggets had decided they were not going to help on any McDaniels isolations. But McDaniels took advantage of the space. He gets right to his spot and rises over the shorter Jamal Murray to put a dagger in Denver’s heart.

Here’s a sequence where McDaniels makes a play on both ends.

McDaniels completely ignores his man, Bruce Brown, and keeps his eyes on the ball. His tracking of the ball helps clean up the mistake of his teammate jumping on a ball fake, and McDaniels gets the swat.

After the rejection, McDaniels has a crossmatch  — where the defense doesn’t have the matchups they want without a screen set — as Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr. are pointing at who to guard who.

McDaniels takes advantage and drives middle for his patented floater in the paint.

While the Wolves caught the Nuggets with a crossmatch, perhaps it wasn’t a crossmatch for McDaniels, considering his comments earlier in the series.

I got him! Don’t help!

The former 2024 All-Defensive Second Team was all clamps in this series.

McDaniels’ primary assignment was Murray, who the Timberwolves held to 23.7 points per game on 35 percent shooting from the field and 26 percent from downtown, well below his season averages.

Murray went 15 of 47 (31 percent) with McDaniels as the primary defender in this series.

The perimeter isolation defense by McDaniels allowed the rest of the Timberwolves’ defenders to stay home and not have to be in rotation, like this play here.

As soon as Murray turns back, McDaniels completely flips his hips. If he tries to move laterally, Murray will blow by him.

But once McDaniels flips his hips, he has a chance to challenge Murray at the rim, and that’s exactly how the defensive possession ends. All the Wolves defenders trusted him and chose not to overhelp. 

Check McDaniels’ defensive technique on this play.

Notice McDaniels’ right foot on the initial coverage on Murray. That’s his top foot, and he uses that to deny the drive right.

Now on the screen, Murray doesn’t go directly downhill, allowing McDaniels a defensive angle to keep him way outside. 

As Murray goes to his pull-up game, McDaniels plays it perfectly. He lands just before Murray’s landing area to avoid a reckless closeout. He still got a hand up as Murray launches a triple that goes off the back rim. Every Minnesota player stays home on their assignment.

McDaniels was just brilliant all series; he even had a play where he locked down both Nikola Jokic and Murray.

Watch McDaniels contain Murray, sticking his right hand out to stay in front and in a legal guarding position.

As he goes over the screen, McDaniels switches to Jokic and discourages him from taking a floater before switching back to Murray.

Jokic throws a grenade shot, and of course, McDaniels gets the defensive board after shutting down both Jokic and Murray on one possession. 

The best player in the series just locked down the two best players on the opposing side, and that’s how Minnesota advanced into the second round.