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The Minnesota Timberwolves of Ricky Rubio and Juancho Hernangómez They got their second victory against the Utah Jazz in a game in which the Spanish point guard showed a better harmony with his new teammates while the rookie Anthony Edwards it begins to show why he was No. 1 in this year’s draft.
In the Minnesota Timberwolves’ second game this season, Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio returned to Salt Lake City to play against the Utah Jazz, the team in which he played for two seasons between 2017 and 2019.
Both the Timberwolves and the Jazz entered the second game of the season undefeated. The Utahns easily beat the Portland Trail Blazers in the opening game 100-120 while the Minnesotans took a little longer to get rid of the Detroit Pistons.
To Ricky’s team and the Madrid pivot Juancho Hernangómez It took him 44 minutes to get ahead on the scoreboard and take the game 101-111 thanks to a great fourth period in which they scored 31 points while the Pistons had to be content with 16.
Against the Detroit team, Ricky and Juancho’s performances were discreet, but against the Jazz, Ricky worked from the first moment he jumped onto the court and it showed in the team’s performance.
Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders has so far assigned Rubio the sixth-man spot in his scheme, leaving the Catalan point guard on the bench until the middle of the first quarter.
When Rubio jumped onto the court with 6.12 minutes to go in the first quarter, the giant Vivint Smart Home Arena scoreboard reflected a 12-point tie. When the fourth ended, the Timberwolves were ahead by four, 27-31.
With Ricky on the court, the ball moved faster in attack, which made it easier to throw off the Jazz defense and that men like rookie Anthony Edwards, Dominican-American Karl Anthony Towns or D’Angelo Russell were in. the best position to score.
¡¡ @ rickyrubio9 !!
9 points, 6 assists, 6 recoveries and 4 rebounds
The @Timberwolves They stand 2-0 pic.twitter.com/PVRAw4AmOn
— NBA Spain (@NBAspain) December 27, 2020
In the first 12 minutes, Edwards, whose performance in the first two games is already putting long teeth in the Minnesota fans, accumulated 9 points, 1 rebound and 1 steal while Russell had 7 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist.
For his part, Rubio scored a triple in the first quarter.
In the Jazz, the center Rudy Gobert stood out with 6 points, 5 rebounds and an assist, and Joe Ingles with 6 points and 1 rebound.
The second quarter started with Juancho on the court and Ricky on the bench. The Minnesotans maintained a four-point lead until 7.25 minutes to go, the point guard from El Masnou again.
With Ricky on the track, the Timberwolves’ lead was stretched and the Minnesotans went into halftime 15 points ahead of Jazz, 53-68.
As Saunders pointed out after the game, the Timberwolves are beginning to benefit from Ricky’s ability to get the ball out of his field and into the paint. Proof of this are Rubio’s four assists during the second quarter.
By then, Russell was the leading scorer of the game with 16 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists and 1 steal while Edwards had 12 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist and 1 steal. For his part, Rubio had 5 points, 1 rebound, 4 assists and 1 steal.
In the Jazz, only Jordan Clarkson, with 11 points, and Ingles, with 10, held the pull.
The same pattern was repeated in the second half of the game. The growing rapport of Minnesota players paid off on offense and defense. The pairing of Russell and Rubio worked smoothly and Jazz’s efforts were not paying off.
The third quarter ended 79-88, eight points ahead.
Just in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, Utah’s team stepped on the gas and got within two points, 111-113 with six seconds left in the game.
The proximity on the scoreboard forced Saunders to recover Towns, who had had to retire to the locker room after a collision that injured his shoulder.
In the end, Ricky and Juancho’s Timberwolves accumulated their second victory by closing the score with 111-116, thanks to the contributions of Russell (25 points), Edwards (18 points) and Malik Beasley (18 points). Rubio finished the game with 9 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 steal while Juancho was content with 1 rebound.
Among the Utah Jazz, the most prominent were Jordan Clarkson (23 points), Donovan Mitchell (21 points) and Mike Conley (20 points).
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