Once victory was achieved, he took his crutches again to join his players in the locker room. Chris Finch had a special evening for his team's first trip to Denver. The Wolves coach had to step back, behind his assistant Micah Nori.
Three days after his operation, following his rupture of a patellar tendon in his right knee, Chris Finch remained seated, for most of the evening, on a chair located between his bench and the scorer's table. In the second row, so he can extend his leg.
The Wolves worked on the subject for a while, to find the right logistical formula so that he could be close to the players, but without the risk of being the victim of further contact.
Chris Finch couldn't get up
“ I will be on the bench, but in terms of the interaction and the flow of the match, a lot of it will be handled by Micah. Obviously I'm not able to get up, call timeouts, interact with the players, that kind of thing. But being alongside coaches and players in rallies is the same thing “, described the head coach ahead of the match.
And that's how his assistant for three years, Micah Nori, found himself center stage for the opening of this conference semi-final against the reigning champions. A team that he knows very well since he was an assistant to Mike Malone in the past. “ Whether they're people we know or not, once the ball gets rolling, they're in our way “, warned the Nuggets coach.
The latter, 48 minutes of play later, had to admit defeat against his former assistant. Behind a still gigantic Anthony Edwards, the Wolves came to win in Denver.
Micah Nori’s feeling after this meeting? Positive. “ Yes, that's for sure, all the systems in which we scored came from me, and those where we didn't score from him! Nah, I'm joking ! “, he says, very comfortable in a press conference.
Not “bulky”
More seriously, he adds: “ It went well. The thing about Finchy is that even though he's on his feet a lot during matches, he doesn't call for a lot of systems. On throw-ins, after timeouts, he will tell me what to look for. We didn't want it to be cumbersome, that's the word he used. »
The balance was achieved naturally between the two men, while for example we saw Finch ask Anthony Edwards, with a gesture of his finger, to come to him during a time-out to transmit an instruction . Considering their previous series against the Suns, the Wolves machine seems sufficiently well oiled.
“ I think we did well on that, and things are awfully, awfully easy when you have Mike Conley on the floor, setting things up, Kyle Anderson, those guys. It went well in a situation that is clearly not ideal », Finishes an assistant who is gaining ground.
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Anthony Edwards | 79 | 35.1 | 46.1 | 35.7 | 83.6 | 0.7 | 4.8 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 3.1 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 1.8 | 25.9 |
| Karl Anthony Towns | 62 | 32.7 | 50.4 | 41.6 | 87.3 | 1.5 | 6.8 | 8.3 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 3.3 | 21.8 |
| Rudy Gobert | 76 | 34.1 | 66.1 | 0.0 | 63.8 | 3.8 | 9.2 | 12.9 | 1.3 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 14.0 |
| Naz Reid | 81 | 24.2 | 47.7 | 41.4 | 73.6 | 0.9 | 4.3 | 5.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 13.5 |
| Mike Conley | 76 | 28.9 | 45.7 | 44.2 | 91.1 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 2.9 | 5.9 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 1.7 | 11.4 |
| Jaden Mcdaniels | 72 | 29.2 | 48.9 | 33.7 | 72.2 | 0.8 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 10.5 |
| Nickeil Alexander-walker | 82 | 23.4 | 43.9 | 39.1 | 80.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.7 | 8.0 |
| Kyle Anderson | 79 | 22.6 | 46.0 | 22.9 | 70.8 | 0.8 | 2.7 | 3.5 | 4.2 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 6.4 |
| Monte Morris | 27 | 15.1 | 41.7 | 42.4 | 70.6 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 5.1 |
| Shake Milton | 38 | 12.9 | 40.0 | 26.4 | 81.8 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 4.7 |
| Troy Brown, Jr. | 37 | 11.1 | 44.1 | 36.9 | 86.4 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 4.2 |
| Luka Garza | 25 | 4.9 | 48.0 | 28.1 | 72.0 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| Tj Warren | 11 | 11.3 | 43.9 | 15.4 | 75.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 3.7 |
| Jordan McLaughlin | 56 | 11.2 | 48.3 | 47.2 | 72.2 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 3.5 |
| Daishen Nix | 15 | 3.3 | 37.5 | 35.3 | 50.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 1.8 |
| Leonard Miller | 17 | 3.1 | 65.0 | 40.0 | 50.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.7 |
| Josh Minott | 32 | 2.9 | 47.2 | 40.0 | 85.7 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
| Wendell Moore, Jr. | 25 | 3.0 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.7 |
| Justin Jackson | 2 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
