The Denver Nuggets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-105 in Game 1 of their first-round series on Saturday night at Ball Arena. In the victory, the Nuggets were granted 33 free throw attempts, while the Timberwolves had 19 opportunities from the charity stripe.
After the game, Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch voiced frustration about the number of free throws that the Nuggets got to shoot, essentially calling out the officiating. Finch was particularly annoyed by Nuggets star guard Jamal Murray getting 16 free throw attempts.
“The 16 free throws from Murray is a head-scratcher,” Finch told the media in his postgame press conference.
“Yeah, I thought we played really good defense,” Finch expanded. “I thought, on him, a lot of those ones in the second quarter, we were there, we were physical, we were vertical. He initiates the contact, he spills away, and he gets rewarded for it. Jokić does the same thing. We’ve gotta be solid around that. But 16 free throws is a lot.”
It’s worth noting that Jokić only had one free throw attempt.
Nuggets head coach David Adelman addressed the topic and said that Murray “drew a lot of fouls in that (second) quarter because he got fouled- a lot.”
And Murray said, “Four of them were technicals… I thought I got fouled on every single one of them. I don’t know what everybody’s talking about. It’s real fouls.”
While Finch is questioning if the Nuggets earned all of those free throw attempts, Denver also deserves credit for actually making almost all of those. The Nuggets went 30-for-33 on free throws, good for 91 percent. And Murray never missed over his 16 tries. Minnesota, meanwhile, went 14-for-19 (74 percent).
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.