Almost 11 months ago to the day, Rudy Gobert became the punchline to a biting NBA joke.
His status in the league, questioned. His four Defensive Player of the Year honors, discredited. His ability to thrive in the postseason, nearly universally rejected.
There had been debates about Gobert’s playoff acumen earlier in his career, but a step-back 3-pointer from Luka Dončić in last year’s Western Conference finals served as a dagger not only in the game, but also — it seemed at the time — for Gobert’s career. It showed that the 7-foot-1 veteran center could anchor a regular-season defense just fine, but when it came to the playoffs, with switch-hunting the norm rather than the exception, Gobert simply couldn’t hang with the game’s elite perimeter scorers.
Those questions were raised once again during this year’s opening-round series between the sixth-seeded Wolves and the third-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, where Gobert would once again be tasked with guarding Dončić in isolation — along with two more adept scorers and playmakers in LeBron James and Austin Reaves. Lacking a proven true center, the Lakers went small for much of the series, rendering Gobert obsolete on multiple occasions.
In the first four games, even with the Lakers putting nobody taller than 6-foot-9 on the floor for long stretches, Gobert scored 14 total points on 4 for 13 shooting, collecting 25 rebounds in just under 105 minutes. He blocked just two shots, and while the Timberwolves won three of the four games, it was clear that Gobert wasn’t going to be a significant part of the series.
Or so we thought.
During the Wolves’ 103-96 series-clinching Game 5 win over the Lakers on Wednesday, Gobert proved that there is still a place for him — and by proxy, other traditional centers — in the NBA playoff landscape. From the opening tip, Gobert dominated the paint, finishing with 27 points and 24 rebounds (both career playoff highs), while making 12 of his 15 field goal attempts.
“Rudy’s a winner at the highest level,” Minnesota head coach Chris Finch said after the game. “He drives winning. You can not like who he is, how he does it, what he looks like, etc. When you have this guy on your team, you understand what a professional and a winner is. And he’s just such a competitor as well.”
It wasn’t just the numbers for Gobert, either. After a slow start, the Lakers methodically made their way back into the game. But seemingly every time they made a push toward fully stealing momentum from the Wolves, there was Gobert with a monster offensive rebound — he had nine of them — occasionally followed by a ferocious put-back dunk.
It was a tour de force from the Frenchman, who badly needed a postseason moment like this to add to his Hall of Fame resumé.
“He doesn’t listen to the outside noise. We don’t listen to the outside noise,” Finch said of Gobert. “Nobody’s happier for Rudy than his teammates right now, particularly Anthony [Edwards], who let everybody out there on the floor know that it was Rudy’s night, and nobody was around to stop him.”
The Wolves needed it too, as Gobert’s standout performance occurred simultaneously with the worst 3-point shooting night in NBA playoff history. Minnesota went 7 for 47 from 3-point range, and the 40 misses were the most ever in a postseason game. Their 15% clip is also the new low-water mark for a team taking at least 34 attempts.
Most missed 3-pointers in a game, NBA Playoff history
It’s simply remarkable that a team could shoot that poorly from 3-point range and still win the game, and that’s entirely thanks to Gobert’s dominance in the paint. He was the only Timberwolves player to shoot over 50% from the field in Game 5, and he came to the rescue of the normally prolific Anthony Edwards, who went a putrid 0 for 11 from 3-point range while finishing with just 15 points.
“He was a dragon tonight,” Edwards said of Gobert after the win. “He was the dragon from Game of Thrones tonight.”
Will Gobert do this consistently in the next round? Probably not. Will he even do it one more time this postseason? Who knows. But for one night, the big man showed that good old-fashioned centers can still take advantage when the opponent decides to unleash a horde of mice into the house.
“We just have a bunch of guys who want to win,” Gobert said after the game. “A lot of guys who have been through a lot of adversity throughout their career, throughout their lives. We love each other.”
