Picture it: You're the Minnesota Timberwolves and two of your starters have just gone down with severe injuries in the first half of Game 4, including your best player Anthony Edwards. You're up 2-1 in the series but the Denver Nuggets have momentum going into the half. Well, obviously this is the time to unleash the Dosunmu. And unleash they did.
Ayo Dosunmu, a last-minute trade-deadline pick up from the Chicago Bulls earlier this year, just broke out with a career-high 43 points, in a career-high 42 minutes, in the Timberwolves dramatic 112-96 win over the Nuggets to take an authoritative 3-1 lead in the series. Dosunmu shot 13-for-17, including going 5-for-5 from the three-point line, and additionally hit all 12 of his free throws—a statline that would be insane for an all-star let alone a role player who had been withering away in Chicago just a few months ago.
Ayo Dosunmu not only provided necessary offense to a defensive masterclass put on by the Wolves in the second half but he seemingly broke the spirit of the Denver Nuggets, enough that when Jaden McDaniels decided to go in for a last minute fuck-you layup, Nikola Jokic lost all composure—and that's the guy who allegedly doesn't even care about basketball! Dosunmu rescued what could have (and likely should've) been a catastrophic night for the Wolves, a night when Donte DiVincenzo went down for the rest of the year with a torn right Achilles tendon and Anthony Edwards left with a knee injury, and instead put on the best kind of playoff show. A heat check where a guy puts his stamp on a big win and has his name etched in the stars forever.
Now whether Dosunmu can recreate magic is the only question. It'll be hard to have another 40-point game like this—before Saturday he'd never even scored 30 in an NBA game—particularly on the road at Denver, and the news is that Edwards will be out for at least a few weeks with a bone bruise and hyperextended knee. Luckily for the Wolves they only need to win one more game in this series, and the Nuggets and Jokic continue to be completely demoralized by Minnesota's defensive game plan still being led by Rudy Gobert and the insane man McDaniels. Whether Dosunmu can be a hero again remains to be seen; he'll certainly have his chance.
