Gobert knows the massive assignment in front of him.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are heading into a first-round matchup with the Denver Nuggets, and Rudy Gobert already knows what this series is going to ask of him.
Speaking at Tuesday's practice, the four-time Defensive Player of the Year talked about what it's going to take for Minnesota to compete with the league's top-ranked offense, and his answer was pretty straightforward.
"Just being poised. Take whatever the defense gives us," Gobert said. "I'm going to have a lot of opportunities to find my teammates. I'm going to have a lot of opportunities to be aggressive. It's the beauty of our team. Taking what the defenders give us and doing that as a team, and if we do that, we will have some success."
The Regular Season Wasn't Kind
The problem is that Gobert and the Timberwolves didn't have much success against Denver during the regular season.
The Nuggets took the season series 3-1, winning the first three meetings before Minnesota salvaged a 117-108 win on March 1.
The 49-33 Timberwolves enter as the sixth seed, while Denver locked up the third seed at 54-28 after closing the year on an 11-game winning streak.
Gobert averaged 10.9 points, 11.5 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game this season while shooting 68.2 percent from the floor.
Those are solid numbers for a defensive anchor, but the matchup across from him is what makes this tricky.
Nikola Jokic put up 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists per game in the regular season, and he was even better against the Timberwolves specifically, averaging 35.8 points, 15 rebounds and 11.3 assists in four meetings on 65.3 percent shooting.
Those are terrifying numbers no matter how you slice it.
Where It Could Go Wrong for Gobert
What Gobert is talking about with poise and finding teammates sounds great, and there's actually some evidence to back it up.
According to NBA tracking data, the Timberwolves allowed just 108.6 points per 100 possessions during Gobert's 121 minutes in the regular season series.
That's a solid number against a Denver team that ran the most efficient offense in the league. But the issue is what happened when Gobert sat down.
Denver's offense exploded without him on the floor, and that gap could be the difference in a seven-game series.
There's also the Jokic factor that nobody can really plan around. Jokic doesn't just score on Gobert, he turns him into a decision-making problem.
Every time Gobert steps up to contest or hedges on a ball screen, Jokic has the vision and the touch to make him pay with a pass to an open shooter or a cutter behind him.
It's a matchup that has historically frustrated Gobert, and adding Jamal Murray into the equation, who averaged 31.5 points against Minnesota this year on 43.6 percent from three, only makes things harder.
Gobert's message of staying patient and taking what the defense gives them is the right one.
Whether the Timberwolves can actually execute it for four wins against a team this talented is a completely different conversation.