Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops to Night. Here
Speaker 1: at the Volume, Happy Saturday, everybody covers with the Western
Speaker 1: Conference Finals. Here at Hoops Tonight is brought to you
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Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets go into Los Angeles and are the
Speaker 1: very first team in this playoff run to beat the Lakers,
Speaker 1: and they did it kind of convincingly. Convincingly, the Lakers
Speaker 1: kind of let go of the rope there at the end.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie as someone who is rooting for
Speaker 1: the Lakers, I'm a little bummed. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: as a basketball fan, I think it's really cool what
Speaker 1: the Nuggets are doing, and I'm excited to dive into
Speaker 1: that because the Nuggets are an unprecedented championship contender. I
Speaker 1: think they're going to win the title and they're going
Speaker 1: to do so without a very specific requirement that every
Speaker 1: modern NBA champion has had to dive into that concept.
Speaker 1: What makes the Nuggets this unprecedented type of championship contender?
Speaker 1: You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
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Speaker 1: last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. So first of all, I just want to say,
Speaker 1: obviously the series isn't technically over, but I do believe
Speaker 1: that the Nuggets are going to advance to the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: and I actually am most likely going to pick them
Speaker 1: to win the title regardless of who comes out of
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. So I want to start by just
Speaker 1: saying congratulations to all you Denver Nuggets fans. There are
Speaker 1: a bunch of you out there who have been supporting
Speaker 1: the show over the course of the season, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure for a lot of you listening to me during
Speaker 1: this series as a Laker fan, it's spend a little
Speaker 1: weird because obviously I'm going to bring my fan hood
Speaker 1: to of my fanhood to the table, but I just
Speaker 1: want to say congratulations to you guys. Beyond this season,
Speaker 1: this is going to be a really fun team for
Speaker 1: you guys to root for for several years moving forward,
Speaker 1: and when you really look at the timeline stuff with
Speaker 1: this group, and we're gonna get to that in a
Speaker 1: minute like it, it's this there's a very bright future
Speaker 1: here and I'm very very happy for you guys. So
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the uh this roster a little bit,
Speaker 1: because again, there's a reason why I didn't pick the
Speaker 1: Nuggets to win this series above and beyond the Laker matchup,
Speaker 1: and why I would not have picked them to win
Speaker 1: the title going into this playoff run even if the
Speaker 1: Lakers weren't involved, And it's just rules. You know, my
Speaker 1: dad raised me on a simple idea, the idea that
Speaker 1: the best indicator of future performance is past performance. So
Speaker 1: when you're projecting or planning for things, you should go
Speaker 1: based on you know what the past has taught you, right,
Speaker 1: And it's just a good way to try to avoid
Speaker 1: potholes and pitfalls in life and try to navigate safely. Right.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that you know, I've learned
Speaker 1: that we've all learned covering the league is like, you
Speaker 1: don't win if you don't have a top ten defense
Speaker 1: unless you have an otherworldly talented which the Nuggets don't.
Speaker 1: They're a fantastic basketball team, but no one's comparing this
Speaker 1: team to the twenty seventeen Warriors. Right, And I was
Speaker 1: on with Mark Ryan was CBS Sports Radio earlier today
Speaker 1: and he goes, he goes, why do you think so
Speaker 1: many people have underrated the Nuggets or haven't picked them
Speaker 1: to win? And I told him, I was like, look,
Speaker 1: all of these basketball analysts out there, they have a job,
Speaker 1: so to speak, to cover the league and to learn
Speaker 1: and to try to project forward with those things, just
Speaker 1: like we're talking about, and they're all following the same rules.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we're talking a lot of Nuggets.
Speaker 1: A lot of analysts picked the Nuggets to win this series,
Speaker 1: but not very many people pick the Nuggets to win
Speaker 1: the title. And that's kind of what he's referencing. And
Speaker 1: what I told him is like going into the field, right,
Speaker 1: with the field of sixteen teams, you know, you've got
Speaker 1: the team who won the title in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: that top ten defense, elite rim protection, you know, superstar talent,
Speaker 1: all the things you look for. Right, you had a
Speaker 1: team in the Boston Celtics who was two wins away
Speaker 1: last year. Elite defense, has rim protection, has star talent,
Speaker 1: all those different things. You have the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: the defending champion, who have the same core seven players
Speaker 1: that hoisted the trophy last year, have elite rim protection,
Speaker 1: bona fide superstar talent, all those things. The Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Lakers Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and good role players
Speaker 1: who won the title in twenty twenty and once again
Speaker 1: elite rim protection, elite defense. So we had a bunch
Speaker 1: of teams that were just safer bets, you know. And
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean like the people who picked the Nuggets
Speaker 1: to win the title, obviously they're prescient in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. But the point is is, like, it's not
Speaker 1: disrespect to the Nuggets to learn from the lessons that
Speaker 1: NBA history has taught us and to pick accordingly. That's
Speaker 1: why I picked against the Nuggets. But here I am now,
Speaker 1: and I've learned. I've learned that I was wrong and
Speaker 1: that all of us were wrong, right, And that's what's
Speaker 1: interesting to me. How does a team that finished fifteenth
Speaker 1: in defense and has by far the worst defensive front
Speaker 1: court of any recent NBA champion, why is it that
Speaker 1: I think that team is going to have the Larry
Speaker 1: O'Brien Trophy in three weeks? Why I want to dive
Speaker 1: into that a little bit so I wrote down some notes,
Speaker 1: and the first thing I wrote is become truly unguardable.
Speaker 1: This Laker team has really high end defensive talent, and
Speaker 1: they run these lineups where it's Anthony Davis and Lebron
Speaker 1: James flying around in the back line. They've got another
Speaker 1: big forward, whether it's Vanderbuilt or Ruey, and those are
Speaker 1: actually better forwards than the twenty twenty Lakers had. And
Speaker 1: defensively at the guard position, they're not as good as
Speaker 1: they were in twenty twenty, but they're better at the
Speaker 1: forward position. Right, and more importantly, this particular team has
Speaker 1: a bigger defensive identity simply because that's the only way
Speaker 1: they can win games because they struggle so much offensively
Speaker 1: at times. Right, and there was never really a stretch
Speaker 1: where the Lakers shut down the Nuggets. There were stretches
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty where they shut down the Nuggets. There
Speaker 1: were stretch against the Warriors and Grizzlies, or they shut
Speaker 1: down those teams. They the best defensive stretch in this
Speaker 1: series was the first half of Game one and they
Speaker 1: still got forty eight points. You get the point. Denver
Speaker 1: has become truly unguardable, and I think it stems from
Speaker 1: a couple of different things, perfectly complimentary stars. So when
Speaker 1: the Jokich Murray action takes place, you have no good option.
Speaker 1: If you switch, you're going to switch a forward onto
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray who can attack, or you're gonna switch a
Speaker 1: small onto Nikola Jokic, who can attack. Right, if you
Speaker 1: sit in a drop coverage, you're gonna concede shots. If you
Speaker 1: step up on those shots, you're gonna leave the role
Speaker 1: open to Jokic. And if you help on Jokic, and
Speaker 1: this is the pivotal part. Yokich is such a good playmaker.
Speaker 1: And even Jamal Murray, who in college averaged more turnovers
Speaker 1: than assists, has become a good playmaker six assists per
Speaker 1: game in this postseason run. And this is the This
Speaker 1: is part two. Not just guys who can shoot off
Speaker 1: ball deadly off ball threats like cannot leave them open
Speaker 1: off ball threats in Kntavious Cabo Pope and Michael Porter Junior.
Speaker 1: Michael Porter Junior was like one point three points per
Speaker 1: spot up possession this season, which was top of the
Speaker 1: league for the vast majority of the season. That's how
Speaker 1: good Michael Porter Junior is He's absolutely devastating, deadly if
Speaker 1: you leave him open. And then Kntavious Cable Pope, and
Speaker 1: again I have been telling you Nuggets fans all season,
Speaker 1: I've been I covered him with the Lakers in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, one of my absolute favorite role players. I
Speaker 1: said at the time of the Russell Westbrook trade that
Speaker 1: CACP was better than Russ. Right then, KCP and Kyle Kuzma,
Speaker 1: we're both better than Russ. Right then. That's how much
Speaker 1: I value Kntavious Cabo Pope as just a guy who
Speaker 1: can lock and trail play individual defense, attack closeouts extremely well,
Speaker 1: knockdown threes at a high clip, hit movement shots coming
Speaker 1: off a dribble, handoffs, one of the best transition defense
Speaker 1: and offense guards that there is in the league. And
Speaker 1: he was absolutely deadly in his catch and shoot situations
Speaker 1: in this series. Then Aaron Gordon, the one guy that's
Speaker 1: technically not a shooting threat. He's amazing at everything you
Speaker 1: need to be amazing at in order to be effective
Speaker 1: in an off ball roll when you're not a shooter,
Speaker 1: and that is the ability to offensive rebound, but also
Speaker 1: also to get deep seals inside when they need him.
Speaker 1: To and he's got the ability. He's like in the
Speaker 1: NBA two K video games, which I used to play
Speaker 1: a lot more when I'm younger. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: last time I did, but they used to have a
Speaker 1: metric for standing jump, right, it was like standing vertical
Speaker 1: and running vertical, I think, or something like that. Like
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon's standing jump, his ability to rise up from
Speaker 1: directly under the rim, regardless of where he's at and
Speaker 1: finish is as good as anybody you'll find in the league.
Speaker 1: And so it even became an adjustment that the Nuggets
Speaker 1: were able to attack where like Anthony Davis is on
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon, so he can help, but like Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: just has to get to the rint and just kind
Speaker 1: of throws something up, and as long as Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: comes over, Aaron Gordon is competing against four smaller players
Speaker 1: to try to get that rebound and finish it, right,
Speaker 1: especially when Lebron James was spending time on Michael Porter Junior,
Speaker 1: or if Lebron is the one who got beat by
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray for whatever reason. Right, So, like Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: made himself a threat off the ball by virtue of
Speaker 1: his unique skill set and just how hard he plays,
Speaker 1: and so when you really put it all together, they're unguardable.
Speaker 1: There is no good option to defend that team. That's
Speaker 1: why I think they're going to win in the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: Like to Darvinham's credit, and I Darvienham has had a
Speaker 1: good postseason, and I don't agree with everything he's done.
Speaker 1: Like he he bet he Darvin Ham was at the
Speaker 1: roulette table and kept picking red and it kept going black,
Speaker 1: and he kept going red because he just thought Dlo's
Speaker 1: gonna start making shots eventually. Right. Nope, Bruce Brown's made
Speaker 1: twice as many threes in this series as D'angela Russell.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit more about that matchup in
Speaker 1: a minute, but you get the point, Like he bet
Speaker 1: on D'Angelo Russell eventually getting hot and not making all
Speaker 1: of the other bad that come with came with it
Speaker 1: worth it, and it just never happened, right, same thing
Speaker 1: with Jared Vanderbilt. He was never able to really slow
Speaker 1: down Jamal Murray and hurt them too much on the
Speaker 1: offensive end of the floor. So if there's one thing
Speaker 1: I'd be super critical of with Darvin Ham, it's just
Speaker 1: a simple fact that he failed to make this particular adjustment,
Speaker 1: but he's been good enough in the postseason that I
Speaker 1: don't think it's fair to do that. And again, there's
Speaker 1: a version of that that works, and you can kind
Speaker 1: of conceptualize what he's thinking. Jamal Murray is shooting our
Speaker 1: face off. We need somebody to guard him. Let's try
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt, you know, like we need guys to hit
Speaker 1: those kickout threes. With the way the Nuggets pick and
Speaker 1: roll coverage works, we need D'angela Russell to start hitting shots.
Speaker 1: And it just didn't pay off. But again, and so
Speaker 1: as we look at that starting group for the Nuggets
Speaker 1: and the way that they've become unguardable, even in and
Speaker 1: of itself, that's not enough, right, If you're unguardable, you
Speaker 1: also need to be able to defend well enough. And
Speaker 1: I credit a couple of different things here. Schematically. I
Speaker 1: love the way they use Yokic in that high drop
Speaker 1: So Yokic is not a good rim protector, certainly not
Speaker 1: compared to his peers, but just in a vacuum, he's
Speaker 1: not a good rim protector. But what's genius about the
Speaker 1: high drop covers that they use and they used at
Speaker 1: various points in the series, they dropped him further back.
Speaker 1: But what works with his high drop, and they use
Speaker 1: the high drop a lot during the regular season, is
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, you can't protect the rim. Let's not
Speaker 1: protect the rim. Let's just have you be the guy
Speaker 1: that you would typically be. You know, usually when you
Speaker 1: guard a pick and roll three on two, you're bringing
Speaker 1: another guy over from the weak side to be super aggressive. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: they're basically telling Jokic like, you got one job, Like
Speaker 1: when the dude comes over the top of the screen,
Speaker 1: you kind of just swade that pull up or catch
Speaker 1: that driving lane, right, and then your job is just
Speaker 1: to get the defensive rebound. And they just fly around
Speaker 1: and rotate around him. And Caseyp's a good defender and
Speaker 1: Aaron Aaron Gordon's good. I was really impressed with Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Junior in this series. Defensively. Jamal Murray is pretty
Speaker 1: bad defensively, but they give him a job that he's
Speaker 1: capable of doing, which is basically just chase over the top, right,
Speaker 1: and it all just works and they got enough stops
Speaker 1: and so again like as we learn, like we gotta learn,
Speaker 1: we gotta evolve as things evolve, right, So obviously, as
Speaker 1: we go into next season, regardless of what happens, we
Speaker 1: have to consider the Nuggets as a legitimate championship threat.
Speaker 1: Right despite not having rim protection and despite not being
Speaker 1: a top ten defense, what is the pathway there become
Speaker 1: truly unguardable? Find a way to defend well enough? And
Speaker 1: it's literally that simple. So the age old question, can
Speaker 1: your offense be good enough that you don't need to
Speaker 1: be elite defensively to win? I think the Nuggets are
Speaker 1: actively answering that right now in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1: The only scenario where I see them not winning the
Speaker 1: title is if they just go really cold on jump shots,
Speaker 1: and that's always a threat. But if there was a
Speaker 1: team that was gonna make them cold, it was the Lakers.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are better defensively than Miami, and they're better
Speaker 1: defensively than Boston. Denver's gonna get better looks against both
Speaker 1: of those teams, and so right now, I think they're
Speaker 1: a runaway favorite to win the title. Let's move on
Speaker 1: to the Battle of the Bigs. So through three games,
Speaker 1: it's become abundantly clear that Nikola Jokic is just way
Speaker 1: better than Anthony Davis. Even in this game, AD was
Speaker 1: better than Jokic for three quarters and then Ad no
Speaker 1: show the fourth quarter, and Jokic, despite having nothing going
Speaker 1: pushed through and made a couple of big shots, a
Speaker 1: couple of big rebounds, a couple of big plays in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter to seal the deal. Jokic is better.
Speaker 1: He's just better now. A lot of Nuggets fans were
Speaker 1: on me before the series. Why did you say Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis is better? Again, these are just my rules. I
Speaker 1: have my rules for the way that I recognize the
Speaker 1: best player in the world. For me, I give credence
Speaker 1: to the guy with the trophy. You'll appreciate that when
Speaker 1: Jokic has the trophy and some other guys playing well
Speaker 1: chasing his tail, and I'm saying, let's give the respect
Speaker 1: to Jokic until this guy actually takes it away from him.
Speaker 1: That's the way it works for me. Again, Like everywhere,
Speaker 1: there is no like Bible or like religious texts that
Speaker 1: describes the way that basketball players are ranked. I have
Speaker 1: my rules. You guys have your rules. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: tell you how I look at this stuff. For me,
Speaker 1: with my show moving forward, I'm gonna always give preferential
Speaker 1: treatment to the guys that have been there and done that,
Speaker 1: especially at a championship level. If Nikola Jokic hoists v
Speaker 1: Larry O'Brien and gets the Finals MVP trophy, to me,
Speaker 1: he's got I don't care if he don't. I don't
Speaker 1: care if he averages twelve points a game in the
Speaker 1: regular season next year. I just don't like that. That's
Speaker 1: my That's my rule. I Anthony Davis, I will say this,
Speaker 1: the gap was more than I expected. Even I knew
Speaker 1: there was always a scenario that Jokic could out play
Speaker 1: a d But I was really disappointed in Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: in this series. I think both him and Lebron James
Speaker 1: have to go back to the drawing board offensively. The
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. The regular season is not the
Speaker 1: end all be all for postseason basketball, but it is
Speaker 1: revealing you learn in the regular season. For instance, the
Speaker 1: Lakers were a great defensive team the entire season after
Speaker 1: after the trade deadline. Not a big shock that they
Speaker 1: went into the postseason and they were good defensively. They
Speaker 1: were a terrible transition defense team. Are you stunned that
Speaker 1: they were a bad transition defense team in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't make sense. Lebron James and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: like remarkably declined as jump shooters. Lebron kind of more
Speaker 1: of like a one year slump. He's been pretty damn
Speaker 1: good as a jump shooter for the last decade, really,
Speaker 1: but in this particular season couldn't make a damn shot.
Speaker 1: And Anthony Davis hasn't been able to make a jump
Speaker 1: shot since the bubble, Like are you stunned that the
Speaker 1: two guys that couldn't make jump shots all season couldn't
Speaker 1: make jump shots in the playoffs when they needed to,
Speaker 1: Like the regular season does teach us things. It's not
Speaker 1: the end all be all, like I said, and I
Speaker 1: try to sift through it to things that apply to
Speaker 1: the playoffs and like that, like Dangelo Russell for instance,
Speaker 1: Like you've seen that there's a ceiling to what he
Speaker 1: can accomplish as the comp as the competition goes up,
Speaker 1: So you got to sift through it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But there are certain things that we learned. The habits
Speaker 1: of a basketball team. Those are the habits that you
Speaker 1: rely on when the chips are down, Like if you
Speaker 1: all season long, never ran back on defense. What makes
Speaker 1: you think that when the chips are down, you're suddenly
Speaker 1: gonna start running back on defense. It was part of
Speaker 1: their identity and it manifested on this stage. Lebron James
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis weren't gonna suddenly start making jump shots.
Speaker 1: And Lebron in particular, his slumps really drag out for
Speaker 1: a while for whatever reason, I don't have any good
Speaker 1: explanation for it. But no matter what, Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis have to go back into the lab this
Speaker 1: summer and fix their jumpers. It's fine. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: talk deep about the Lakers offseason right now. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: save that for after they get eliminated. But but no
Speaker 1: matter what, any personnel oriented things won't matter nearly as
Speaker 1: much as the fact that when they ran into Nikola
Speaker 1: jokicch he was just better. And I believe that Lebron James,
Speaker 1: when he has this jump shot going, can at least
Speaker 1: come close to Nikola Jokic's impact in his twenty first season. Right.
Speaker 1: I believe that Anthony Davis, the one from the bubble,
Speaker 1: can at least come close to Nikola Jokic's impact in
Speaker 1: the postseason. But without their jump shots, neither of them
Speaker 1: are dependable offensive players. I broke this down in our
Speaker 1: last show, the Game to Game three preview. But like
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, it used to be you threw it to
Speaker 1: him on the block and he turned and faced and
Speaker 1: it was over a point per possession. Now it's like
Speaker 1: two thirds of a point per possession. It's a significant
Speaker 1: decline in shot creation. Those two guys have to go
Speaker 1: back to the drawing board. But one of the biggest
Speaker 1: lessons that we've learned here is Jokic isn't just better
Speaker 1: than Anthony Davis. He's way better than Anthony Davis. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna apologize for rain Ad over him to start
Speaker 1: the series, because that's my rule. Just like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: apologize if I ranked Jokic over another player and that
Speaker 1: player outplayed Jokic over the course of a series, I
Speaker 1: would proclaim the other dude after the series is over, right,
Speaker 1: That's just kind of the way I do it. But
Speaker 1: we definitely learned a lot about that Jamal Murray, he's
Speaker 1: either on a ridiculous, unprecedented heater or he's just a
Speaker 1: lot better than we thought. Maybe he's closer to Devin
Speaker 1: Booker than he is to that tier of you know,
Speaker 1: guys who put up numbers that aren't very good, like
Speaker 1: the Dejontay Murray's, the Bradley Beals, the zach Lavines, the
Speaker 1: John Mrits, of all those other guards, of the two
Speaker 1: Guards and one Guards of the league that put up
Speaker 1: numbers but aren't really considered all stars. Like Jamal Murray.
Speaker 1: I think he's legitimate. I think this is legitimate. I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone wanted to undercut everything that happened in the Bubble.
Speaker 1: I thought that was lame from the beginning. It's a
Speaker 1: loser mentality. But Jamal Murray made a ton of shots
Speaker 1: in the bubble. Got hurt in the time since coming
Speaker 1: back from injury, like every other dude who gets hurt,
Speaker 1: has gone through some growing pains right as he's been
Speaker 1: working his way back into rhythm. He he played like
Speaker 1: a bona fide superstar in the series. He destroyed the
Speaker 1: Lakers in that first half, just lit them on fire.
Speaker 1: I think he's a legitimate star. And that's another big
Speaker 1: part of why the Nuggets are succeeding despite their defensive shortcomings.
Speaker 1: They just have an obnoxious amount of firepower. As always
Speaker 1: is the case, Basketball is a team sport, so don't
Speaker 1: overlook the contributions down the roster. Bruce Brown absolutely punked
Speaker 1: the Angelo Russell in this series, got in his head,
Speaker 1: got him off his game, outshot him from the perimeter,
Speaker 1: dominated the game in the athleticism arias. There was a
Speaker 1: sequence I was watching the game of the Buddy, and
Speaker 1: there was a play where Lebron, I think it was
Speaker 1: either Lebron or Austin, tried to throw a lob to
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, and Anthony Davis like missed it over the
Speaker 1: front of the ram and tried to go grab it
Speaker 1: on the other side, and like three Nuggets are in
Speaker 1: there knocking around at the ball, and the Nuggets secure
Speaker 1: the loose ball. Very next possession, Jamal Murray takes like
Speaker 1: a they go down the floor. Jamal takes like a
Speaker 1: mid range jumpshot floater thing that's like ten feet away
Speaker 1: from the rim, kind of bobbles the ball and loses
Speaker 1: it and gets it up on the rim, and Bruce Brown,
Speaker 1: in a thicket of people, just jumps over Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: gets the ball and puts it back in and I
Speaker 1: look over at my buddy, and I'm like these rim confrontations.
Speaker 1: Denver's been winning all series long, like loose balls, like
Speaker 1: and and again. This is the thing because the Lakers
Speaker 1: did this to Golden State, where they fatigued them into
Speaker 1: looking like a shell of themselves. The Nuggets physically pulverized
Speaker 1: the Lakers and wore them down to the point where
Speaker 1: they looked like a shell of themselves. I was so
Speaker 1: impressed by them in this series. But yeah, Bruce Brown
Speaker 1: absolutely destroys the Angelo Russell. Look At how much better
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon is than Jared Vanderbilt. Look at Kentavious Colwell
Speaker 1: Pope versus the contributions of like Dennis Schroeder and Lonnie Walker,
Speaker 1: like down the roster. This was an outclassing And that's
Speaker 1: what That's how you end up three to zero. I
Speaker 1: used to call game I still call game three the
Speaker 1: buzzsaw game. Right, whenever a good basketball team goes and
Speaker 1: plays in front of their home crowd and is far
Speaker 1: more desperate. It's whenever the home team goes up two oh,
Speaker 1: and you go back in Game three, that's the hardest
Speaker 1: game to win because it's desperate home crowd. Like, there's
Speaker 1: a huge gap in motivation, Uh, like you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a better whistle, all these different things, and they overcame that.
Speaker 1: The only way you do that is if it's down
Speaker 1: the roster, outclassing. Jokic out played Anthony Davis. Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: shot so well that he basically played Lebron James to
Speaker 1: a draw. Right. Austin Reeves was awesome, so is Contavious
Speaker 1: Call a pope, call that a wash. Right, But down
Speaker 1: there it's like Bruce Brown destroys D'angela Russell, Aaron Gordon destroys,
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt. Just down the roster, they were better. That's
Speaker 1: how you go up three to zero in a conference finals.
Speaker 1: So again, shout out to the Denver Nuggets, Shout out
Speaker 1: to Nuggets fans. I'm happy for you, guys. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to covering this team on their path to what
Speaker 1: I think is gonna be their first NBA champion, a
Speaker 1: championship with this corps. Like I said, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: talk too much about the Lakers until they get eliminated,
Speaker 1: but I do have a lot of thoughts about the
Speaker 1: roster and how they should proceed. But again, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get into that tonight. I want tonight to be
Speaker 1: about the Nuggets. So all right, guys, that's all I
Speaker 1: have for tonight. I sincerely appreciate you guys. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be back tomorrow for Game three of the Eastern Conference Finals,
Speaker 1: and I will see you guys. Then the volume