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Speaker 1: You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody, O ball if
Speaker 1: you guys are having a great start to your week. Well,
Speaker 1: that game last night I thought was the biggest NBA
Speaker 1: game since Game four of the twenty twenty two NBA
Speaker 1: Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: when you really factor in the stakes and how it
Speaker 1: felt like the eventual champion was kind of tilting on
Speaker 1: that game potentially in a big way. I think Boston
Speaker 1: is on a similar level to those two teams, but
Speaker 1: it just felt like a monumentally important moment in NBA history.
Speaker 1: So as a basketball fan, I want to kind of
Speaker 1: dive a little bit deeper into it than I was
Speaker 1: able to last night. So what we're going to do today,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk a little bit about what I
Speaker 1: noticed rewatching the game. We're going to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the fallout for both teams, talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about Jokic and the big picture after
Speaker 1: what happened last night, and then I have thirty nine
Speaker 1: clips to go over all the stuff that I found
Speaker 1: in my film session. Obviously, it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: overkill considering the series is over, but as a basketball fan,
Speaker 1: I can't help myself. So we're gonna dive a lot
Speaker 1: deeper into that Denver Minnesota series, kind of like an
Speaker 1: autopsy of everything that took place over the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. You guys know the Joe before we get started.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to a Brandy YouTube channel so you don't miss
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Speaker 1: Jason Lts. You guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
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Speaker 1: our hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mail back questions
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the postseason and the last but
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Speaker 1: So the story of the game. You know, if you
Speaker 1: guys remember I was talking with the nerds when we
Speaker 1: did our breakdown after Game six, I talked about how
Speaker 1: specifically in Game seven, Minnesota needed to try to take
Speaker 1: a sledgehammer to Denver's foundation. Now that's a kind of
Speaker 1: like a metaphor, right, But the reason why I kind
Speaker 1: of like saw it that way is if you look
Speaker 1: at this series, when Denver was very methodical and played
Speaker 1: Denver nugget basketball like we know this team is capable of,
Speaker 1: they were able to find the cracks in Minnesota's defense
Speaker 1: and score effectively. And we saw that for extensive stretches, right,
Speaker 1: not just in those three games Game three, four and
Speaker 1: Fivenesa when Denver dominated Minnesota, but also in Game seven,
Speaker 1: even in the process of them going up fifty eight
Speaker 1: to thirty eight, they had excellent offensive execution. They did
Speaker 1: what they did more or less in the middle third
Speaker 1: of the series, right, But in that third quarter stretch,
Speaker 1: Minnesota was able to crack Denver's foundation. And the way
Speaker 1: that that kind of manifested. Was a lot of mistakes,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that doesn't look like Denver nugget basketball.
Speaker 1: Right like Jamal Murray got ripped at half court twice,
Speaker 1: right like Jokic fell apart defensively and on the glass,
Speaker 1: he gave up a He was really bad defensive rebounding
Speaker 1: down the stretch of this game. They were missing box
Speaker 1: outs as a team, like crazy Michael Porter Junior got
Speaker 1: bullied by nas Reed out of the right corner once
Speaker 1: on a crash. Their defensive rotations weren't as sharp, their
Speaker 1: rim protection was really poor. A lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: we saw Denver do well early in this or in
Speaker 1: the middle of the series, I should say, was the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what we saw from Denver. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing, Like, that's I've said this before, but like
Speaker 1: the credit, the biggest credit you can pay a defense
Speaker 1: is when a defense actually manages to shake the identity
Speaker 1: of who they're playing, meaning like they start to make
Speaker 1: uncharacteristic mistakes and behaviors That to me, is the hallmark
Speaker 1: of a defense that causes you to lose your composure.
Speaker 1: Is another level of defense than what we typically see
Speaker 1: around the NBA. Right and that was the story of
Speaker 1: the series in my opinion. When Denver stayed sharp, they
Speaker 1: could weather the storm. But multiple occasions in the series,
Speaker 1: Minnesota was able to shake their foundation. They made their
Speaker 1: decision making crater, they made them miss shots, they made
Speaker 1: them turn the basketball over, they made them make defensive mistakes,
Speaker 1: they couldn't rebound, They didn't look like the Nuggets. And
Speaker 1: so that is the biggest credit that I could pay
Speaker 1: to Minnesota. On the Minnesota front, I thought Ant was
Speaker 1: mostly awesome in the second half of this game. Going
Speaker 1: back to look at the film, his double teams generated
Speaker 1: countless advantage situations as a matter of fact, and Ant
Speaker 1: said this after the game. He was like, they kept
Speaker 1: trapping me even though I wasn't playing well. And if
Speaker 1: there's a bit of criticism to throw at Mike Malone,
Speaker 1: there's Ant was having a bad night and so throwing
Speaker 1: all the now the double teams played a role in that,
Speaker 1: but it might have been worthwhile if you looked at
Speaker 1: the fact that Minnesota got their offense going in the
Speaker 1: second half in large part off of those double teams,
Speaker 1: it might have been worth trying something differently, something different
Speaker 1: to see if Ants kind of like cold spell would
Speaker 1: have continued. That said, I'm not sure if it would
Speaker 1: have made much of a difference. If you don't double Aunt,
Speaker 1: maybe Ant gets going in a different way down the
Speaker 1: stretch of that game. But I thought the double teams
Speaker 1: and him getting rid of the basketball in a timely
Speaker 1: fashion generated a lot of open looks. So you guys are
Speaker 1: going to see in the film everything I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: all the stuff I just said about Denver's mistakes, all
Speaker 1: the stuff I just said about the shot creation from Aunt.
Speaker 1: I have thirty nine clips we're going to go through.
Speaker 1: I want to kind of demonstrate it all as much
Speaker 1: as I can through film. But in addition to that,
Speaker 1: Aunt started to find ways to generate rim pressure, splitting
Speaker 1: pick and roll, so like when Yokich would come up high,
Speaker 1: it's split that gap between the two guys between the
Speaker 1: screener and Yokic and get downhill. Just finding ways to
Speaker 1: generate rim pressure by any means necessary. It's had some
Speaker 1: kickouts for three point shooters that were impressive. Guys were
Speaker 1: crashing behind his rim pressure to get offensive rebounds. And then, honestly,
Speaker 1: like you know, I was really curious to go back
Speaker 1: and look at the film about this specifically because after
Speaker 1: the game, Ant was talking a lot of trash about
Speaker 1: what he did to Jamal. Murray specifically said, on his
Speaker 1: way back to the locker room, I put him in handcuffs,
Speaker 1: and I went back to look at the film and
Speaker 1: he did. It won't show up in the box score
Speaker 1: because Jamal had, you know, thirty four to thirty five
Speaker 1: points or whatever. But from the moment that Denver was
Speaker 1: up twenty to the moment that the Minnesota was up
Speaker 1: by five, So in that twenty five point swing, Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray did not score a single point. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of really good ball pressure, top locking, denying, a
Speaker 1: lot of funneling. That's the main thing you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna see on film, and staying attached to Jamal over
Speaker 1: screens which forced Jamal to drive into help and not
Speaker 1: be able to find any openings. It also allowed Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns to kind of stay home on Jokic on
Speaker 1: the roll. It was unbelievable defensively in the second half
Speaker 1: of this game, and he really did put Jamal in handcuffs.
Speaker 1: I see now, having gone back to look at the
Speaker 1: film more closely, why he felt like, Hey, I had
Speaker 1: a shitty offensive night for the most part. But I
Speaker 1: can impact the game in other ways, and I did
Speaker 1: that by removing Jamal from the game during the run.
Speaker 1: And that's absolutely what he did, honestly, Like you could
Speaker 1: actually see Jamal go pretty passive for stretches because he
Speaker 1: wasn't shaking free from ant. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: two man game with Michael Porter Junior and casep and
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon as they went to look other directions instead
Speaker 1: of going through Jamal because Jamal just wasn't getting anything.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of field goals, a floater and
Speaker 1: a pull up jumper in the late portion of the
Speaker 1: game after Minnesota had already taken control, but it was
Speaker 1: too late at that point. Honestly, like for especially for
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old, it was just an incredibly
Speaker 1: impressive turnaround to be having a disastrous game. What was
Speaker 1: he won for nine at one point and that ninth
Speaker 1: shot was an airball that missed to the left of
Speaker 1: the rim by like a foot. He was having an
Speaker 1: absolute disaster of a game, and through sheer force of
Speaker 1: defensive will power and rim pressure and absorbing those double
Speaker 1: teams and making plays, he just found a way to
Speaker 1: impact winning in the second half of that game. Honestly,
Speaker 1: Like it was an incredibly impressive moment for a young player.
Speaker 1: And honestly, if you zoom out from the series, he
Speaker 1: averaged what twenty nine six and six on sixty two
Speaker 1: percent true shooting with the like he was incredible over
Speaker 1: to steels and blocks per game combined. Like he was
Speaker 1: a major factor in the series. He had some bad
Speaker 1: defensive moments early in the series with Jamal Murray, but
Speaker 1: down the stretch of the series Game six and Game seven,
Speaker 1: he did his job and played him into some disastrous stretches.
Speaker 1: I thought it was incredible. He deserves a ton of
Speaker 1: credit for what he did for his team last night.
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns going back to look at the film
Speaker 1: was amazing. His defense on Jokis was a revelation. Yoks
Speaker 1: tried to shoot over him in the post three times
Speaker 1: in the second half run in all three of them
Speaker 1: were tough fade away jumpers over his right shoulder. He
Speaker 1: flattened out his post ups, avoided the bully ball, and
Speaker 1: made him make over the top shots. And Jokic just
Speaker 1: did not have as good of a season as a
Speaker 1: jump shooter, which we're gonna get to in more detailed
Speaker 1: here in a minute. But also Kat just did an
Speaker 1: amazing job generating rim pressure he had. He drove right
Speaker 1: by Jokic to score twice in the second half, just
Speaker 1: like straight up man to man one on one against Jokic,
Speaker 1: went right around him once he drew a foul, once
Speaker 1: he got a driving layup. He drove right by Christian
Speaker 1: Brown for a layup. He spun off of KCP and
Speaker 1: drove drew a foul on the baseline. He was a big,
Speaker 1: like secondary offensive creation force over the course of this game.
Speaker 1: And again, like a lot of times, like we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about this more in a minute, but like heavy
Speaker 1: as the head that wears the crown, like the superstar,
Speaker 1: the guy at the top of the head of the
Speaker 1: stake gets all of the aggressive defensive coverages. ANT was seeing,
Speaker 1: the double teams, ANT was seeing the the traps and
Speaker 1: the high drops and all that stuff. Kat had favorable matchups,
Speaker 1: so it was imperative for him to take advantage of that,
Speaker 1: and he did. And so again like Carl Anthony Towns's
Speaker 1: biggest you know, the biggest rub on him is his inconsistency.
Speaker 1: But like he has shown up in a lot of
Speaker 1: big ways in this playoff run, and we have to
Speaker 1: tip the cap. This is a guy that I've been
Speaker 1: very critical of. This is a guy that seemingly the
Speaker 1: entire NBA fan base has been very critical of over
Speaker 1: the years. But he just made a lot of big
Speaker 1: plays in a really big game last night. So tip
Speaker 1: of the cap to Karl Anthony Towns. Nas Reed. He
Speaker 1: got two buckets off of the advantage situations. There's a
Speaker 1: transition cross match where they pushed the ball off the floor.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray ended up on nas Reed and he quickly
Speaker 1: hit a little lefty hook on him and then he drove.
Speaker 1: He drove a Jamal Murray close out off of one
Speaker 1: of those ant double teams at the top of the
Speaker 1: key and got a lay up on the right side
Speaker 1: of the basket. But honestly, I thought him attacking the
Speaker 1: offensive glass was his biggest impact, especially down the stretch
Speaker 1: of the game. He just kept coming flying in off
Speaker 1: the wings. When the shot went up, he had the
Speaker 1: tip dunk. And he also drew a foul on a
Speaker 1: play where at missed a layup, but Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: was guarding nos Reed in the right corner and Nasried
Speaker 1: came in and just bullied MPJ just shoved him off
Speaker 1: and got the offensive rebound and went back up and
Speaker 1: drew a foul on Cacp Like he was just a
Speaker 1: monster athletically, a huge part of that wave after wave
Speaker 1: type of approach that Minnesota brings to the table. And
Speaker 1: then Jade McDaniels, obviously, he was awesome defensively, forced Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon into a big turnover during the run, hit a
Speaker 1: few huge corner threes on kickouts from Anthony Edwards, and
Speaker 1: then had a big driving floater on Jamal Murray in
Speaker 1: that fourth quarter run. The Wolves played a nearly perfect
Speaker 1: half of basketball, and when you kind of zoom out
Speaker 1: on this series, they were the better team because they
Speaker 1: were able to conquer their weaknesses and reach their ceiling
Speaker 1: more frequently than Denver did. They This is a team
Speaker 1: that I think has some pretty glaring weaknesses and they
Speaker 1: all just came to fruition. Like Jada McDaniels is a
Speaker 1: really inconsistent offensive player. He was massive in this game.
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Town's kind of an inconsistent secondary star. He
Speaker 1: was massive in this game. Rudy Gobert hell the first
Speaker 1: half he was so bad in that first half and
Speaker 1: he was amazing in the fourth quarter of this game.
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards confronted a lot of his demons in that
Speaker 1: game and overcame them down the stretch. Like every Timberwolf
Speaker 1: looked themselves in the mirror, looked at their flaws and said,
Speaker 1: screw that or winning tonight. And they did it. So
Speaker 1: tip of the cap to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: talked about this earlier, but there's a reality to what
Speaker 1: the superstar burden is. Like you are the head of
Speaker 1: the stake, you are the head of the game plan.
Speaker 1: Michael Malone after Game six talked about how, like he
Speaker 1: specifically said, Anthony Edwards is unguardable and so we have
Speaker 1: no choice but to guard him the way that they've
Speaker 1: been guarding it, which is double teams on every iso,
Speaker 1: traps on every pick and roll. They had to do that,
Speaker 1: and like that's the thing, Like you have to look
Speaker 1: at the bigger picture. This is why box score watching
Speaker 1: is so frustrating. It's like, yeah, he had a rough
Speaker 1: shooting night, but down the stretch of this game and
Speaker 1: you guys will see on film, Anthony Edwards consistently drawing
Speaker 1: double teams was a huge factor in his team generating
Speaker 1: quality shots. In addition to that, he generated a lot
Speaker 1: of rim pressure in that second half. And that's the thing, is,
Speaker 1: like the superstar burden is, everything is about slowing you
Speaker 1: down and you have to find a way somehow to
Speaker 1: impact winning and I thought Ant did in a big way.
Speaker 1: These games tend to be ugly, Like you don't win
Speaker 1: ninety eight to ninety playing beautiful basketball. It tends to
Speaker 1: be ugly, and Ant found a way to make plays
Speaker 1: ugly last night. And again, he's twenty two years old.
Speaker 1: This is he's twenty two years old, and he's passing
Speaker 1: major tests in his first extended playoff run. I just
Speaker 1: can't say enough about how impressed I am with Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 1: I legitimately think he might be my best, my favorite
Speaker 1: player in the league now, Like I can't help but
Speaker 1: root for the guy. I think he's so good for
Speaker 1: the league. I think he's obviously the guy that has
Speaker 1: a chance to rescue American basketball from what looked like
Speaker 1: at a pretty down era in terms of quality American
Speaker 1: basketball players coming out of our high school and college system.
Speaker 1: Like he's just the league needs him and I just
Speaker 1: I continue to be incredibly impressed by him on the
Speaker 1: Denver front. If I had to kind of a you
Speaker 1: don't want to overthink it, right because you're up by
Speaker 1: twenty in the second half with a chance to go
Speaker 1: to the Western Conference Finals. So like, I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of pretending like the Nuggets scene to make
Speaker 1: some sort of massive tweak. In addition, I think they
Speaker 1: probably beat everyone else in the league this year. I
Speaker 1: would have picked him over Boston, I would have picked
Speaker 1: him over Dallas. I would have picked him over anybody
Speaker 1: else in the league except for I picked him over
Speaker 1: Minnesota and I ended up being wrong. But Minnesota proved
Speaker 1: the ability to beat Denver. I'm not sure any other
Speaker 1: team could have. So I don't think it's worth like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I saw a lot of stuff about
Speaker 1: like trading Michael Porter Junior and all these like really
Speaker 1: aggressive type of moves. I would keep the core five.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the issue. I think that there
Speaker 1: were two flaws that kind of reared their ugly head
Speaker 1: in this postseason run. First of all, in their starting lineup.
Speaker 1: If there's one weakness, it's the fact that they don't
Speaker 1: generate a ton of dribble penetration in order to generate
Speaker 1: rim pressure, which, by the way, rim pressure is like
Speaker 1: a prerequisite to winning the NBA title. You need to
Speaker 1: find a way to pressure the rim somehow, and Denver
Speaker 1: does it through interior size and interior passing. What that
Speaker 1: means is is like it's Jokic bullying his way to
Speaker 1: the basket and then bringing a second defender over and
Speaker 1: making plays out of it. It's Aaron Gordon cleaning up
Speaker 1: stuff on the back line. It's even in ball screens,
Speaker 1: it's Jokic catching on the short roll with his little
Speaker 1: floaters and pop shots and attacking off of the catch there. Right,
Speaker 1: Like they are an interior scoring team that is fueled
Speaker 1: by size and passing ability on their frontline. Right. That
Speaker 1: is a different type of rim pressure than beating people
Speaker 1: off the dribble in straight line drive situations. And one
Speaker 1: of the issues was Minnesota's frontline was so damn big
Speaker 1: with Nasriy Karl, Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert that they
Speaker 1: were able to mitigate a lot of Denver's bully bull
Speaker 1: And so when they were able to kind of mitigate that,
Speaker 1: it shined a light on the fact that Denver's perimeter
Speaker 1: players are not guys that can generate dribble penetration. Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray kind of needs a screen, right to get He
Speaker 1: can hit over the top shots, but he needs a
Speaker 1: screen to get into the paint, right like KCP, you know,
Speaker 1: at this phase of his career, not like this crazy
Speaker 1: athletic slasher that it used to be. And obviously he
Speaker 1: doesn't dribble the ball well enough to kind of initiate
Speaker 1: offense that way. I think KCP brings some rim pressure,
Speaker 1: but it's just a different kind, right like Aaron Gordon,
Speaker 1: same kind of thing, Like he can attack with an advantage,
Speaker 1: but there's not a lot of like he can break
Speaker 1: you down off the dribble and make a ton of
Speaker 1: stuff happen against an elite defense. And Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: is obviously a catch and shoot threat. So like, I
Speaker 1: think that's the one big kind of like weakness that
Speaker 1: Minnesota exposed is if you can match up with their size,
Speaker 1: they can't dribble past you, right, That was kind of
Speaker 1: the one big thing. The second piece is I do
Speaker 1: think fatigue played a big role. You guys are gonna
Speaker 1: see on the film, and there's no excuse because everyone's fatigue.
Speaker 1: Everyone's tired, and in a close game late you just
Speaker 1: got to find a way. You got to dig deep,
Speaker 1: and you got to find a way, and Denver did
Speaker 1: not in this game. But fatigue played a role, and
Speaker 1: that's where their lack of depth came to the to
Speaker 1: the forefront. They had the same lack of depth last
Speaker 1: year and they conquered it. They had the same lack
Speaker 1: of dribble penetration last year, although Bruce Brown I thought
Speaker 1: brought a good amount of that you know, kind of
Speaker 1: downhill force last year, and you know, not having Bruce
Speaker 1: Brown this year certainly ended up playing a role at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. But the lack of depth
Speaker 1: ended up showing up this year in teague at the
Speaker 1: end of games. And so they probably do need to
Speaker 1: try to add some depth in a little more firepower,
Speaker 1: specifically with athleticism this summer. They probably need to have
Speaker 1: an option that they can go to, like a sixth
Speaker 1: starter kind of thing where against matchups where they need
Speaker 1: to get more downhill force, they can put somebody in
Speaker 1: for a KCP or in for a Michael Porter junior
Speaker 1: that brings that downhill force and like again, that's gonna
Speaker 1: be the tricky piece this summer, bringing in some depth,
Speaker 1: bringing in some athleticism, just to bolster your options when
Speaker 1: you get into these types of environments. But don't overthink it. Again.
Speaker 1: You were twenty points up with a shot to go
Speaker 1: to the Western Conference finals. And I do think Denver
Speaker 1: like Denver is still in my opinion, every bit as
Speaker 1: good as the teams at the top of the league.
Speaker 1: They just caught a bad matchup and they caught a
Speaker 1: young star on the rise and they ended up ended
Speaker 1: up losing. But again, the rest of the league's going
Speaker 1: to be improving. Oklahoma City is only going to get better. Memphis, Like,
Speaker 1: think about Memphis next year. Not only you have John
Speaker 1: Morant coming back, You've got Desmond Baine, who keeps improving.
Speaker 1: He's an awesome backcourt partner for John Morant. Gigi Jackson
Speaker 1: is like forward that they found that that can shoot
Speaker 1: the hell out of the basketball, big strong, can defend.
Speaker 1: And then you've got Brandon Clark and Jared Jackson like
Speaker 1: they they are gonna be a problem next year too.
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards like he's twenty two years old, Like, imagine
Speaker 1: how good that kid's gonna be when he's twenty four
Speaker 1: to twenty five. So like, again, Denver needs to do
Speaker 1: a little bit more than they did last offseason to
Speaker 1: try to bolster and improve their margin for error, which
Speaker 1: ended up being too small this season on the jokicch front. Again,
Speaker 1: this is something that this particular topic is something that
Speaker 1: matters a lot to me as a basketball fan, but
Speaker 1: also one that I get really frustrated about when I
Speaker 1: look out at like kind of the way that most
Speaker 1: NBA fans behave. For instance, like Lebron fans today are
Speaker 1: like going out behaving like they won a fifth championship
Speaker 1: with the way they've been talking about jokicen the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: and like, I hate that. It's all narrative base. It's
Speaker 1: all fool to me. I'm a big believer in like
Speaker 1: two different lists. There's the who's the best player in
Speaker 1: the world in a vacuum kind of list, like a
Speaker 1: ranking of players based like purely in a vacuum, Like
Speaker 1: if we were starting a season tomorrow and everyone was
Speaker 1: in like a draft and you had the first pick,
Speaker 1: who would you pick for one season to lead your team?
Speaker 1: There's like that ranking, and then there's like the bragging
Speaker 1: rights ranking. And this is this is like the list
Speaker 1: that I go through every summer where it's more of
Speaker 1: just like a how do we recognize the players based
Speaker 1: on their achievements in the last year? Perfect example that
Speaker 1: is Luka Dancic. I think I thought coming into the
Speaker 1: season Luca was a top four player, but I ranked
Speaker 1: him at tenth because he missed the playoffs and played
Speaker 1: like shit down the stretch of the season. So it
Speaker 1: was like, in terms of in a vacuum, he's in
Speaker 1: the top five, right, But in this other list where
Speaker 1: it's like based on bragging rights and accomplishments, like he's
Speaker 1: considerably lower. Right. So there are these two different ways
Speaker 1: of looking at it, right, So how do we how
Speaker 1: do we, you know, kind of digest what just happened
Speaker 1: with Nikola Jokic within the realm of that list, because
Speaker 1: coming into this season, Jokich was a clear number one
Speaker 1: on both He was the clear and a vacuum guy,
Speaker 1: and he was the clear bragging rights guy, right, But
Speaker 1: he just lost in the second round. And not only that,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards kind of played him to a draw in
Speaker 1: that series, Like if you look back at the numbers,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards twenty eight points, five rebounds, six assists, fifty
Speaker 1: percent from the field, thirty seven percent from three to
Speaker 1: eighty five percent from the line. He had some bad
Speaker 1: defensive moments, but he also had some really good defensive moments,
Speaker 1: particularly at the end of the series. Jokic twenty nine points,
Speaker 1: eleven rebounds, eight assists, fifty two percent from the field,
Speaker 1: twenty three percent from three, eighty nine percent from the line,
Speaker 1: And he had some good and bad defensive stretches as well. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: he was really good defensively in the middle of the series,
Speaker 1: really bad on the outside portions of the series. So
Speaker 1: like Anton Nikole Yokich kind of played each other to
Speaker 1: a draw. You were the favorite with home court advantage,
Speaker 1: and you lost. So we got to find a way
Speaker 1: how to digest that, right I see? You know, I
Speaker 1: came into the season thinking that Jokic was substantially better
Speaker 1: than everybody. I've seen two major areas of slippage with
Speaker 1: Jokic though. First his defense. Last year in the postseason,
Speaker 1: Jokics played the best defense of his career. He was
Speaker 1: locked in every single night. He had some trouble with
Speaker 1: some specific matchups, like the team that had the highest
Speaker 1: offensive rating against Denver was the Lakers. I think it
Speaker 1: was like a one to sixteen if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: And a big part of that was the Lebron and
Speaker 1: Ad problem and the way that their downhill force combined
Speaker 1: with interior passing. It's kind of like a it's like
Speaker 1: a combination of of what Denver does offensively and what
Speaker 1: Minnesota does offensively right, and they cause a lot of
Speaker 1: problems for Denver in their back line defensively, But for
Speaker 1: the most part, Jokic was awesome in that postseason run
Speaker 1: at Denver's defense was awesome, and they weren't threatened throughout
Speaker 1: this year outside of Games three, four, and five against Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Jokic was bad. He was bad defensively against the Lake,
Speaker 1: and he was bad defensively for the most part against Minnesota.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's an area of slippitche And again,
Speaker 1: like when you're talking about Jokic ranked with the other
Speaker 1: players in the league, that's him coming down a level
Speaker 1: and coming closer to the pack. The second piece of
Speaker 1: it the jump shooting. I talked about this all season
Speaker 1: and I kept shining a big flashlight on it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Yokic's awesome, But this is weird. Let's keep
Speaker 1: an eye on this well. Last year in the regular season,
Speaker 1: Jokic got one point one seven points per jump shot.
Speaker 1: Last year in the playoffs, he got one point two
Speaker 1: to one points per jump shot. He shot awesome all
Speaker 1: year long, day one of training camp through to when
Speaker 1: he hoisted the trophy. That was a huge part of
Speaker 1: what made Yokic so dominant this year. He was down
Speaker 1: about sixteen percent from the previous season. He got one
Speaker 1: point zero one points per jump shot in the regular season,
Speaker 1: in the playoffs zero point eight seven points per jump shot.
Speaker 1: Thing that I noticed in this series in particular, there's
Speaker 1: a reason why he took ten threes last night. Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns was showing quickly on Jamal but always quickly
Speaker 1: recovering back to Jokic on his roles. So Jokic when
Speaker 1: he would roll into the lane was constantly getting swarmed.
Speaker 1: So one of the ways Jokic countered that was by popping,
Speaker 1: because when he popped, Kat couldn't get back out to
Speaker 1: him that fast, and so he found some openings at
Speaker 1: the top of the key, but then he couldn't make them.
Speaker 1: And you guys are gonna see on the film I'll
Speaker 1: show you some examples of kat like running back to
Speaker 1: the role in Yokic kind of popping free at the
Speaker 1: top of the key, Like he took those threes because
Speaker 1: that was what the coverage was allowing and he just
Speaker 1: simply could not make them. He made two of them
Speaker 1: late in the game, but he was two for ten
Speaker 1: overall in the game and for the playoffs. What did
Speaker 1: I say earlier, twenty three percent? Like that was a
Speaker 1: major issue. So I still think in a vacuum that
Speaker 1: Jokic is the best player in the world. And if
Speaker 1: I do two lists this summer and we have a
Speaker 1: vacuum list and a bragging rights list, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: have Yokic number one in that vacuum list in the
Speaker 1: sense that if I was starting a season tomorrow, I
Speaker 1: would draft him number one, like to to run my
Speaker 1: team for an entire season for one season, right, But
Speaker 1: he has slipped as a defender and as a jumpshooter,
Speaker 1: and it has brought him closer to the pack. And
Speaker 1: as far as the bragging rights go, you lost in
Speaker 1: the second round with home court advantage with the twenty
Speaker 1: point lead in Game seven, like you, he lost bragging
Speaker 1: rights for a year. Now we'll see because I think
Speaker 1: some like I don't think you just give it to anybody.
Speaker 1: I think someone has to earn it. But there are
Speaker 1: some guys that have some that have a chance in
Speaker 1: the next month to snatch those bragging rights. I think
Speaker 1: Tatum has a case. I think Anthony Edwards has a case,
Speaker 1: and I think Luka Doncic has a case. And again
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. You guys know how I feel about Tatum.
Speaker 1: I really like him as a player, but I don't
Speaker 1: think he I don't think i'd ever take him number
Speaker 1: one in a vacuum. But if he dominates everybody to
Speaker 1: hoist the trophy, he gets bragging rights for the next year.
Speaker 1: Same goes for same goes for Luca. So again, the
Speaker 1: way I look at it, he did vacate the top
Speaker 1: spot on the bragging rights list, but he still has
Speaker 1: the top spot in a vacuum. However, his lead in
Speaker 1: a vacuum is shrinking, and it's shrinking because he is
Speaker 1: slipping in a couple of key major areas, his defense
Speaker 1: and his jump shooting. Really it was just oppressive defense
Speaker 1: in rim pressure and transition. The other way, the double
Speaker 1: teams from Anthony Edwards and all of that rattling Denver's
Speaker 1: foundation and making them play a very uncharacteristic basketball game.
Speaker 1: And so tip of the captain Minnesota. They deserve to
Speaker 1: go to the conference finals. Denver's got to look in
Speaker 1: the mirror a little bit and address some things this offseason,
Speaker 1: especially as it pertains to their depth. I agree with
Speaker 1: a lot of the optimism that I heard from some
Speaker 1: specific Nuggets. After the game, Jamal Murray said, We're back
Speaker 1: to being the hunter. Love to hear it. You're right,
Speaker 1: there's human nature makes it hard to repeat, right Like.
Speaker 1: It's like Mike Malone said before the season, it takes
Speaker 1: talent to win a championship. It takes character to repeat,
Speaker 1: and Denver failed that test this year, but they do
Speaker 1: have the talent to go win it next year. They
Speaker 1: are hungry. Mike Malone referred to the Spurs and talked
Speaker 1: about how we're not done and it just because you
Speaker 1: don't repeat doesn't mean you can't be a dynasty. Love
Speaker 1: the attitude Denver will be back. You're you're an idiot
Speaker 1: if you think Denver's done, Like, They're gonna find a
Speaker 1: way to be back in the mix year after year
Speaker 1: after year. Jokic didn't win three MVPs because he has
Speaker 1: just some sort of massive media support. He also is,
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, the best basketball player in the world,
Speaker 1: even with the warts that he showed in this season.
Speaker 1: So I think Denver's gonna be back. They got punched
Speaker 1: in the mouth this year, they got humbled a little bit.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be back next year. They're gonna make some noise.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be foolish to write them off. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: right back on in a little bit with a series
Speaker 1: preview on Celtics Pacers. I will see you guys. Then
Speaker 1: the volume