Warriors-Nuggets Reaction: Jokic & Denver take down Steph Curry & Golden State | Hoops Tonight

Warriors-Nuggets Reaction: Jokic & Denver take down Steph Curry & Golden State | Hoops Tonight

Celebrate happy holidays to those who don’t hopefully you’re still getting to spend some time with your loved ones hanging out hopefully not working having some good food and and and relaxation time we’re going to be doing two live shows today breaking down the Denver Nuggets win over the Golden State

Warriors and they’re be we’re going to be coming back in a couple of hours for Lakers Celtics which hopefully will be as good as this game was and this game went a lot like a a bunch of other Denver games recently I was fortunate enough get to watch a lot of nuggets

Hoops this week I watched them come back and and beat the Brooklyn Nets a few nights back and then they had a similar win against Charlotte a kind of idea where no matter what happens to Denver throughout a game there’s this trend that takes place down the stretch which

Is the nuggets are just going to get better shots than you down the stretch of games and there’s so many different ways that they can go and there’s a variety there and no matter what you do defensively to try to take stuff away you end up causing problem somewhere

Else and it’s been interesting because I’ve noticed especially in this game and in the Brooklyn Nets game in particular one of the things that teams are are conceding in effort to take other things away for Denver is hey we’re just going to give Jamal Murray tough pullup jump

Shots off the dribble and the problem is he’s still making them because that’s what makes this Denver Nuggets team so difficult to guard now from a schematic standpoint let’s kind of piece it all together here so obviously off ball you have Michael Porter Jr and cavius calwell Pope and in those situations

You’re not going to be digging down off of those guys to any great extent because they’re both deadly in catch and shoot situations right now with Aaron Gordon you have the ability to help off of him in one way or another obviously he’s a guy that’s not a super confident

Jump shooter but did you know the Denver Nuggets grabbed 35% of their own misses in crunch time this year in large part because of opportunities to help off of Aaron Gordon that leave him underneath the basket with a good rebounding Advantage once again one of the stops

That the Warriors got down the stretch in this game Aaron Gordon just grabs the offensive rebound goes back up draws a foul and even if he misses one out of two free throws that’s still a point for Denver on one possession which in grunch time is certainly not a bad thing right

And what you’re seeing a lot of teams do and uh golden state did this tonight and and Brooklyn did the same thing the other night but the screen Defender the guy who guarding Nicole yic is just staying glued up to him in those situations and they’re basically just

Hoping their on ball guy can stay as close to Jamal Murray as they can and force him into tough shots and there were a couple in there where Andrew Wiggins and we’ll talk about him in a little bit because he had an amazing game tonight uh or today relative to

What he’s looked like for the last year or so um uh but with exception of a handful of possessions where they got good contests on Jamal Murray he was Breaking Free one of the the last uh jump shot the three-pointer that he hit there at the top of the key it was a

Double screening action and they kind of confused the switching that the warriors were doing and he found a little soft spot right there at the top of the key extended out to take and make a shot and that’s the thing you know like we talk about with with coverages obviously when

Coverages are executed perfectly they take away openings but it’s very difficult to execute a coverage perfectly especially when you have a team like Denver that can do something and be like oh they’re having some success with with Andrew Wiggins chasing over the top of this dribble handoff for

This ball screen so let’s just bring a third guy into the action and confuse the hell out of him and one of them will make a mistake and somebody will get open but it’s just very difficult because there’s no you know it’s like okay we’re going to try to leave Looney

On an island and it’s like jic just drives right by him to the left and makes that little left-handed uh hook shot in the lane it’s there’s no good option there and it’s funny because no matter what’s happened this season no matter how lethargic Denver is looked

From time to time no matter how many wins teams were able to uh get against them when Jamal Murray was out when push comes to shove when you find yourself in a close game against this team and it’s Jamal Murray and it’s cavius Cavo Pope and it’s Aaron Gordon and it’s Michael

Porter Jr and it’s Nicole yic all on the floor together they’re probably going to get better shots than you and on the other end of the floor like there you know Golden State had a lot of success in this game attacking Jamaal Murray in the post which we’ll talk about in a

Minute but like I thought they did an outstanding job on Steph Curry and when St kind of tried to regain control of the offense late he wasn’t even getting good looks there was a key drop coverage stop that Nicole yic got in pick and roll where Steph went for one of his

Little scoop out layups that he tends to make a lot and it ended up in an ugly Miss in large part because of an excellent possession of Rim protection from Nicole yic kavus cell pope did an awesome job on Steph Curry all night you can always tell the dead giveaway for

When a star looks comfortable versus when he’s not is the difference between like when he’s getting clean balanced looks that more or less look like the shots that you see the guy get against the rest of the teams in the league versus kind of chucking stuff up and

Like I thought it was interesting when look at those last few shots Steph got and it’s like okay here’s this like jab step kind of lean to the right jumper over cavius Cabo Pope that kind of looks like he’s just throwing the ball up at The Rim or here’s you know okay I’m

Switching to my left hand and I’m just throwing it up there now obviously that was in garbage time at the end of the game but the point is is like cavius cwell pop was legitimately doing a good job on Steph Curry in this game making him uncomfortable it wasn’t there were a

Couple shots that Steph missed where you’re like wow I can’t believe you missed that there was a wide open three on the right wing uh where he had like 10 feet of separation from everybody else on the floor and you’re like man you expect Steph Curry to make that shot

And there’s no doubt that that there was some variance in there but for the most part I thought they did a really nice job defensively on Steph Curry as well and like when it comes to evaluating the other teams around the league and they all have flaws in in in one way or

Another right like Milwaukee again this morning just was incapable of making Jaylen Brunson feel uncomfortable because they have some of the worst point of attack Defenders that you’ll find in the NBA right that’s a significant flaw in that roster we talk about the Lakers and some of their

Issues with halfcourt offense in effort during the regular season and how that can cause problems Boston Celtics in late game execution right is struggling a lot because they are uh they ironically can’t score the ball there’s all these issues going on around with all of these teams and when I try

To Target something one specific thing that I trust when the hits the fan right now it’s Denver’s offense in in any sort of slowdown environment I just trust them to get better shots and I think it’s going to lead to them in any sort of substantial you know

Because it’s it’s one thing in a close game 5 minutes left each team gets you know 15 possessions or whatever or 10 possessions that you know like maybe you can out execute them once but over the course of a seven game series to do that to them four times out of seven just

Feels like a long shot to me I don’t think they’re some sort of runaway favorite but I think what we’ve seen from Denver in their closing offense over the last couple of weeks is just the latest and a long line of examples of why they are the safest bet out of

That group now on the Golden State Side a couple of really interesting things I thought Brandon psky was incredible in this game but most importantly he was drawing more high uh a high level defensive assignments right you’re looking at these lineups and it’s like because of what Stephen Clay and psky

Provide as perimeter Talent you kept ending up with guys like Jamaal Murray on a Jonathan kaminga or on an Andrew Wiggins and you know what I’ve said often and for the record because this is the thing you know the the the winner uh always ends up controlling The Narrative

Of that particular game right and it ends up being what everybody talks about after but this was a game that Golden State played very well and they did expose some things in Denver’s defense specifically a topic that I’ve uh uh surround I’ve uh hit on several times

With Denver’s defense which is that they have entry points but you have to have the ability to touch those entry points so for instance if they can hide Jamal Murray and if they can hide jval Murray on some sort of perimeter weapon that is more passive with the basketball they can get

Away with it because they can hedge and recover with him if you pull him into ball screens uh uh in any sort of situation where he ends up in a switch you can help off of that guy right like you can hide him same thing goes for

Michael Porter Jr although I thought he had a couple of really big defensive plays in this game uh particularly on Klay Thompson right but when you have those guys when they’re able to hide you can get away with it but when you have four legitimate offensive weapons out

There at the same time if it’s Steph clay psky and let’s say Andrew Wiggins for instance and Andrew Wiggins had a big bounceback game in this particular game all of a sudden Andrew Wiggins is drawing Jamal Murray on an island and they have no choice but to either let

Andrew Wiggins cook one-on-one against Jamal or to send that second Defender over and I think you know it’s hard to overstate how much Brandon psky and him popping like this this early has helped to make a lot of things easier for Golden State he’s surprisingly big and

Strong for a guard he’s had no trouble hanging athletically he competes in all the Dirty Work areas of the game he can shoot he can dribble he can pass and so it just makes him we talk about those all those responsibilities on the floor he fills a lot of those

Responsibilities on the floor and it just makes everyone’s job easier if that’s not psky if that’s if that’s it let’s reconfigure the matchups here and it’s Looney and Draymond then chances are Jamal Murray can get away with Heidi that’s kind of the way that the those matchups change

By having one of those particular players hit now uh we saw Jonathan kaminga Andrew Wiggins have a lot of success in the post but specifically that was what Andrew Wiggins brought to the table in the championship run if you guys remember in 2022 he was getting you

18 to 20 a night attacking matchups because of his ability to draw quality matchups because of the perimeter talent that Stephen Curry Stephen Clay bring to the table and needing to occupy those players with perimeter Defenders right you know it’s funny because uh Steve Kerr had some comments the other day

Where he talked about the uh um the reticence or the hesitancy to change the starting lineup and I saw the tweet and it had a lot of negativity from some Warrior fans underneath it about how it was the wrong decision to wait as long as he did and I 1,000% agree with Steve

Kerr and I said this with Sam as fondari the other day when he came on the show but I would much rather be late to that party than early and the reason why is to Steve Kerr’s Point these veterans have earned a certain amount of leash right by being

Great on big stages I had a I had a bunch of comments in the last week from Warriors fans saying why does Jason keep talking about trading Jonathan kaminga that’s ridiculous why does Jonathan kaminga have to you know uh be removed from the rotation for Andrew Wiggins to

Have his starting spot back like blah blah blah blah all of this stuff and the reason why is pretty simple first of all Andrew Wiggins right now doesn’t have a ton of trade value Jonathan kaminga does because he’s young and has all the potential in the world right Andrew

Wiggins was one of the best perimeter Defenders on the planet in 2022 he did what I’ve never seen a perimeter Defender do which is make Luca donic feel uncomfortable in a playoff series no one’s done it Andrew Wiggins did and he had all these big scoring games so the

Point is that’s why you don’t give up on the Vets because Andrew Wiggins is still very much capable of what he showed you tonight and if you’re going to Hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy this year you need Steph playing like MVP Steph you need Kay Thompson playing like Kay Thompson

You need Draymond Green to get back you need to find lineups that work and you need Andrew Wiggins to play like he did in 2022 and if you Steve Kerr had a certain obligation to try to give him time to figure his stuff out now eventually he

Got to a point where he had to make a move and that’s where we tweaked the starting lineup now Andrew Wiggins is coming off the bench and Andrew Wiggins as a professional is trying to find a way to earn his way back into that rotation right or into

That starting group if he wants to right but again like you’ve got guys in house that are capable of these responsibilities when I’ve been talking about kaminga it has it’s it’s a very simple conversation right now do the Warriors look like a championship Contender they look like they’re on that second tier

Right Jonathan kaminga is an incredible basketball player with a ton of potential he’s also your biggest trade piece from an asset standpoint you can’t turn Wiggins into a better player like you can’t turn Wiggins into Pascal yakum the Raptors would hang up the phone so you can’t have SE yakum and kaminga but

You might be able to have cakam and Wiggins and if you get that and you get the Andrew Wiggins from today now let’s re-evaluate it I’ve got Steph Curry top five player in the world I’ve got Andrew Wiggins from the 2022 or from the yeah from the championship team if he can get

Back to form right I’ve got a a veteran forward in Pascal seak with a ton of playoff experience and and all of the uh uh the tools that you need to be a successful NBA playoff team and I’ve got Draymond Green returning now I’m talking about a team that’s a top tier Contender

It has nothing to do with not valuing Jonathan kaminga the dude’s a beast that like that he had another one of those he has this move that he makes from the the high post extended on the right side where he just kind of hits a jab and

Then goes middle and then he takes off right left takeoff and just dunks on everybody with two hands he he like obliterated Jaylen brown with that move the other day Jonathan Kamika can play he could flat out hoop this is not a take about whether Jonathan kaminga can

Play or not it’s 100% about asset management and recognizing the opportunity you have right now with Steph Curry because guess what as soon as Steph is gone Championship ceiling is gone until you have another top five top six player in the league and unless you’re 1,000% certain that kaminga is

Going to be that which by the way as much potential as kaminga has I’m not a th% certain that he’s going to be that as a matter of fact if you’re setting it it’s more likely that Jonathan kaminga turns into a Jaylen Brown level star than a Jason Tatum level star it’s

Possible that he becomes a Jason Tatum level star but it’s somewhat unlikely right so from that standpoint you have to make a decision do you want to take a risk on what Jonathan kaminga is capable of in the long run or do you want to invest in having a top five player right

Now that could potentially push you over the top because like what Steph did to the Celtics the other night there’s not a lot of guys in the league that can do that you have that right now but you’ve got this weird mix of like young guys

With a ton of potential you know some young guys that can play right away like Brandon pamy looks like looks like a vet right now but you’ve got this kind of like M mixed uh set of like current assets future Assets in some sort of urgency surrounding Stephan his age and so I

Hope that clarifies that because like I’ve had a lot of Warriors fans going like why do you want to trade kaminga why do you want to trade kaminga has nothing to do with what Jonathan kaminga is capable of it’s just a simple question of what they have inhouse right

Now what they need to be able to beat a team like Denver or to beat a team like the Lakers or to beat a team like Minnesota to beat a team like Boston to beat a team like Milwaukee and and what they need to do

To get to that point and so I hope that makes a little bit more sense but I I I uh I had no problem at all with Steve ker waiting as long as he did he’s 100% right when a dude plays really damn good in May and

June you buy him 25 games a leeway in November and December that’s just how it works basketball’s weird like that sometimes you just don’t play well Steph didn’t play well tonight that happens it’s part of basketball sometimes guys go into slumps and you’ve got to give them some of that leeway uh especially

When they’ve done work on the biggest stages all right guys that is all I have for this particular show we’ll be back in a couple of hours for Lakers Celtics I will see you guys then

Jason Timpf reacts to Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors’ 120-114 Christmas Day loss to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. Jason shares why the Nuggets offense is the one thing he trusts in the NBA and breaks down what needs to happen for the Warriors to become NBA Finals contenders again.

Timeline:
00:00 – Introduction
01:22 – How Nuggets find ways to win
05:20 – Nuggets control Steph
07:00 – Why Denver offense is ONE THING Jason trusts
08:30 – Warriors takeaways
12:28 – Why trading Kuminga makes sense

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