FIRST TAKE | “Nuggets & Jokic are our only hope to STOP Celtics now!” – Tim Legler tells Stephen A.

FIRST TAKE | “Nuggets & Jokic are our only hope to STOP Celtics now!” – Tim Legler tells Stephen A.

Down the toilet we had a great road trip three in one uh we’ve had a million games um so Boston was amazing we weren’t beating them today um and um so we head home and U Get Ready for Wednesday this is now the Celtics third win by 50 points this season setting a

New NBA record the wins have been over the Nets the Pacers and now the Warriors last night all three have come at home where the Celtics are averaging an NBA best 15 point margin of Victory Tim legler is now joining us Tim I’m G to start with you on this conversation do

You think Boston is in a tier of their own well first good morning Christine Stephen A Shannon great to be on with you guys um the short answer to that question is no they’re not on a tier of their own and it’s really because of the Denver Nuggets and and they’re the one

Team that I’m going to say right now I think is worthy of being in the ring with the Boston Celtics um because Denver has a couple of things that you have to have to play against this particular team and we saw some of that on display actually when they went into

Boston earlier this year and it was it was one of the best games of the year was physical they let him play it was a lows scoring game and Denver went into Boston a place where the Celtics on average are beating teams by 20 25 30 points every night it seems like they

Went in there won a game 102 to 100 because they have some of the elements that it’s going to take maybe the only team that’s got all of the elements is going to take and it starts with the fact that you have this special player nikic that can’t control Pace he can

Control the action there is no scheme for him there’s no Personnel package you can throw at him um there’s nothing you can do really to limit his impact because he is he’s immovable physically he’s a guy that sees the floor unlike really anybody else in the league I

Believe right now he can beat you as a scorer passer rebounder whatever it takes a defensive Communicator as their anchor so you’ve got this special oneoff player Denver has that player the other thing thing they have is the core continuity amongst their starters and look I don’t think Denver has treated

The regular season you know with any sense of urgency necessarily I think that they understand they won a championship you can’t really expect them to have the same Edge in the regular season Once you have accomplished that but they’re starting to get it together right now and they’re preparing themselves for this stretch

Run they’ve got incredible continuity amongst those starters so if there’s one team that I think absolutely can go toe to with Boston right now it’s the Denver Nuggets having said that what you saw last night the buzz saw that Boston can hit you with offensively right the

Floodgates the way that they open them particularly from the three-point line is unlike any other team in the league so it’s going to take something special to be able to deal with the Boston Celtics and I think Denver is probably that one team and when it’s all s done

They might still end up with the one seed in the west and I think that these two teams in my mind are on a collision course for for the NBA Finals if they both stay healthy yeah I I I I’m going to go I’m

Going to go say Celtics are on a tier by themselves but I think if they were to play I think it’s 4-3 either way Boston or the Denver Nuggets I’m not going to be surprised if they play as a seven game series that the team that wins the

Series wins uh 4-3 but when I look at the Boston Celtics and I look at the way they’re playing and Kristoff porzingis who didn’t play yesterday and they still were able to beat a I mean either you want to say they were under man but still in the first half they weren’t

Under man Kristof porzingis what he does and I used the analogy earlier uh legs is that he’s like a couple drops of water to my VSOP KC Shay bortier he opens it up he allows Jason Tatum and Jason Brown and uh Jason Tatum excuse me and Jaylen Brown the freedom he provides space

Because he can play with his back to the basket he can step out beyond the three-point line but there’s a lot more space for those guys to slash and dive to the basket now yesterday Golden State decided to say you know what we’re going to sag off of a guy that’s a two-time

Allstar and he has the highest contract value in the National Basketball League and that’s Jay Jaylen Brown and he made him pay for that but after watching the Denver Nuggets and I watch him closely where they beat people at if it’s a close ball game they’re going to get

Every shot they want in the final four or five minutes of the game because they’re going to put you in that pick and roll with Yol and Murray and they go to either dribble Drive dribble handoff yol’s going to roll or pop and Murray can take you off the dribble so he makes

It very hard and when you try to bring the double team now Michael Porter Jr is in the corner and he’s wide open he had a historic game 10 made basket five made free throws no misses on either and no Miss free throws he’s the first game to

Attempt that many uh field goals that many three-pointers and be perfect all the way across the board 100% so when you look at them yes in a in a seven game series I believe it’s going to go 43 but I’m going to say I would take the

Celtics right now as being a tier above them well listen I I I I think the Celtics right now the best team in basketball but I’m certainly not going to say they’re on the tier of their own because they can be had by the reigning defending NBA champions I completely

Agree with Tim legler there when you look at the Denver Nuggets they’ve been in cruise control and you know the scary part about them as a champion Shannon is that they’ve been lurking like it’s not like they struggled and there’s some 500 teams and now they’re making a run now

They making r no they’ve been winning more than they’ve been losing all year long and just lurking around round and just letting everybody know you know we we we know we we kind of know what it takes we’re the reigning defending NBA champions we’ll turn on the afterburners

When it’s time it’s not time yet and as the season wanes we’re seeing them handle their business you should have seen how they toyed with the Lakers in the second half just toyed with them stop it stop it St you see what you do

You see you do St it it was good for it was good for you now you talk about to really really second half in the second half you know we had D D’Angelo Russell you know had 13 points in the first half looking really good had four points in

The second half you understand saying we saw Anthony Davis playing all World throughout this season goes up against joic Suddenly It’s on 17 has to do when joic is droing 35 I mean we just see these kind of things you know they didn’t even have kavus Carwell Pope they

Had a couple of dudes out there you know I saw Watson I saw holiday I’m look at these brothers right here chipping in and stuff like it doesn’t they playing well I’m saying you look at the Denver Nuggets who by the way went into Boston this year and beat Boston Boston’s won

And three against the top three teams in the Western Conference in case you didn’t know Oklahoma City uh Minnesota and obviously uh the the Denver Nuggets they they they beat Minnesota once in overtime but here here’s the deal when they went up against OKC despite Tatum and porzingis dropping 30 both of them

30 and 34 respectively wasn’t enough cuz Shay Gil just Alexander dropped 36 you see what I’m saying you saw what Denver did to them when they went to Boston now they got to go to Denver later on this week I’m just saying when you look at Boston as great as phenomenal as they

Are and I’ve got them to win it I picked them at the beginning of the season to win it I cannot ignore the fact that the Denver Nuggets are lurking and they’re just waiting and they’re saying excuse me you got to come through us and they

Went to Boston to send that message and now they’re going to be waiting in Denver to send that message again it’s getting interesting yeah Thursday night we we get to see that battle again and I I can’t wait to see that what’s so impressive about Denver to your point

Stephen you look at the West at the top of the West Minnesota and Oklahoma City right these are two teams that have had their foot on the gas all year long because it’s important to them to establish themselves night in night out in the regular season and potentially

Get home court as many rounds as you can and here’s Denver just sort of going about their business all of a sudden now they’ve won six straight at after the break like they they get into that mindset after all is said and done and the Smoke Clears despite the fact that

They haven’t really put as much urgency in a regular season they still may end up with home court advantage throughout the entire Western Conference playoffs because they’re a team that understands what they need to do in the moment against each opponent and they’ve got this incredibly unique player that every

Night you can run everything through and it doesn’t matter what is thrown at you are not going to get him off balance you’re not going to let him see something he hasn’t seen you’re not going to make him inefficient or ineffective yic controls the pace and against a team that shoots 11 more

Threes a night than Denver does and makes five more on night on average that’s very important to control the pace of the action that’s what joic can do against a team like Boston one thing I want to say real quick Shannon I mean they split with Minnesota Anthony was

Dropped 38 on Boston um in an overtime loss uh obviously they won a game in overtime against Minnesota lost to Denver lost to Oklahoma City the other thing I want to say is this in those three games that in those four games they played against those top three teams in the Western Conference

Three-point shooting hurt the Boston Celtics it’s been helping them throughout the vast majority of this season but against those three teams they found a way to neutralize Boston from the three-point spot and that hurt them so that’s something to watch too all right I do want to mention the

Celtics have outscored teams by 29.8 points game over the last six games which is the best points per game differential over six games in NBA History for Foree foree spee fore Foree for speech speech For fore foree foreign speech speech foreign spee foree fore speee r

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FIRST TAKE | “Nuggets & Jokic are our only hope to STOP Celtics right now!” – Tim Legler tells Stephen A.

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