Jokic Is Unstoppable in Potential Nuggets-Celtics Finals Preview | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Jokic Is Unstoppable in Potential Nuggets-Celtics Finals Preview | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Rob I’m gonna start here the Celtics lost the Nuggets so Sunday Celtics kill the Warriors they’re 48 and 12 everybody’s like whoa oh my God Juggernaut and they’re up 20 against 22 against the Cavs they blow that down the stretch then yic makes them look like a

Pretender toight I like it all the pressure now off the Celtics no expectations baby we’re back good try good TR I mean it’s admirable what you’re trying to do but uh yeah I don’t I don’t think we’re quite there yet uh yic is the best player in the world and

One of the best offensive players of my lifetime and is getting to the point down the stretch of these games you cannot out execute him you can really only do what Phoenix did on Sunday night is Just outscore him yeah because he’s just getting baskets he’s either gonna

Score if you’re just gonna single cover him he’s gonna score on that guy if you’re gonna sag guys on him he’s gonna find somebody Gordon’s always lurking over the Baseline it’s always something and it feels like he’s 80% down the stretch of these games Rob yeah somehow

The most undercovered part of Nicole yic is that he’s sneakily maybe the best crunch time player in the league and he is completely unflappable stays completely within himself and gets whatever shot he wants and usually in the case of you know games like this against the Celtics that’s right right

At the basket and even when it looks like the shot he wants sometimes it’s actually a lob to Aaron Gordon for one of uh one of the most impressive plays in crunch time you’ll see all season nuggets didn’t even other than him didn’t even really play that well except

For pton Watson half of the crowd was rooting for the Celtics oh what a pton Watson game though incredible holy [ __ ] when I saw them the other night I hadn’t really seen him in person playing playing real minutes um this season yet against the Lakers and his his

Athleticism just kind of jumps out of the building when you’re there yeah and then today it was the same thing like you know Mike Malone they lose Bruce Brown and they’re really like brown who did some good stuff for them last year but they’re counting on him more and then

Watson they’re like look these have to be our guys we’re going to ride this out we’re gonna have some UPS we’re gonna have some downs and we hope by March by April we can count on these guys to me Watson isn’t I can count on this guy now

He’s really starting to feel himself athletically on the flip side the Celtics bench Tillman Horford minus 12 minus 10 Hower was fine he just had happened to be out there at the wrong time and Pritchard once again looks super small and the Celtics bench just couldn’t really hold anything and then

There’s the Tatum thing do you want to do that now yeah where do you want to start with him it was a rough week for Tatum because uh we had that crunch time last play of the game Cleveland 19 dribbles walked it up started too late uh it

Seemed like he got foul but then he didn’t they lose and the next day it’s just his clutch numbers become the story and everybody kind of at the same time looks it up and goes oh wow he’s actually one of the worst clutch players in the league out of all the stars that

We have he’s 35% field goal and it kind of backed up what the ey test was showing so he did take a beating there for you know on the in the basketball online community he did he did take a little bit of a beating for the first

Time in a while this was somebody that was that a week ago people were like why can’t he be the MVP and I was on this podcast going look I love the Celtics there’s no he’s the MVP yic is in the league and he’s healthy and he’s kicking ass but can

Think of five or six reasons he wouldn’t be the MVP personally right well here tonight’s a good example like he just can kind of disappear every once in a while the game tonight he has five field goals and five turnovers and he missed the biggest shot of the game when

They’re coming back cut it to two brown does this like big boy uh outdoor playground steal on Jamal Murray where he’s just like kind of annihilating him picks his they have a three onone and somehow it ends up with a wide open Tatum three in front of the bench 40

Seconds left misses it and take the lead that was the game especially a game where you get huge plays from Brown from KP from Drew holiday and then when it comes to be Tatum’s turn and this was you know this is the virtue of the team the Celtics have built is that he

Doesn’t have to do everything yeah but he does have to deliver in those sorts of moments and it it’s unfortunate the way the magnifying glass kind of comes down on you here right or the microscope I should say like the level of scrutiny a star player is in under crunch time is

Never exactly fair but this is the burden that you take on as the best player on a great team and it’s the burden he’s going to be held to all postseason long whether he delivers or not and I I think the reality of this Boston team is they’re going to win some

Close really competitive games down the stretch of of playoff series but for the most part I think they’re going to have to win if not going away than by keeping teams at a bit of a distance I think what they want to avoid is less this kind of crunch time situation and more

The Cleveland one right like don’t let teams cut into leads that they have no business cutting into and avoid those situations and you’re probably good enough and talented enough to just be fine it would be nice if Joe moula um had a sense of the pace of the game too

Like even today nuggets are in control we go to halftime I think they’re up eight Celtics come out two straight basket Mike Malone’s like I’ve seen enough timeout calls timeout was like 50 seconds in that was what was missing in that Cavs game where you could feel something something flipping in the game

Cavs started hitting threes the S up 22 it’s like just could have time out now and we’re up 17 let’s hey hey guys hey hey let’s stay focused here uh I thought Mike Malone today was great like some of the stuff they were doing to mess with

Tatum they were throwing length at him they were throwing like kind of pseudo doubles at him calwell Pope was jumping into passing lanes and yes I thought that was calwell Pope what did he end up with yeah 11 points like whatever cell Pope was disruptive defensively and so

Was Gordon I thought the length of those guys plus Watson really gave Tatum problems in this game yeah that second level from kcp where when you’re showing on the pick and roll you’re putting your defense in a vulnerable position somebody from the backline has to be doing something aggressive or else a

Team like Boston’s just going to beat you right like kp’s going to roll to the Elbow get a really clean shot over the top of somebody some a cutter is going to get a look going to the rim or Tatum’s just going to go around Nicole

Yic and get a pretty good look but when you have kcp scrambling through and mucking everything up coming away with three steals in this game and I they were basically like pick six type steals like the Ste going the other way huge momentum plays yeah that’s the kind of

Veteran thing that you’re not getting from any like work day 3 and D player it’s what separates guys like kcp from you know the the genre that they’re in they’re seven deep seven and a half with Reggie Jackson sure right the nuggets but the seven and a half really play

Well and it’s hard to notice when guys are in and out unless joic isn’t out there there’s a real cohesion with them the Celtics I was I was psych porzingis played in this game I really wanted to see like their top six against uh against yage but Horford was kind of the

Odd man out and it was really Joe MZ riding those five guys and I wonder like if this this ends up being the finals which I think from the level of play tonight that felt like the finals right both teams were treating it like it like

You could even tell if you just want to rewind watch Denver’s Defenders closing out to the Celtics Shooters and you tell me this wasn’t a team taking this game very seriously and and the stuff Jaylen Brown was doing I absolutely that was one of the best games jaylen’s played in

His entire career I know he missed a bunch of free throws but uh there was a couple moments in this game when it seemed like Denver was just going to go up like 20 and he just kept he just kept pulling them back into it por zingis had

Some some good plays too but uh the reason I brought up Horford is the Cs are basically Five Guys in this game and I don’t when porzingis is really playing they lean on him like they did today but 35 minutes today then it that becomes a

Weird spot for Horford who I think they need an against a team like Denver especially I I wonder like if they end up meeting in the finals would they stagger the minutes a little bit try to try to have him out there a little bit more against jic or what they’ll do

Tillman to me did Tilman look does he look 100% to you watching him run around looked okay he looks a little gimpy to me I know he’s had some some NE stuff he has that kind of movement though to be honest with you I say this all respect

To Xavier Tilman but he’s he’s kind of a clunkier mover the one thing like even just looking at the box score but also what the itest said I didn’t feel like white was involved enough in this game yeah because I think that’s if you look at the guys who have really given Denver

Trouble it’s been a lot of like those guards that can just kind of Slash and kick and get in the paint and do stuff and kind of torch them um and in this case white and was eight shots seven points but uh I don’t know if it was a

Case of it was very Brown porzingis heavy um but you think like the Celtics scor 109 points they were 29% from three and you could come away from this game and say hey man if we just shot the ball a little better sure Tatum makes that three with 40 seconds like our

Defense was pretty good joic is going to you know he’s a 301 or 11 guy in any big game like we’re fine if we see these guys again we’re here but on the other hand Denver beat them twice and that’s it and they’ve only played twice this

Year it could be one of those matchups like the Lakers in the Nuggets where the games are close and competitive and yet one of the teams just seems to be Like A Cut Above in execution level in the trust of their their core guys and even

As you’re saying and like the flow and their ability to balance and get everyone involved you know I think ideally you want to get Derek white a little more involved in what you’re doing a little more Central to what you’re doing but if Jaylen Brown’s scoring this well and scoring this well

Out of isolation right he he was killing it unimpeachable creative game from Jaylen Brown i’ I’ve have no issues with it whatsoever but there’s going to be trade-offs to that and some of the trade-offs for Boston often whether it’s brown or Tatum usually who are in that

Role who are really going off one-on-one you lose some of the movement you some of the momentum you disconnect some of the pieces from your offense and so then when you look at oh why did we miss so many three-pointers sometimes it’s a matter of guys not being as involved in the

Offense as they’re used to and Boston does have that Dynamic where they shift from guys going off for huge individual scoring nights and also they’re trying to work in this beautiful elegant balanced Team game and those are those are hard things to to bring about and

Have coexist at the same time and pace which they only had 81 shots today which I think they usually want to be somewhere in the 90s I’ll say this about Jaylen who you know he signed that big contract I think even the first month of the season I remember we did a segment

On the PO about it it’s like what’s how’s this gonna play out is he gonna feel like he has to justify this contract is there going to be a little weird Tatum Brown thing is the contract gonna get in his head the first time he sucks for a week people are going to

Bring it up pass is going to play out I think it’s played out unbelievably well and something has shifted in his personality I’m gonna say it happened mid December but even the little stuff like him wanting to go to all-star weekend right him him wanting to be in

The slam dunk contest yeah him wanting to win the All-Star MVP and Tatum telling Dak Rivers like give him my my minutes him there’s just like him against Golden State like taking offense that Draymond left him and like actually talking some [ __ ] like there has been a little little Alpha thing kind of

Developing with him which has been interesting and he has always had the sense one of the reasons I love the Tatum Brown combo and I’ve never gave up on it they’ve had a sense of when to pick each other up when one of them is kind of sucking yeah the other one’s

Like oh I gotta step it up because they they’re kind of a tune to each other tonight was a good example Tatum didn’t have it you could see it you know for the first couple minutes and Brown’s like all right I got this and and you

Know sometimes when he says I got this it’s a little scary but do you feel like he’s gone up a level because the stats you know he he he averaged more points a game last year there’s less shots this year from a per 36 standpoint it’s pretty close from a percentages fairly

Close but I think the difference with him is he’s had some big games against good teams which last year in the last couple years before like the good teams the smart teams really struggle and I don’t feel like that’s happening as much this year I don’t feel like that’s

Happening I don’t know if he’s gone up a level so much as I feel like he’s more finely tuned on when to attack and how to attack and maybe that’s a definition of going up a level in a sense but he he seems to fit better within the

Complexion of what the Celtics have and by that I mean some games he’s gunning for it in the first quarter knowing that the offense is going to go elsewhere later or some games he’s gunning it in transition and getting a lot of easy buckets at the rim for a team that

Desperately needs them or cranking up defensively like we saw him do it stretches of this game so I like that he has all those things in his Arsenal I like that he is that kind of balanced player and that yeah there is a teetering on the rails effect when he

Decides it’s jayen brown time I think that’s I think that’s natur I kind of like it I’ve given into it absolutely if look if you’re going to be a ballsy scorer if you’re going to be a secondary guy who can stretch and explode and go

Off for 42 points in a game against the defending champs you’re always going to be teetering on the edge of something like you can’t expect that player to be perfectly well-mannered all the time and to the extent you could right I think jaylen’s did a really good job of that this

Season can I read you some uh text from my dad starting about halfway through the game are you going to do it in your dad’s voice or in your voice no I’ll just read them 8:38 PM so this is start of the second half another no show by

Tatum I respond Jaylen has been great too bad he can’t make free throws my dad’s response a little bit later really tired of these noow games by tat El teams uh so I texted him back Joe M’s putting Allen tman out there together with no yok just just brutal that was

Tough he texted back Joe M’s getting exposed by all the top coaches he belongs in the second row all right and then just little bit later this is the Tatum from the Golden State series afraid to be aggressive and then his final thoughts were again Tatum sucked the whole game really disappointing no

Show it’s my dad I mean gr he’s 76 years old and it’s like past midnight he’s co time but very grumpy he he has like a real fear about Tatum and some of the these big games like he just feels like there there’s Some hurdle that he hasn’t hurdled yet where the game hasn’t calm down for him he’s like okay this is what I do I’m gonna do this tonight like the way yage did yok’s like all right they’re doing this I’ll do this and Tatum every time I feel like

He’s gotten there a game like like tonight happens he’s so confounding in that way like when he’s good he’s not good because he makes the game look super easy it’s just that he hits really hard shots right and he manufactures really hard shots and he hits them at a

High rate like those are the good scoring Jason Tatum games and he has lots of great other kinds of games playmaking games and defensive games games where he’s like operational and focal to what they’re running all those things but joic is a great Counterpoint because he does make everything looks so

Easy he does make splitting two Defenders spinning into a third and still making the perfect read look like everyone should be able to do it and like that the fact that Denver can always fall back on that if nothing else and that’s just yic because I think you

Could make the argument that Murray does some of those similar things although he has a similar Jaylen Brown teetering on the edge of something going on in his game too that’s exciting but when you have joic all of that makes sense a player like Aaron Gordon makes so much

More sense a cutter who who is as strong and as good a finisher and oh my God the the putback dunk Aaron Gordon had not to mention the L might be the of the year on top of everything else so they just have everyone so perfectly placed around

Him and when your core guy can be trusted to make offense and then really make NBA basketball Look So Easy this is where you get you beat historically great regular season teams you go on Long playoff runs you win finals you win finals MVPs it’s it’s really looking like

Denver is angling in that direction again yeah I said on Sunday’s po I was I I just feel like the road goes through them if they’re going to be healthy I don’t see how a team beats them four times in seven games I think they could beat him like Phoenix did on Sunday

Night where it’s like oh yeah we got their number and we beat him in OT but to to beat them four times when they can execute at the level they can execute at is is pretty nuts is yic climbing the ladder for you it’s a great question because I

Wouldn’t say he’s doing a lot this year that is over and Beyond who he’s already been it’s three straight years of it now I mean really like three and a half years of it the team around him is better but he’s you know that’s I think the thing that’s

Impressive to me is you’re talking like an entire presidential term now of him at this of him at this level yeah you know us democra US democracy could die before Nicole yic stops being a dominant NBA player it’s so discouraging when you’ve bet against it or you’re rooting

Against it like today I’m like and I think porzingis has been good I thought he was actually pretty good tonight that’s about as much as you considering they traded Marcus Smart and got porzingis and two first round picks and then to see him today going kind of

Trying to go toe-to-toe with yage but yic just made him look silly and he and porzingis is four inches taller than him he could just over and over again a oneon-one and get him and get the shot he wanted and and made porzingis smaller somehow that was the craziest thing to

Me he made porzingis seem like he was like 68 I just uh he’s really climbing up the ladder for me I I I I’m hardpressed to think of a better offensive player I’ve ever seen especially given given everything that’s going on in the NBA right now like there’s an arms race across the

Sport where with crazy numbers and crazy offensive efficiency and there like kind of teams have cracked the code on spacing and how to use it and you’re putting this guy who thinks the game at a level that’s already in the 99th or 100th percentile we’ve ever seen in that

Sort of climate it’s it’s really a singular thing I mean he had 11 assists tonight his assists are like like super assists because it’s like his assists are I Aaron Gordon had four alley oops yep and Pope hit hit two wideopen threes and like everything is like he’s

Basically serving you the mail and giving you the fork and knife and putting the napkin in your in your neck and and feeding you the assist it’s pretty crazy I I to me it’s Denver and Boston I thought from a strategy point that was about as high

Level of a game I’ve seen we’ve seen a lot of entertaining games this year but this one had some real chess going on and uh and it felt like the finals so who if you had to pick one of those two teams to not be in the

Finals which one are you taken because Denver has Denver is in a much harder conference that’s the thing I think if I had to pick one of them I would pick Denver just because there’s there’s more people storming the gate in the west right now if if we were feeling a little

Better about Milwaukee and I think you know their defense is obviously much improved they’re starting to show some things they haven’t shown All Season they’re on the up and up but Boston was so far ahead of them in terms of postseason Equity finals contending Equity that I think the Bucks still love

A lot to prove versus the Nuggets we’ve seen can get caught against the Thunder or against the Clippers you know like some of these teams they’re good matchups for Denver but I wouldn’t put it entirely out of the realm of possibility especially as you mentioned

If Denver has an injury to a key guy if Michael Porter Junior’s out for a series if kavus K Pope is out for a series it changes what they do a lot and it forces another young guy into an uncomfortable position they they may not entirely be

Ready for so I think Boston is more likely to get to the finals but if they both get there I would pick the nuggets and a heartbeat over the Celtics personally I think you have to out offense Denver is going so anybody that is not going to

Be able to outscore them four times you it’s almost a cross off so to me it’s like it’s Phoenix and the Clippers at this point and we found out actually during this game that towns is getting the surgery it’s going to be four weeks brutal they’re GNA reevaluate we talk

About Minnesota in the next segment because we taped it earlier but uh we’re going to re-evaluate after four weeks those words have never been Good

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Rob Mahoney react to the potential NBA Finals preview between the Celtics and the Nuggets.

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