Can Anyone Beat The Nuggets?

Can Anyone Beat The Nuggets?

Okay guys let’s talk about the nuggets and if anybody has a chance of beating them let’s acknowledge yes my last video was Kyrie Irving buzzer beater versus the Nuggets but we’re specifically talking about the playoffs here I think we would all have the nuggets as the team we’re most confident in to execute

In the clutch just the yic Murray two-man game on top of just what it creates for mpj Gordon kcp the way that they all flow off of joic and Murray with handoff actions and Gordon cuts and being in the dunker spot and the whole thing and then defensively I mean the

Nuggets their 10th in defensive rating this year where joic is typically you know at the level of the screen on pick and rolls rotations on the back end sometimes he’s more in drop I mean that was a huge thing for them last year just how they progressed month after month

Defensively they were really good in the playoffs then we’ve had Christian Brown and Pon Watson with a little more minutes because of no Bruce Brown the whole thing okay anyway now this is mostly going to be about the west but two talk about you know their match up

Against the Celtics I did this in the Celtics video already but I’ll just repeat it again like what the Nuggets did defensively or what they’ve done defensively against the Celtics this season with like having joic guard Drew sometimes and like I mean Drew like he ended up making like a crazy three for

Yic in one of those games but they also it allows him to like switch with mpj cuz he goes on pinga so they can switch like some of the pinga screen actions and they’ve had some success with like putting two to the ball on Tatum sometimes so similar to when I did this

For the Celtics video like a couple weeks back I looked at some of the Nuggets games against the best teams in the League this season and I specifically wanted to look at the games where it was close or they lost or whatever so we’ll look at their games

Against OKC the Thunder three in one versus the Nuggets this year granted one of those was an SGA buzzer beater that could have gone the other way one of those y did not play and the first time they played Chad looked like he was not prepared to deal with joic whatsoever

But still they blew out a healthy nuggets team once and they also again they had the SGA buzzer beater game okay so in the blowout game joic still had his normal like points and everything they did get seven turnovers out of yic and I mean we know what OKC’s defense is

Right like it’s jet protecting in the middle then after that it’s OKC trying to get blocks trying to get deflections trying to get steals off of helping out of the corners and getting into passing lanes and all that it results in them giving up the most Corner threes in the

League but they’re also first in opponent Force turnover is the whole thing and so you’ve got a play where like Chet is guarding yic in the post and then you’ve got Giddy and Jay duub helping in the paint with Jamal Murray open in the corner and then joic makes

The read like he always does except Lou Dort pulls off this crazy jump steel to in order to get it and then we’re going the other way you had Jay dub and L Dort just being really big and kind of blocking Murray on some stuff you had

KAS also just fighting like crazy on all Murray actions kind of hounding him and I mean an OKC Nuggets playoff matchup really does fascinate because it’s like joic is a genius in making all the reads and predicting what your defense is going to do making the Split Second

Decision whether it’s the skip pass or the lob to Aaron Gordon or whatever and OKC is really good at bringing extra attention and not getting torched on that type of defense and then as far as the other side like yeah the Nuggets very good defensively but also OKC can

Stretch you out so much that it’s a little more difficult to make all the rotations and stuff against them I still think Denver could do it but also it it be a challenge now in the other game where it was the SGA buzzer beater I mean the Nuggets had like a seven or

Eight point lead with like 5 minutes left to go in that game and OKC kept on going back and forth between okay Chad is guarding joic he’s the only big in the game versus we’re going to bring in big Jaylen Williams not Jay dub and he’s going to guard joic and then Chad’s

Going to help off a Gordon they kept like going back and forth late in that one um but you had plays where like basically almost the entire OKC defense is in the paint with Christian Brown being left wide open and then Lou Dort managing to pull off like a crazy close

Out onto Jamal Murray where joic makes the read but Dort was fast enough to close out to him and the initial play was like a Gordon joic pick and roll up top and then they did some stuff where like Chad would basically double team Jamal Murray on the yic pick and rolls

Which is very scary if you cannot get this right but because ched is so huge he was able to like kind of not allow Murray to make the Easy Pass and then it results in like yic having to take a tough three as opposed to doing whatever

He wants in the middle of the floor again it’s the type of Defense where it’s like could that really work against the Nuggets game after game in a playoff series like I would bet on Denver to beat the Thunder but also like could OKC really bother the nuggets in a way that

A lot of teams would just get destroyed trying you know anyway now let’s go to the Wolves so the Wolves did just play the Nuggets but it was without goar and without cat we all know cats out and goar missed that one with the the rib

Thing and I mean the Wolves still played him tough so give them credit but I more so want to put stock in the game that they had like way back in November now where the Wolves actually were able to really bother the nuggets on offense um it was mostly through goar guarding

Aaron Gordon and then Kat guarding joic I mean yic still did his thing he got his points and all that but it was very pretty much everybody else in the Nuggets had problems because it was like Murray couldn’t really run a pick and roll with Gordon because he had goar

Waiting for him and he also had Jen McDaniels doing a really good job fighting around the screens Gordon wasn’t able to go at goar one-on-one and then you also had ant pressuring mpj really well hopefully gobear plays in the next one they play again on March

29th but with all that said the Wolves they don’t have cat right now and I mean obviously they’re going to need him to be healthy for the playoffs there you go even if their defense will still be really good and ant is still going to do

His thing and then on April 4th the Nuggets play the Clippers and I mean the the Nuggets they did lose to the Clippers way back like this was like 10 games the season this was before the Clippers went on their crazy win streak the Clippers have been just weird lately

I might have to do a whole video on this they’re like seven and eight in their last 15 games their transition defense is bad I was watching their game against the Hawks and in the second quarter the urgency on offense was like kind of blah

You had the Hawks put in two to the ball on like James Harden to where the play would just kind of die you had like maybe kawhai misses a pull-up two to and then it’s bogy on the other end getting an easy score or it’s like Jaylen

Johnson stealing the ball in a Harden pick and roll because he’s basically ignoring PJ Tucker and then Johnson brings it up himself and scores or like PG misses a three and then it’s a Wesley Matthews easy three on the other end all of those things happened it’s possible

That I got the order of them screwed up it’s like when your halfcourt offense and to be clear like the Clippers have had some guys in and out of games and some of these things I get it but like if your halfcourt offense is just like kind of slow and then also your

Transition defense is not where it needs to be it’s like what’s going on here man just for reference here this is nba.com uh they say that the Clippers are in the zero percentile of transition defense giving up 1.2 21 points of possession and the Celtics and thunder number one

And two giving up like 1.05 between them now I get it the Clippers went on that crazy run but the way that they’ve looked recently I cannot confidently just be like hey yeah how do they look against Denver like you how do you look against everybody else real quick and

Then there’s the rest of the west where look I mean the Pelicans have looked better lately Zion looking as athletic as he has in a while herb Jones the approvement to three is driving kick game he’s going to be an all defense guy CJ and Ingram doing their thing Trey

Murphy and Nance playing a little more and the Pelicans defense where they give up a lot of three-point attempts but they do a good job in not getting uh killed on those they they give up the second most threes per game in the league but they’re number one in a good

Way in a opponent three-point percentages and they’re not giving up like you know what I’m trying to say now if they end up playing the Nuggets who am I going to pick you know who I’m going to pick in that series uh if we think about the Suns where they did have

A good defensive game against the Nuggets recently and Grayson Allen was playing like really good one-on-one defense against Jamal Murray in that overtime look the lineup numbers say a healthy Suns team is still a hell of a team but I got to pick Denver over I

Mean Luca and Kyrie are going to make anybody sweat if they see them in a playoff matchup but still you know pick’s going to be Denver it’s same thing Lakers Warriors Kings you you get it yeah I mean I think pretty much everybody’s got Nuggets Celtics as their

Finals pick and I do too that I mean obviously I’m still very excited to watch all the playoff games but if you force me to pick two teams those are the two teams I don’t think that’s too crazy and if I could just be a Celtics fan at

The very end here it is kind of a weird thing where your team is I mean they’re just they’ve been great all year there’s no other way around it right and even with that said it’s like joic is probably the guy that you’re going to

Have to go through at the very end of this whole thing and it’s it’s just like this feeling that you can’t put into words and yeah

they’re really good
#nikolajokic #jamalmurray #nba