You're tuned into Heat Check with Triste Quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, we're back in studio, folks.
It is a new year and the NBA. NBA is out of control right now, like it just really is. Things are happening, So we're going to get into it.
We're gonna get into the best team in the NBA that nobody gives.
A fuck about. It's Denver Nuggets.
Like, has anyone said a peep about the Denver Nuggets number one team in the West. No, has anybody said a peep about Yolk that she's playing better basketball than he has in the two years that he won the MVP. No, why cause it's he's he's fat, and he's foreign and they're in Denver. We talk also about who's the blame in Minnesota, why things are a little bit tilted in.
Boston, And we're not just talking about the rims.
We are talking about what's happening with the team, and a little news on the pair of the league's biggest young superstars, Luca and Jaw.
Come on, Nick, do me a favorite drop that generic ass beat. Let's start with the Nugs. Let's start with them.
So we have Nikola Jokic right, the reigning two time MVP in a season with historic performances so far from Tatum kd Joannice and beat Shay Yogis Alexander jaw and Jokic still may be the best player in the league again again, But you didn't see that one coming. Shout out to Jeremy Renner, go well soon, Jeremy Renner. Also, as an aside, if you don't have a truck that can plow snow, don't plow snow with that truck. Heads
up to that three time MVP for Jokic. Could he be a three times back to back to back like Drake MVP? Like probably, Let's be real, like Jokic statistically better than he was last year, statistically better than he was the year before. And this time the Nuggets aren't the four seed folks, They're not the sixth seed folks. Where where are the Nuggets in the standings?
Checks notes? Number one in the West?
What?
Yeah?
And nobody cares his last game against the best team in the NBA so far with the number one rank defense in the NBA thirty twelve and twelve and get this, zero turnovers and one foul. That is an average game right now for Nikola jokicch that no one watches. He had his ninth triple double this year, nine triple doubles. He's like the big white fat Russell Westbrook and no one is talking about it. Twenty seventh game shooting fifth percent from the field?
Are you serious? Are we like? If you were.
Honest with yourself, how many games have you watched of Nikola Jokic's this year?
Is it? Is it less than five? Can you count them on one hand? Can you count them on two fingers? Be honest, you're doing yourself a disservice.
I know they don't play if you're on the East Coast, they don't play at a great time. They don't. You're probably night Night's sleep mask. But you probably need a DVR where you probably need to just stay up a little longer because it's ridiculous what he's doing. It's ridiculous. And I'm saying it to myself as well, because I haven't watched a ton of Jokic primetime games. Why because the NBA won't put him in primetime. It's ridiculous.
He has the highest player efficiency rating in the history of the NBA last year and he's actually better this year.
Not a peep on ESPN, not a peep on First Take, not a peep on this disputed, not a people on NBA TV.
No one seems to care.
No one seems to notice enough to care, And that I think is why he's the perfect star for the Nuggets, because just like people still sleeping on him, no one giving the Nuggets.
Any love either.
None, not on this podcast, not today lead story, on this podcast. We are absolutely going to give him and this team their flowers. What is happening with the Nuggets needs to be redlined because this is a team that is just possibly possibly could win at all what they're doing right now. And I know the non Jokic minutes are ugly, so things are gonna change there.
But after starting fourteen and.
Ten with Jamal Murray struggling to come back into form, Michael Porter Junior struggling to be healthy on any level, the Nuggets are ten and two since then, with the league's eighth best defense, They had the set best defense in their five game win streak. They currently still have the best defensive rating in clutch time, Yes, when it matters most, they are locking folks down, and that is just absolutely wild, considering that Jokic is zero defensive love.
People actually consider Jokic to be a negative defender. People consider Jokic to be a liability on defense, a joke if you will on defense boom. Yet yet every year his defensive rating continues to improve. Michael Malone went on a rant last April when he said, yeah, you can't say Jokic is not an elite defender. All of the analytics that they use for other players, When you apply those same analytics to Nicole Jokic, he would be an
all defensive player. Nate Silver at five point thirty eight, who I love because he's a nerd and he does all the work for me. He crunched the data and said that Jokic could have and probably should.
Have been defensive Player of the Year.
Last year, or at least in the conversation, not a single person mentioned that we had Marcus fucking Smart, no shade to him, Marcus fucking Smart when the defensive player of the Year for no reason. He wasn't even the best defender on his own team. Okay, like not even close. Rob Williams should have won it over him, just on the team the best defensive Player of the Year in Boston was not Marcus smart Let alone in the NBA
just slept on this team. Djokis in general slept on, but so are a lot of the other Nuggets as well. Let's talk about a player who I have hated on and it stops now.
He's not just a dunker.
Aaron Gordon this year is absolutely insane. Having a career year right now. Aaron Gordon averaging seventeen points per game, six point six rebounds per game, shooting sixty percent from the field.
Let's talk about how.
He's transformed the game, because during his time in Orlando that nobody really remembers or cares about. The only thing you remember is is him dunking over the mascot.
Let's be honest. With short hair.
Like six and a half seasons in Orlando, he never eclipsed league average in true shooting percentage, never fifty three percent, thirteen point eight points lower than this year's mark. That's ridiculous. He has improved in every way. According to Cleaning the Glass, a career high sixty three percent of his shots are at the rim this season, which is in the one hundredth percentile among forwards. He's shooting seventy six percent around
the rim ninety fourth percentile. Dude has become so versatile. He's changed his game so much, so immensely. He doesn't shoot pull ups anymore. He slashes more. He's using his size more down in the pain.
Like he's basically.
Said, Okay, I am bigger, stronger, faster, and more bouncy. So why am I shooting jumpers again? Like why am I doing that? These guys can't guard me? And it's working. He has redefined its play style to do what his gifts allow him to do. Right, don't shoot those mid ranges anymore. Just literally post guys up and dunk over them. That's what you do. Rebound over them, dunk over them, push guys around. So should Aaron Gordon be an All Star? Why is he not getting enough praise? I don't know.
Let bones Hyland say what he thinks.
This is definitely one of the best seasons or the best season, not seeing you know, from ag play by far. His numbers prove it. He goes out there and give his all on both ends of the floor, whether that's Guarden the best player, or you know on the other end, you know, scoring, rebounding, assaysts, so you know, he does the junk yard work for us, and I feel like he doesn't get a lot of praise. So you know, ag definitely All star for.
Show for show. What is uh?
What does Jokic think about Aaron Gordon? Because this comment shocked.
Me, Like he's the guy who doesn't maybe get a lot of credit, but he's a really big part of this team, you know, Like I said that he's the soul of this team.
Pause, the soul of the team.
Two time MVP says, Oh, yeah, Aaron Gordon's the soul of our team.
If didn't make any sense because he can do everything on the floor, and I mean he has a night like that like today, it's really good.
Also, the dunk of the year. Did you see what he did to Landry Shametta on Christmas Day? Haven't talked to you all since then. I think we had the New Year's Day episode, but I didn't have time to be talking about Aaron gordon dunks, So, oh my god, though the soul of the team, you can legit say Aaron Gordon should be most improved player this year. I know it's gonna be Shae because he was so good last year and the numbers that he's putting up. But honestly,
he could legit win it. He should be in the conversation. This is ridiculous what he's doing. Also, a little fun fact, Aaron Gordon and the have both shot fifty percent or better from the field every single game since before Halloween. That's what January two, twenty two consecutive games. That is the longest streak of any duo shooting better than fifty percent since nineteen ninety.
All right, let's move on past or Aaron Gordon and Jokich.
Bruce Brown has been great twenty points against the Celtics off the bench, replacing Jamal Murray. KCP has been a spark as well. He's been really really good. Bones Highland has emerged. If you if you didn't see him send Sam Hauser to the shadow realm against the Celtics, you should look at that. He missed the three, which made it like really sad because if he would have, if he would have hit that, that would have just been like maybe an all time NBA moment of this season.
He also got into a little battle with Jalen Brown, tripped him to the floor. They beat the shit out of the Celtics, like they beat them down. This is the kind of intensity that you want from your role players, from your young players. Also, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Junior starting to slowly acclimate themselves back from injury when they get back fully healthy.
Oh my god.
I know we don't think about the Nuggets in terms of them accomplishing anything on any level because they're the Nuggets. But I think this is a finals team, Like this could be a team very easily that has home court when you've got multiple teams struggling like the Warriors. You've got Memphis having their own depth issues, You've got the Pelicans kind of up and down. The Suns have been
garbage on the road. Like this is a team that legit when fully healthy, especially if they make some moves at the deadline, which we'll talk about in just a second. This could be a team legitimately representing the West. And they're all in on Jokic. They know he's legendary in his prime. They are not They're not talking Western.
Conference finals only. They want to win it all. This is what coach Malone said.
For us to be first place in the West, having beat some really good teams as of late because of our defense is a good sign. So if you can do this for nine games with the schedule that we've had, that shows it. If you can have the number one clunch defense in the NBA, it shows it. We've got the personnel right now. Basically, you just have to execute night after night after night and not allow the Sacramento Kings to shoot seventy five percent from the field the
fourth quarter. So the rumors are that the Nuggets are going to go after another wing defender, try to find another Aaron Gordon to add a depth, add to their versatility, helping non Jokic minutes, to have maybe a playmaker as well, like Malcolm Brogden type, maybe like I don't know, like Mike Conley. You add that to a healthy Nuggets team, like, watch the fuck out. I think the Nuggets might be
the most slept on team in the NBA. And if the response to Jokic's back to back MVP is any indication, I think even if this team were to win it all, the Nuggets would still not get the credit they deserve, and that is a damn su