Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Nuggets Force Game 7 With Big Win

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a great week. Well, this excellent second round series between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, which has been rife with highly Entertaining Games gave us another great one tonight, the Julian Strather Games. Julian Strather comes into this one and scores fifteen points for a Nuggets team that desperately needed someone to come in and start hitting shots.

Lots of interesting stuff to get into in this game from the perspective of both teams. Will be breaking this game down. Then at the tail end of the show, we'll take ten fifteen minutes of mailback questions with Jackson, and then when we fit this here tonight, we're gonna move over to playback again. That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight where we'll hang out for after show. That's

where we take callers, we watch film. We have a more informal, just kind of fun, we talk hoops for an extra you know, forty five minutes to an hour at the tail end of the show. You guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Oight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed

where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there and the last but not at least, keep dropping those mail bag questions in the YouTube chat there and we will get to them at the tail end of the show for a solid ten fifteen minutes. And like we mentioned earlier, over to playback dot tv slash Hoops Tonight.

When we finish up here a right, let's talk some basketball. So I thought that was really the theme for tonight's game for Denver, the need to hit shots. If you go back to the last two games in particular, it was their offense that let them down down the stretch, leading Game four, nine point leading Game five in the fourth quarter, and just an inability to close the deal from there, and specifically in Game five, not a single Nugget was able to really contribute offensively in that fourth

quarter run when Yokic was setting them up. I mean, I saw a stat this morning and I double checked it to make sure it was fair but accurate. But he had twenty potential assists in Game five and ended that game with five assists because of the types of shots.

are like really open threes. They shot thirty nine percent on them in the regular season, forty percent in the first round series against the Clippers in the first five games of this series.

And he's right about that. He did a great job stepping in for Contavious Calbo Pope into that starting two guard role and turned into this devastating transition scorer who also was a solid catch and shoot player, good defensive player, all that stuff. And then he said in the postseason,

he's happy with the way he's defended. It's been a little bit of a mixed bag in this Okay seat a series, but specifically at the end of games I feel like he's been pretty good outside of maybe a couple plays at the tail end of Game five, but he has been pretty good defensively in this series. But what he said was, I have to find a way to knock down these open threes that I'm getting A big part of it is just that's the way the defense is attending to Nikola Jokic in the middle of

the floor. They are conceding these open threes, especially out of the corner. And what I appreciated about what Christian Brown was saying is like he understands that they're yeah, you're playing fine, Yeah it's physical.

he can flip the script by making shots. And I'm highlighting Christian Brown just because of the comments from the broadcast, but it was down the line, guys for Denver finally just made shots. They shot thirty eight percent as a team. Christian Brown was three for six from three. Jamal Murray was two for six from three. He was fantastic tonight. We'll talk about him here in a minute. Playing dealing with an illness. Michael Porter Junior finally got a couple

shots to go down, and then Julian Strather. He also made some other plays. He had this baseline cut, a really impressive finish that three sixty kind of like lob finish she had from Jamal Murray. Way tougher shot than that looks on TV because he's right at the front of the rim. But to coordinate yourself in traffic like that, well, I guess he wasn't in traffic, but again, to coordinate himself on a spin where he can't even see the rim to then find the rim and lay it in,

that was a really impressive finish. He had a play where he kind of ended up with the ball, kind of a classic grenade situation where he ended up with the ball at the top of the key against jadub in a late shot clock situation, and all the other guys on the floor kind of just looked at him, like you do it. He put the ball on the floor and made a play and drew a and I think I think specifically those things are you know, kind of found money in a certain way. But the shot

making is the important part. Him stepping confidently into semi contested, intense, high stakes threes in that second half run and hitting three of them, two big ones in the late third quarter at another one when things were kind of already in hand in the fourth quarter. All those shots were

super important. And the reason why this is specifically important for this matchup is we spent a lot of time talking on playback and and in the broadcast after Game five about how the Nuggets kind of seemed to be dealing with a fifth closer problem. We talked about Russell Westbrook. I mean, he he made a big play tonight in the in the late third quarter that we'll touch on in a minute, but he had a nightmare first quarter and in general just has been just uneven over the

tail end of this series. So he's not a great option. Michael Porter Junior, as we discussed two nights ago, has just been incapable of knocking down open threes while also bringing some defense and rebounding issues to the table. So like there wasn't like a legitimate option to go for.

We actually were talking on the broadcast about Peyton Watson because at the very least Peyton Watson would be able to defend and grab rebounds and at least just be an athletic presence on the floor if you're not going to get any sort of shooting from anywhere down the roster. But like he just you know, that shooting stretch from Julian Strawther just gives Adalman another option that he can consider. Should Michael Porter Junior struggle in game seven, Should Russell

Westbrook struggle in game seven? You know, should Peyton Watson struggle in game seven? If he needs like a guy that can just be out there, that can hit a shot. He has his struggles defensively from time to time, but it's not like there's anybody who's doing an amazing job defensively in this series. Containing the ball that was kind

of the story of the game for Okay. See, I thought Tim Legler did an amazing job in the broadcast breaking down the way that Oklahoma City was penetrating the shell of Denver zone, which is putting Jokic and all these like simple like do I have to step up to this guy who's dry being in just give up a baseline cut for an easy dunk, or am I gonna stay back on my heels and let this dude just drive right into my face and make a layup?

Like he Jokich was putting a lot of compromising positions just simply because the shell of the Denver defense wasn't holding, and so having another option is a guy that, like, at least you're getting some shot making out of him. I think that's an interesting thing to keep an eye on, uh heading into game seven. But again, like these are these are the shots that are gonna be there with the way that Oklahoma City is just swarming Yokic in the middle of the floor, and I thought that was

really the story of the game tonight. Denver's young guys, Denver's veterans, Denver's role players confidently stepping into shots and knocking them down when their team desperately needed them to hit shots. Let's talk about Jamal Murray for a minute. I I was venting in an unserious manner with Jackson during the game because I watched a certain player for my favorite team play with an illness in Game three of the Minnesota Timberwolve series, and there was just like

no competitive fire at all. It was almost like Luca just kind of wanted us all to know he was sick, and I don't. I don't want to be you know too. I don't want to jump to conclusion, so to speak, because you never know how sick Luca was or how

sick Jamal was. But both players were questionable. Both players attempted to play, and I thought there was an obvious competitive fire with Jamal right away when he came into the game, and there were some stretches where he lost seen there's a stretch there in that second quarter where you can tell he was getting to him a little bit.

Case on Wallace had some success, he had a couple turnovers, but like he came right out the gates and was aggressive both in his pull up shooting situations and going to the basket. And you could see, like Jamal, if you didn't know Jamal Murray was sick, you would have no idea watching that game. There was no you know, kind of poudy body language or like exaggerating the symptoms that he was dealing with. He was like, fuck all that,

I my team needs me to win this game. And he went out there and just immediately brought that competitive fire and may play after play after play. I thought he was fantastic in the late third quarter run really setting things up on offense. He was the guy that kind of set up those couple Julian strawtherbuckets got a big transition finish. Jackson was texting during the game talking

about his unbelievable finishing ability. He kind of has this remarkable talent to get into your body and then find these like blow the rim finishing angles where he can put it softly up off the glass from way off to the side. He can finish on either side of the rim in a way that like can even surprise you on the broadcast where you're like, is he going up on the strong side. Nope, He's going reverse, and

you're like surprised as it's happening. And his supreme talent is he's just one of the great shot makers to ever play this game. Like, if you really get down to it and you think about the guys who again that specific trait. I'm not talking about super high level point guard play, although I thought Jamal passed the ball really well tonight. I'm not talking about elite two way play in the form of defense at the guard position. I'm not talking about, you know, some sort of indomitable

downhill attack. But if you strictly just taking synthesizing a player's game down to the ability to hit tough shots, the ability to hit jumpers off the move and off the dribble, from every single possible footwork in dribble combination, that there's There aren't many players that I've watched that are more gifted with that specific trait. And every one of those buckets he got tonight they needed. I was just I just I just I just think Jamal is

a legend. It's hard to explain because I hated his guts when I was rooting against him as a Lakers fan, obviously, But like when I think about the players in the game that have the true competitive spirit, I always refer to this as like hatred of losing, not a love of basketball. Obviously, you need both in order to have success at the highest levels, but there is like a there is like a competitive spirit you can see from a basketball player that manifests from a singular emotion, which

is like a hatred and a fear of losing. I actually think that matters more than any other trait when it comes to basketball, because it manifests in a willingness

to do whatever it takes. And even when I think back to Jamal in his previous playoff highs, like in twenty twenty three, in twenty twenty two, he has or should say in twenty twenty three, he has like a defensive playmaking side to his game too, where he'll get into a spot in a big spot and put his body on the line for a charge, or make a

help side rotation where he'll get a big block. Or there's a big one he had in the Lakers series three years ago where he stripped Lebron on a key clutch possession on a help side off of the week side corner. He'll fight for a contested rebound. There was one late tonight. It was in that crazy run when the Thunder were just ball pressuring like crazy and they forced all those turnovers in a row, and somebody missed the off the right wing. I can't remember who it was.

I think it was J dub but a Thunder player missed at three and like Alex Crusoe comes flying in and Hartenstein's flying in, and like the Thunder is still playing with that like chaotic energy and who came up with the ball in the mix of all those players with Jamal Murray. Jo Kisch was in there battling and

somehow the ball just ended up in Jamal Murray's hands. Because, like we can be critical of Jamal in other ways, he takes the regular season less serious than a lot of his peers do in the league, and comes into camp out of shape and could probably stand to take

care of his body a little bit better. But when it comes to the principal concept of winning basketball games in the playoffs, He's just one of the better guards that I've seen in this era because of his ability to shot make and because of his willingness to do the things that you need to do to win basketball games.

And I thought tonight, you know, should they win this series, if they go on the road and they win Game seven, I will think back to this Jamal Murray Game six against the Thunder very fondly as one of the better games in his career.

There was a huge sequence in that run if you guys remember where they kind of started to lose control and Denver turns it over, okase he's run in the length of the floor. Drawther gets the huge block at the rim, and then they go down the other end and Russell Westbrook, who had had a turnover in this sequence and it had had a really rough game, gave an extra effort and got an offensive rebound put back that bumped it. Instead of going down to five, it pushed it back up to nine and just kind of

changed the psychology the game. And I just thought that was a very important run. And then Nikola Jokics wasn't super aggressive as a scorer in this game, but there there was a stretch where when he first came in in the mid fourth quarter, I think they were up by eight or nine at this point, and as we know, that's that same kind of margin that Oklahoma City was able to overcome in the previous two games, right, and Nikole Jokicic came in and I was literally thinking, like, they need him.

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was most efficient and surgical offensively. Again, thirty two points on just sixteen shots. Jay Doug again, this was something that I called out before the postseason, and it's just the reality of young basketball players. Like Jadeb's a really good player and I'm a big believer in him. I think he has the potential to be like a Jalen Brown mixed with a little bit of Jimmy Butler within the next you know, five to ten years of his career.

But like he's young and doesn't have a ton of experience on the stage, and he's really struggled to be consistently impactful in this setting. Again, three for sixteen in a long line of some brutal shooting performances in this series. They're going to need him to be better in Game seven. And then I just wanted to shout out case on Wallace. I don't know what he's going to be in the

long run. I feel like there's some real potential there because of his athleticism, just his ability to get up in traffic, both in transition and underneath the basket, almost finishing like a big man as a guard around the rim, his ball pressure bothered. He bothers Jamal Murray more than Lou Door does. He's doing some real damage to him attacking the basketball Keyson's a great player, and I'm just

really excited to see what he becomes in the long run. Now, as far as Game seven goes, this is gonna be a super interesting game.

tier guy. The only example you'll find kind of one that's not really is the Trey Young Game seven against Philly back in twenty twenty one, if you remember correctly. But even then, I have to go back and watch that game to remember exactly what happened. But I remember Trey making a bunch of big plays late in that game, like right in the final minutes as they pulled away

from Philly. But if you look at the other examples of recent games where a team won a road Game seven, you go back to like twenty eighteen, and it's Lebron James and Boston won game one at home, they won Game two at home, they won Game five at home, and then suddenly in game seven when all of the

pressure was on all of their young players. Now, mind you, they were younger players than Oklahoma City even in terms of Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum at that point in time, but Lebron just kind of alpha dogged them and was like, far and away the best player in the game, far and away the most comfortable player in the game, made all the big plays late, and they ended up winning. Fast forward to twenty twenty three, Steph Curry Game seven

on the road in Sacramento. Steph drops a piece on those dudes, and they just have no idea what to do. They just immediately crumble in their confidence and drop a Game seven at home. Go to twenty twenty two, Luka Doncic on the road in Phoenix, just right out the gates in the first quarter. Just alpha dogs those dudes. They all get super nervous and they end up falling apart.

And specifically with the Celtics in twenty eighteen, but especially the Suns in twenty twenty two, those were highly ranked teams in the regular season, they were teams that won a ton of games. They were teams that were viewed as favorites in the series like this this was, you know, this series will follow a somewhat similar trend, except for Shay is also an APEX star in my opinion, and this is a more talented, better Oklahoma City Thunder team.

But that dynamic is the dynamic that the Thunder have to avoid. If Yoki rolls up into Oklahoma City in Game seven and right away just looks like by far the most confident and comfortable player on the floor, and he just strangles the pace and the flow, and a bunch of these young Oklahoma City Thunder players get nervous. That's where it could get dangerous. And as Denver just showed in Game five, they can go into Oklahoma City

and control a game for a large portion. They again, they blew that one in the late fourth quarter, but they were right there with the chance to win that with that game, to win that game, So games Haven, all eyes are on Yo Kitchen Sha. You know, I expect a lot of inconsistency from the role players in that game, but like, you know, like as as likely as Jamal and Jada bar to go off. They're just as likely to have nightmare games. It's gonna be Yo

Kitchen Shae one of those two dominates that matchup. You're gonna see that team win that game. And I can't wait. After what's been a pretty boring tail end the second round, I feel fortunate that we're gonna get an epic Game seven on Is it on Saturday or Sunday? I think it's on Sunday actually, so we get a couple day off. Wow, that's a big deal. That's a huge deal. So Denver doesn't play till Sunday. That's a big deal that Denver is gonna get a little bit of time off before

they have to roll up into that arena. That's advantage to Denver for sure.

fine either way. But I can't wait to break that game down when the time comes. All right, let's bring Jackson on and let's take a solid ten fifteen minutes of questions.

as just shot makers. One of the things that I think we've seen a pretty good example of is like Jamal has a couple of crafty finishes in this series, especially in transition, but both teams are doing a good job of keeping specifically Ja dub and Jamal from getting

all the way to the rim. J Dub's having to settle for a lot of like tough stuff in the short to mid range, and so is Jamal, And so I think there's a certain amount of like shot making comfortability between those two guys that I think would be a big swing in the in this game seven. I also think the whistle could play a role. Is Oklahoma City allowed to just beat the shit out of Jokic or are they gonna get a little more ticky tech

Shay's whistled. That could be a big factor. Oklahoma City in general, just processing against the zone and knocking down shots. I think that's a big one too. There are a lot of examples, but you know how it is, Jackson, Like this point in the series, everyone knows what everyone's doing, and it's really it's really just about guys, you know, executing the game plan and knocking down shots.

up there that like seven or eight range. But yeah, I think that's the right line because the dynamic at play is it's either going to be a close game or okay, see you we'll pull away and kind of blow them out, you know, ten to fifteen, because you know, veteran team, once they lose sight of their opportunity to win, they'll probably you know, let go of the rope a little bit. I do think it's going to be very low scoring, though that would be a game that I would take the under for sure.

responsibility for basically every two three zone. I've seen some variations like Houston was not using Steven Adams to cover the middle. They use a top guy to cover the middle. You'll see a couple of weird variations around the league. But Yo Kic's responsibility basically is the basket.

you guys can see some specific examples of that. But so if you give up dribble penetration in the middle, Yokic has no choice but to step up, because if he doesn't step up, he's on his heels for an athlete who's going to elevate right at the front of the rim. So he needs to step up to stop the driver before he can get into basically the zone

where he can take off and make a play. And then at that point, the two bottom guys have to pinch in to rotate to the basket, and they were missing that rotation constantly, and so when that guy would just cut along the baseline, when Yokich would step up, it'd be just an easy drop off pass and there'd be an easy, you know, dunk or a layup right underneath the basket. But theoretically, if you're in the zone, that dribble penetration is something you should be able to contain.

The whole point of the zone is to force them to swing the ball around the perimeter and take threes. So, like your job, like a three to two zone or you know these other variations, a three to two in particular, you're trying to take away threes and there's opportunities around the basket, but in a two three zone, the entire premise of the zone is these guys are young and they don't know how to make shots under pressure and

kind of a funky zone situation. So your job there is essentially to contain the ball and force them to take threes off of swing passes instead of paint touches. And they just didn't do a good job. But again we'll get into more examples of that when we get over to playback later so you guys can see some video.

much success against it. Now to the question, we had a similar kind of like topic during the meat and potatoes of the start of this show.

the way up. Because he's been in a lot of big games in his career. He's not going to be as uncomfortable as a Julian Strawther or something along those lines. But if Mike, if Michael Porter Junior starts, you know, one for five and has a couple of sloppy turnovers and it just looks like he's not in it, and Russ is out of it. But Julian Strawther is at the least in the right spots and stepping confidently into shots. You give him a shot and you ride him out

in that sort of situation. But these are these are the kinds of games, like you've got to be willing to try something, but you've got to have a quick

hook for anybody who's out of it. Like if Russ comes in in a late first quarter shift and starts shit in the bed, you get him the hell out of there, and you get him out of there quick, because, like I mean, this game flipped in that first quarter from being like a ten point Denver lead to suddenly it was a neck and neck again again because Russ just lost control of his decision making for like a ninety second stretch in the late first quarter, and that

could be the difference between going home and advancing to the next round. So to answer the question, I don't think it's about picking a guy right now. All of those guys are inconsistent. Julian Strothers a kid relative to NBA talent, like he had a great game tonight, but he could just as easily go oh for six with a bunch of mistakes in game seven. Russell Westbrook, same sort of range of outcomes. Michael Porter, same sort of

range of outcomes. I think Peyton Watson's a much higher floor but a lower ceiling option in the sense that he's not going to do a ton for you offensively, but there's a higher floor there, And I think I'll give you a more concrete answer like this, if the shit hits the fan and everyone's playing poorly, I'd close with Watson.

in insane play, and he's also less. You know, he's less likely to make a big shot, but he's less likely to make a stupid mistake on that And like Russ, my is sort of you know, Russ is very talented, but he's prone to mistakes. Michael Porter junr Is prone to some bad shots selection at time times, and Julian Strawther, even compared.

championship threat ranked him second. But NBA history tells us that teams like this don't win now. They win like two or three years from now when they have lost a bunch of times, and as a result of that have made these like seemingly minuscule improvements, but in a way that manifests specifically in the playoff setting. They basically get better at getting their regular season success to translate to the postseason because they've just been there so many times.

They're just so comfortable. And I just can't tell you how many times in my life I've seen playoff series where the older, more experienced team just looks more comfortable than the younger, inexperienced team. It is not a harder fast rule. There are teams that buck that trend. But the whole thing is like, if Oklahoma City wins Game seven and then they beat Minnesota and then they beat whoever comes out of the East, they are breaking a trend.

They are breaking a historical NBA trend, which is that super young teams don't win at this level. And Frankly Jackson, like I the reason the series is going seven is the youth and inexperience of Oklahoma City. They are a better basketball team than Denver. They have controlled large portions of this series. But yo, like, I'm watching these dudes, and I'm watching Jamal, and I'm watching Aaron Gordon, and

I'm watching Jokic. These guys have been in wars over years, they have seen it all, and so there's just a level of comfortability that they have in these settings. And as far as the big picture goes for Oklahoma City, let's say they lose, there's a certain conversation to have about like, Okay, well you have all this draft compensation, what are you gonna do just keep drafting players and then letting them walk, Like you gotta do something with

these picks. And you know, maybe that ends up being them trading for a big rangy wing, which is the kind of player they don't really have. They just don't have that like six', eight you, Know jada McDaniel's type of. Player maybe it is a super aggressive star trade sort of. Thing but ultimately what's going to put them over the top is their. Experience it's going to Be shay having more games like tonight in fewer games like he's had

the rest of this playoff. Run it's gonna Be chet going from a guy that like can completely disappear for large portions of the game to a guy that leverages his gifts for the entirety of the forty two to forty three minutes that he's on the. Floor that's what's

going to put these guys over the. TOP i remember watching one of my favorite examples of this was the two thousand and TWELVE Nba finals between The thunder and The, heat and there was a rebound on a on a missed free, throw A heat free throw In game, five That Shane battier came away. With and this was if you remember That thunder, team they were so athletic And,

shane the old slow, guy beat everyone to the. Ball and it's because like he just has been in so many games that he understands that that singular moment was just as important as every other possession in the, game and that if you engage and fight for every, inch you might gain three or four inches over the course of that. Game that could be the difference between winning and,

losing which could be the difference in the. Series and you go back to that, series every fucking game was right down to the final, possessions to like The katie neerfoul In game, two to Like game three And game four both came down to clutch. SITUATIONS i even think back To lebron And Pulp heerce going for a loose ball in the two thousand and Seven game seven between The cavs and The, celtics Where lebron had forty five

or whatever And Paul pierce had forty two or. Whatever Paul pierce's old fat ass Beat lebron to the ball because he's just an old dude who just understands that every inch of the game is worth fighting. For and there are just so many missed opportunities with the, thunder so many bad shots early in the, clock so many silly, mistakes just simply because they haven't understood through time and, experience how valuable every possession is in a basketball.

the rest of the. Roster both of those teams that had their best player twenty six years old had legitimate had multiple contributing, Vets Drew, Holliday Al, Horfrid Christaps perzingis in his last, Round Andrew, Bogan Andre, udala.

they Love. Lebron but then you talk to a casual fan and they love one guy hate the next, guy because there's all about, aura it's all about who they're rooting, For it's all about like these different. THINGS i think that it kind of just depends on the kind of person you. Are for, ME i gravitate to like specific basketball, traits like even with the guys THAT i don't necessarily, like like Joe El, Embiid i'm impressed by his. Footwork James,

Harden i've literally stolen his footwork on step. BACKTORIES i use him all the. Time a guy like With embiid specifically, Too he's got like really strong footwork on like his pivot, moves on his turnarounds over both. Shoulders there's like a there's a certain element of like imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that you'll see with basketball players.

a step back. Three that's like a a like a really fascinating basketball move THAT i think is really useful for a dribble drive guard just because he sells the left handed drive with that move and he'll drive out of that move a lot of, times but then he'll just pull back out of it with that step. Back so for basketball, PLAYERS i think they're attracted to like

specific basketball skills and. TRAITS i think for casual fans it's a lot of aura that kind of, stuff and THEN i DO i think there's something to be said about just like must SEE tv kinds of. Stuff, so for, instance like you want to know Why steph And lebron have crazy amounts of, fans because there's nothing like a step. Heater when you watch A steph, heater it is one of the most, incredible incredible bits of television you'll ever.

See Older lebron has been a tougher, watch but Younger lebron was like the most incredible freight train athlete you've ever. Seen it was like If zion took care of his body like it. Was it was literally, insane and so there's a certain like MUSTY tv element to, it uh to it as. Well all, right, guys that's all we have for tonight is always do sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the. Show head over to

playback dot tv Slash hoops. Tonight we'll be there in just a couple of minutes for our after, Show What's?