Hoops Tonight - Nuggets-Timberwolves Reaction: Jokic & Nuggets DOMINATE, have Denver solved Wolves?

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the psychology of that series. Obviously a lot of work to do still to get the win if that's what they're interested in, but a very dominant first step in that direction tonight, and then the Indiana Pacers get a much needed win to avoid the the vonted three to zero hole against the New York Knicks to get another crazy clutch Knicks game that the Pacers escape on a game winner from Andrew Nemhard and a little bit of a grifty mistake from Jalen Brunson late.

hitting them throughout the post season. So let's talk some basketball. I was so excited for this game. Honestly, like the build up of the three full days off was actually kind of nice because it just kind of built the suspense for this specific game. I think these sourts of situations are what generate the great moments in NBA history. No one ever talked about a great moment in NBA history that was a sweep.

like about the KD Warriors. They just beat the shit out of everybody, and everyone was like it was cool and it was a beautiful brand of basketball, and obviously it was cool to see KD get to the mountaintop, but like they won fifteen straight playoff games, Like they won fifteen straight playoff games, so like it never had

that real, that feeling of like overcoming adversity. And I got in trouble with some Nuggets fans yesterday for a social media clip where I basically said, hey, this is their first time with some real adversity, and everyone pointed out, well, what about the you know, trying to win with faku Compazo and and Will Barton, and it's like, yeah, yeah, those were that was bad shit happening to your team. But that wasn't adversity in the sense that there weren't

There were no expectations on that team. No one on those teams, No one really expected Denver in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two to win with Nikola Jokic by himself. If anything, it was like incredibly impressive that he managed to beat that Portland team by himself. Right, oh yeah, but we were down three to one in the bubble. It's like, yeah, but that was kind of your coming out party. No one really believed in in

that core until that. But the bubble is where Jamal Murray, Nicole Jokic, that's where they kind of came to the forefront as the as the one of the next great kind of playoff corps that we see around the league. Right the last year was the first time there was real expectation on the Nuggets, and they passed with flying colors, dominated most of the regular season, dominated in the postseason. Came into this year, I thought it was a more

than fine kind of Denver regular season. Most of the issues they had had to do with beating good teams without Jamal Murray, which again is difficult. Anytime you're without firepower, you're going to struggle against the good teams. But in this series, this is the first time they have faced

true adversity where there's real expectations. You have the consensus best player in the world, you are favored to win the series, you have home court advantage, and you get your ass kicked in Game two to go down two before you head on the road to Minnesota. And again this is what These are the types of scenarios that

breed those big moments. When you think back to the best moments of Steph Curry's career, what do you think you think about Game four against Boston in the twenty twenty two NBA Finals when Boston Stolehork home court from them and Boston beat them handling in Game three, and Game four was like, we have to win this game or we are going to lose the series. And Steph has forty something, they win, he gets Finals MVP, they

win the trophy. That was an amazing moment, arguably the best moment of Steph Curry's career, and it happened because of adversity. In order for Lebron to go on the road into Boston and drop forty five and humiliate that team to tie the series and send it back to Miami, there had to be adversity. They had to fall down three games to two. They had to face a road close out game. That's why I love these moments, and that's why I was so excited for this particular game.

This was our first chance to see what desperate Denver looked like.

you can do it. And I thought it was so interesting after Game two when they had that practice and Mike Michael Malone was quoting stats, is like, yeah, something like this. Many teams have come back from down oh two. This smaller number of teams have come back from down oh two with losing the first two games at home. But what was the first thing he said after that? He's like, well, we've come down from three to one twice.

You can tell there's just that little inkling of belief there at the beginning, Like, yeah, like having to win four games in five tries against a team that has like that's been literally constructed to beat us, That's a lot to ask. It's a very difficult challenge that lays in front of you, and you.

a way he had never seen them crumble before. And the way they crumbled it they crumbled under physicality, they crumbled under intensity, they crumbled under emotion, and like getting into it, the refs, and like all of those factors shifted heavily towards Denver. In game three, they conquered those demons. Those demons popped up for one game and they immediately

conquered them. In game two. You not only did you win in a domint fashion, you did so with your offense breaking out in a way that it couldn't in the first two games. You did so with Jamal Murray looking like Jamal Murray again. Twenty four points, twenty one, shots above fifty percent, shooting above forty percent from three that that is huge.

But the majority of the reason Jamal struggled in game two had to do with him getting into it with the refs and getting all worked up in emotional and he lost sight of the ultimate goal, and he played shitty basketball.

That was the first time in seven postseason games that Minnesota looked like the regular season Timberwolves. There are reasons why I picked against Minnesota against Phoenix and why I picked against Minnesota versus Denver, and it had to do with actual things that happened on the court in the regular season. Bad shot selection, inconsistent defensive effort like foul trouble, all of these different things that ended up being issued

from Minnesota periodically throughout the regular season. They have avoided those things in this postseason run, and man, did it look like they regressed in a big way tonight. And we're gonna get more into that later, but that to me is the other part of this. You tilted a

lot of the mental dynamics in this series. So again, I just before we get into some of the more some of the more nitty gritty stuff with the basketball, I just was so excited for this game because this is where this stuff happens.

Coming back from three to one to beat Cleveland, Right, coming back from three to two to beat Boston, coming back from uh three two to beat San Antonio, Right, that's that's where these big, real moments in NBA his three come from. Let's talk about some of the basketball, though, because like one of the things that I thought was the defining characteristic of this game was if you had to come put it down to one specific thing, it would come down to Denver competing physically better. But that

manifests in a bunch of different ways. And the main thing I want to focus on is how Denver got their offense working.

Jamal getting that initial kind of set up. But regardless of what defender was on Jamal, whether it was Nikhil Alexander Walker, Anthony Edwards, or Jaden McDaniels, from the early part of the game, I thought the two things physically that got Denver's offense going was better screening and better setting up your man for screens. So let's start on

the setting up your man for screens thing. So when you're on the ball, it's about a ball handling move, some sort of dribble combination to get your defender onto one side of you. When you get that defender onto one side of you, it's much easier for the screener to find an angle for him to actually set a good pick. So for instance, if I want to get on a screen going this way, if he's up in my business, he can take that big step over the top. I've shown this on film, and our film breakdown is

a bunch. If I'm chasing a guy over screen this way, I didn't get my left foot over the top of the screener's left foot so that I can get the leverage to get over the top and meet you on the other side. But if you make a dribble move on me and I end up on this side of you, if you get me way off onto the ball handler's left hand side, then now I'm just in a trail position the whole way through right and so on the ball.

Setting up your man for screens is about dribble combinations to get the defender on the side away from the screen right. Then when you're off the ball, it's about getting contact. I thought Jamal did a really good job of this from the opening tip of the game. When he was off the ball, he'd sit down with his hands on his knees and kind of relax and bite

his energy. And then what he would do is when it was time to cut to the screen, he'd get connected to the body right, he'd get into the defender's body and then he would just take off and give a little shove. Just take off, little shove, by the way, totally legal. It's something you train kids to do from the younger, right. That's just basic fundamental basketball. And again, that's what's so frustrating about what happened in Game two.

Jamal got so worked up that he lost sight of some of the fundamental things he could do to fight through the ball pressure and to fight through some of the physicality he was dealing with. We even talked about just passing out of double teams, which he was doing

a poor job of in game two. Right, But in this game, patience, hands on knees, waiting for the time to cut, get connected, little push off, take off by virtue of doing that everything I just described, whether it's the ball handling piece or the off ball piece, it's about getting that initial separation right. Once the initial separation exists, there's a gap for Jokic to set in instead a good screen. Second piece is Jokic setting a good screen.

And again, this is where it's you being the physical aggressor you being the guy that's kicking their ass rather than the other way around. As Jokic sets that good screen. After Jamal Murray gets his man set up for the screen, now there's a lot of separation as a Jamal comes downhill right from there. We talk about the bracket all the time in pick and roll coverage. Right, the bracket is the drop coverage. Big is the bottom end of the bracket, and the top end of the bracket is

the back pressure. It's the guy that's chasing over the top of the screen and trying to funnel when you have real separation from the on ball defender. That is what allows Jamal Murray to go in different angles after he comes off the screen and find a little soft spot in the drop coverage for him to find his pull up jumper. If Jaden McDaniels or whoever it is that's on the ball is attached to Jamal over the screen, then he can funnel. That's where the bracket can force

Jamal to drive into traffic. When he forces Jamal to drive into traffic, his options are limited. He can't get to the pull up because there's back pressure. Now he's driving into the rim and he's gonna have a bunch of issues there. Right, So everything comes down to getting good separation from the on ball defender through setting your man up for screens and setting a good screen. Once that happens, Jamal has the freedom to work in that

mid range. That is what brings extra defenders over. That's what actually for is the drop coverage big to come out, because if this bracket can stay down here because this guy's chasing him in, then then Rudy Gobert or Carltown's whoever it is that's there, can easily guard both. But as soon as he actually has to come out a little bit, that is where you start running into issues where the pocket pass gets open. And that's where we

see Jokic catching on the roll. And then when catches on the role, then Rudy Gobert has to step up. When Ridy Gobert steps up, that's where the lob passed to Aaron Gordon is open. But none of it works if you can't get separation from the on ball guy. It is the initial cog in what makes Denver's offense work. If I had to simplify it down to one thing, Jamal Murray just got free so much easier tonight through setting his man up for screens and through setting good screens.

From there he got his confidence. Then the tough shots start going again. Now it's like, now it's the superstar ability that Jamal Murray has to hit tough contested shots when things are defended way well, that started to come to the surface. But early on it was like easy little driving layup, like easier shots in that in that mid range and at the rim he got a wide open catch and shoot three on the right wing. That came more off of the virtue of their defense, which

we'll get to in a minute. But again, like I thought, that was the main piece of it. From there, Denver's offense functioned again. Once Denver's offense started functioning again, functioning again, all of the role players started playing better. You got what's his forty six points on twenty three shots out of KCP, Michael Porter Junior and Aaron Gordon just way

better production than what you had been getting. Right, And honestly, I thought, Nicole Jokicic, you know, I was expecting tonight to go differently.

Going into the series, the biggest key I said for Denver was this is different than the Lakers series in the sense that the Lakers, you're just so much better than them offensively that you can just out execute them in any sort of late game situation. This series Minnesota for the regular season, and in terms of their personnel, they're not as good offensively. They've been amazing offensively in

this postseason run through the first six games. I want to say they're the best offense in the in the NBA. And Anthony Edwards was playing like a bona fide top tier superstar and Nikhil Alexander Walker's been on fire. Carl Towns has been amazing. They've been doing all this good

stuff right and so in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, like like we forget the fact that Minnesota has had a tendency to be compromisable offensively, teams have been able to get them out of rhythm and cause some problems.

three blocks was way two things. In particular, way better when he would come up up to the level of the screen at containing Ant and not letting Ant get downhill. And then secondly when he was in his deeper dropper when he was helping active hands getting deflections and swipes. There's that play where Ant got downhill right into the short range and tried to rise up, but he exposed the ball in the shooting pocket and Jokic swiped down at it. As a team, I thought Denver to much

much better. Like it was weird out, Like in Game two, you'd see Denver kind of over penetrate and like lose control of the basketball, and then like four dudes would be swiping down at it and somehow Minnesota would come away with it. The same thing was happening for Denver tonight.

It'd be Minnesota that'd be over penetrating a little bit, and then Jokis would knock the ball loose, and then like four dudes would get on the ground and try to go after the ball, and somehow someone with Denver would come out from it and go the other way. And that really is the key. They dominated the physical battle tonight. They won the rebounds forty to thirty two. They won offensive rebounds eight to five. They won turnovers sixteen to eleven. They had seventeen points off of minnesota

sixteen turnovers. They won points in the paint thirty eight to thirty four. Completely flipped the script. And again, like that to me is the big psychological benefit from this game. In addition to getting a win in the win column that you desperately need because you need three more in

the next four games. In addition to that, you proved to yourself that you are capable of hanging physically with Minnesota in a way that you didn't in the first two games on the Minnesota front, and like this, this to me is a credit to Denver's defense. But they

played Minnesota into a lot of their bad tendencies. What was the issue with Kat and aunt offensively throughout the regular season, Like missing easy reads, settling for jump shots, not using your physical tools to get close to the basket.

best defensive effort he had seen from that group. I would venture to guess he's gonna say the exact opposite tonight in his presser. It just was inconsistent from the jump, not as good screen navigation, not as scrappy, not as physical.

identify early like oh, they're letting everything go. Sometimes you identify early like, oh, this is much more tiki tack, right like Game one OKC Dallas, super ticky tack. Game two OKC Dallas way more physical, a lot more stuff gets let go, right Like, it's unfortunate that it's inconsistent, but it's kind of part of the game, right. And it was actually interesting because I didn't think Minnesota handled

it very well. They were complaining at the refs, they were getting all worked up and again, that kind of goes more to that psychological flip that I was talking about earlier, but the poor shot selection and the foul trouble too. Like Jade McDaniels, I think he's the best perimeter defender in the league. You pick up three foulsand

in the first half, early second half. You have this beautiful possession on Jamal Murray where you block him and then after you block him, you foul him for no damnary. After you cleanly defend him and block him, you just hack him for no reason at the end of the possession. That is a regular season issue that Minnesota had. Now, as the game was kind of winding down, he was on the sideline.

gonna win the series. Just think about it. Minnesota wins Game four, They're up three to one. Now Denver has to beat you three times in a row, including a game in Minnesota. That's not gonna be very easy. Minnesota's already demonstrated they can win in Denver, right, Denver wins to two, They've just won two straight on your home floor. They're going home for Game five, the game five, and Denver the arena is just gonna be on fire. That's

gonna be a really hard game to win. Now they're coming back to Minnesota up three to two, and they know they can beat you there because they just beat you twice. Right, So, like I think the winner of Game four is going to win the series. I think it's gonna be a super close game. I think it's gonna be more or less functioning as a game that both teams view as a must win. I expect a much better defensive effort from Minnesota from the jump. I expect Chris Finch to likely go back to Jaden McDaniels

on Jamal Murray from the start of the game. I expect a whistle that is a little bit less tight and a little bit more physicality allowed. That's gonna be a hell of a game Sunday evening, if I'm not mistaken. I think myself and Colin Cowherd are going after that game. But I'll keep you guys posted on my Twitter feed. All right, let's move on to Nicks Pacers before we get out of here for the night, and let's start at the end first, because every Knicks game is completely insane.

Was the eighth time in nine postseason games that the Knick sev ended up in a clutch situation at the end of a game. They were six to one in their first seven. Remember, clutch means within five points with less than five minutes left. I want to start with the late game sequence and we'll work into some of the bigger picture concepts from there. So it's one O two, one oh two, and Tyris Alliburn's running on a ball screen on the left side of the floor hard and

signs in a high drop. Devincenzo's on the ball and Halliburton just picks up his dribble for no damn reason, and Siakam has a hard time disengaging from the screen from Devincenzo, so he throws like a pass over the top, ends up at.

the rim. Kind of sneaky little gamesman ship from Yakham. When Hartenstein goes to help, Siakam kind of holds on to him and as a result, there's no help at the rim. And Andrew Nemar gets a layup, so it's one O four to one O two. They go out the other way, and Brunson's working against Nie Smith way out at half court, and Haliburton throws a random double team at him, and in the double team, Brunson just drives to go around him and Haliburton just trips him.

bang bang in rotation. Another wide open catch and shoot three for Andrew Nemhart in the right corner, and he misses it. Dante Divencenzo finally gets an offensive rebound. Two reasons why I wanted to highlight that play. First, of all those misses for Nemhart to two wide up a catch and shoot misses, they allow him to kind of build rhythm and to kind of think of it as like dialing in his release. Oh, I left that one short.

He left the corner three short at the right corner is dead on straight, but he left it short right. Also Tyres Halliburton, who just continued at the end of this game to generate quality shot after quality shot. Tygers Haliburton was amazing. We're gonna get to him in a bigger picture in a minute. So but anyway, New York

gets the stops one of four, one O three. They're running out the other way and there on the other end, Brunson gets aron Empart on a cross match, and remember this was this was the matchup where adren Empart was getting cooked all series and that was why Carlisle finally switched over to Nie Smith on Brunson and he Brunson tried to back him down, he's bullying him. Nemmar took the contact, held his ground, forced Brunston to spin into like a scoop shot with his offhand, which is obviously

a lower percentagehot and he missed it. So shout out to adren Emhard. He's been getting barbecued by Brunston all series. Got a huge stop on that play. Haliburton makes a beautiful kick ahead pass because Siakam ends up up the floor and beats everybody there. And again this is another great thing about Halliburton. He just never misses the easy reads that are available.

the other end. It's one o six, one oh six. Haliburton gets a quick ball screen in transition, like a little semi transition ball screen, gets a great look at it right from that right wing spot, and just misses the three. And I actually liked the shot too, because even though it was early in the clock, there was like thirty one thirty two seconds left in the game clock, so it was like a two for one in a

tie game. So like, even if you miss that and you give up the rebound, the Knicks are gonna go down and if you get another stop, then you'll get the final shot of the game.

hell wasn't gonna leave this one short. Got a great lift, I've got a great release and drills like a twenty five foot step back three. And it was crazy because it's the toughest one of the three. It was deeper, it was more contested, it was off. The dribble didn't matter. Huge shot from Andrew Nemhard. Now it's one o nine to one oh six. Then we get to the second big Knick's mistake. Late Jalen Brunson gets hacked by Andrew Nemhard and in the process he just throws up a

bad shot. And here's the thing. You can't count on the refs in that situation. Yes, occasionally a ref will get whistle happy at the end of a game, and it always is a big deal and we all hate it, right, but most refs want the players to decide and they'll sit back. If anything, I actually thought the ref, because there was one ref in the right corner, had a good angle on it. I think he didn't think Brunson was gonna shoot. I think he saw Brunson holding the ball.

I think he saw nem Hard hack him, and I think he thought Brunson's gonna pass it here. Anyway, I'm not gonna worry about blowing the whistle, and then Brunson decided on a delay to throw up a shot, which, by the way, even if they called the foul, it would have been on the ground right, And so Brunson kind of tries to grift and throws up a really bad shot. There were fourteen seconds left on the shot clock.

Now the one little bit of leeway I'd give to Brunston there, and I don't think it's enough to justify it. But in those kind of late game situations down three, you are sometimes cognizant of the fact that they might intentionally foul, and sometimes guys will throw up bad three point shots to try to turn an intentional foul into

three points. But I thought Brunson rushed that because usually that's under It's like outside of three seconds, inside of ten seconds is usually where you see teams look to intentionally foul, because inside of three second, outside of three secs, like with less than three seconds left, you're usually scared

about the guy throwing up a shot right. And then outside of three seconds left, it's almost like too early to get into a free throw contest, and one misfree throw and you're in some trouble right, So like I didn't like that specific shot, but it is what it is. The Pacers get the rebound, they close it out from there, and the Pacers cut the series to two to one. A couple of notes from the game, switching n Smith onto Brunson. Brunston at twenty six point on twenty six shots,

six assists in five turnovers. It was his worst game of the playoffs since Game two against Philly, and they were just like Nie Smith was just in his jersey from the jump, and the big thing is here. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's a better athlete, he's better defender than Andrew Emhart. I called for Nie Smith on Brunson at the beginning of the series, and then I said it needed to happen after game one because it was abundantly

clear that Jalen was really comfortable operating against Andren Emhart. Specifically, he felt comfortable shooting over the top of him.

When you play worst defense, you make it more likely that they'll end up in the high end of that outcome.

he had a rough shooting night. Honestly, it was a testament to Jaylen Brunston that he was still able to get going the way he did in that second half. Tyers Halibert sixty nine points in the last two games after I begged him to start scoring after Game one, finally starting to look more explosive. Too early in the game, there was a play two plays in particular in the

first half that kind of stood out to me. Get hard and signed on a switch on the right wing, late shot clock situation, and he beat him off the dribble, low gather through a dig down and then made like a tough scoop shot. Those were the beating the bigs off the switches was a big thing that he was doing in the early part of the season before his hamstring injury, so I thought that was a good sign.

the game winner. This is the tyress Alliburton that had me so excited before the season. He has the potential to be a bigger and more athletic Steve Natch. That's his upside and I thought I like and he just hasn't been able to kind of recapture that since the hamstring injury. But these last two games have been the first time that he's really started to look more like the Tyres Alliburton from the start of the season. That is super exciting that Tyres Alliburton has the potential to

be a top five player in this league. But the guy, the guy between that, the guy after the injury, he just wasn't explosive enough and not as consistent and efficient enough as a score to do so. So really encouraging to see him to get some of that back. Miles Turner twenty one points and ten rebounds, several huge rebounds, several huge offensive rebounds late in the game. Huge win for Indiana, But you know how the Knicks are. Game four is gonna be just as tough, right And I

just continue to be completely amazed by the Knicks. They keep losing bodies, no Julius Randall, Noboy and Macdonovich, no Mitchell Robinson, now nog And and Obi as well. Yet they just keep finding guys that come in and contribute precious to Chewa has been able to slot into that og

Anobe spot. Alec Burks came in in the first half and was hitting jumpers and kind of recreating some of that athleticism and shooting pop that og And and Obi had at Duce McBride has ever since, really ever since the Emmanuel Quickly trade, has stepped in and taken on more responsibility and being great.

have a very good chance to win that game. And even with that goaltend, it took an andream heard bailout step back three in the final minute, right, So, like I can see why Knicks fans love this team. They just have truly remarkable basketball character. One basketball note though, because of the ogn Andobe injury, they did have to go to four guards late and went to duce McBride,

Josh Hart, Dantete de Vincenzo, and Jalen Bronson. I thought it was the right call because I think duce McBride was a little bit better and more reliable offensively than Alec Burks was. But they did struggle to clean up the offensive glass late, and that is the reality of losing og Anobi. And as we heard from Adrian Morjanowski, he's gonna be out for Game four and he's probably gonna be out for Game five as well. So it's

gonna be tough. And this is gonna be a challenge for the Knicks because their best line line up right now really might be that four guard lineup in a center and that's just gonna put you into some physical predicaments and that showed up in that late game situation against Antianda tonight. But again, even despite that, this close all right, guys, that is all I have for tonight is always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me

and supporting the show. The plan as of right now is we're just going live after the morning game tomorrow, which I believe is Thunder. That's the Thunder MAVs game. Yeah, so we're going live after the ABC game on Thunder MAVs. We're gonna hit Boston Cleveland on Sunday morning. But I will see you guys live on YouTube tomorrow after the final.