Hoops Tonight - Nuggets-Warriors reaction, Jokic & Denver "unguardable," LeBron & Lakers fall to Durant & Suns

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All right, welcome to Hoops to Night here at the Volume, Happy Sunday, everybody of all of you guys are having an incredible weekend. We got a kind of a funky schedule over the next couple of days. We're going twice today this video. We're just hitting Lakers suns. And then the Milwaukee Bucks went into Minnesota and beat the Timberwolves pretty soundly on Friday night. We're gonna be talking about that game and just some interesting stuff I notice on tape as.

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and Royce O'Neil both hit shots. Even bow Bolt hit a three out of the left corner, punishing Lebron James for helping off of him, and then at another play where he drove the baseline off of a closeout out of that left corner and hit a little float. As a matter of fact, in the game, the Suns had thirty four spot up possessions, which is a ton and it converted those into one point one to two points per possession, which is outstanding. The Suns went up by

twenty there in the first quarter. Lakers kind of methodically worked their way back into the game, running their solid five out offense. Get it, They got out and transition a lot off of Sun's turnovers in this game, making extra efforts on defense. And then we get to the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter where the Suns have had so many issues throughout the season this year. Even after today, the Suns have an offensive rating of one h three point five in fourth quarters this year. That is dead

last in the NBA. It's been a pretty consistent issue, but much better in this fourth quarter twenty eight points

a one to seventeen offensive rating. Now, what typically has been an issue for them in the past is Devin Booker and Kevin Durant struggling to handle double teams as the game progresses, as teams get more and more aggressive on him and then off the ball guys failing to make teams pay for leaving them open, for giving them advantage situations. I thought Kevin Durant was magnificent in this fourth quarter. He had one pass to the short roll where he didn't see Ad coming from like the left

elbow extended. Ad jumped in and stole it from a blocked or jumped into that passing lane and stole that pass to the short roller. But outside of that, Kevin Durant was like nearly perfect in that fourth quarter with his decision making just you know, coming off of ball screen, hard hitting Nurkics with a perfect pocket pass to get him downhill to the rim, drawing a double team and making that quick swing pass to Roy so'neil, who makes

that extra pass to the corner to the shooter. Like it just it looked a lot more smooth and decisive, quick and decisive from Kevin Durant when when KD and Devin Booker in those situations have struggled this year, it's usually picking up their dribble and then the pressure coming up on them and then struggling to get the pass over the top to the right spot without a deflection or something that slows the pass down so the defense can rotate out of it. Quick and decisive, decisive is

the best way to beat those traps. KD had a much much better fourth quarter on that side of the floor. Then I thought he had one of the biggest plays in the game when it was one ten to one oh four. First of all, I want to credit Royce O'Neil Lebron. ISO's Royce O'Neil on the right side of the floor and just played one of the things I

talked about with Royce. He just plays physical defense. That's what allows him to defend multiple different positional archetypes because quick enough and active enough to defend a smaller guard, but he also is physical enough to defend a bigger, stronger player like Lebron James and Lebron had you know, had some success against him throughout the game. He had like a spinning baseline dunk on him in the first half.

But like on this particular play, big, big, big play in the game, it's one ten to one.

him and gets him to miss the lay up. Again, Lebron's probably gonna make that eight out of ten times, but how do you get to the two out of ten where he's gonna miss by bumping him off of his base and making it a little bit more difficult. Big play for Royce O'Neil to go to the other end of the floor, and in kind of a chaotic situation, Kevin Durant made a.

a twelve threes in this game. Royce made one on the next possession because Anthony Davis fell over into camera row ended up in an advantage situation. The Suns had a five on four. They made Kevin Durant made a swing pass to Royce on the left wing. He hit the three just dagger after dagger after dagger. I swear it felt like every single one of those Royce, O'Neil

or Grayson Allen threes felt like an absolute backbreaker. Yusef Nurkic was incredible in this game, had seven offensive rebounds, has pretty consistently given like pretty great two way efforts over the course of the last few weeks. A guy that I think a lot of times reputation doesn't actually match up with reality with basketball players. And here's the thing, Like reputation is well earned. Use of Nurkic earned a reputation as being a guy who could be a limited

defensive players. A guy struggles sometimes with the dirty work because of what happened in his past, but that doesn't mean you can't earn yourself a new reputation. I think use of Nrkich has been pretty awesome on the defensive end over the course of the last few weeks, getting a lot He's just super active with his hands, and he's pretty smart at anticipating what's going to happen around him, and he gets a lot more in the way of deflections in blocks than I think people realize relative to

what his reputation is around the league. And in addition to that, he's an excellent screener. He's a big body that can cause problems on the offensive glass against seven offensive rebounds in this game, Anthony Davis. For all of his things that he's great at, he can struggle with the big bodied centers that can bury him underneath the basket.

It's actually something to keep in mind for the Lakers because to get out of the Western Conference, you're probably gonna have to go through two of use of Nurkics if he Kazubas or you know, Nikole Jokich. These big bodied centers and those guys are the kinds of guys that can give Ad some issues on the offensive glass. But he was burying Ad on the glass. Every time Ad had to come off of him to help on some sort of screening action, Nurkic would be there to clean up the mess on the back line.

Nurkics brings a ton of physicality to the table, and I gotta say he has changed for me personally, Like the way that I view use of Nurkic's basketball has changed markedly from training camp to this point, especially as of late, just with how much he's competing in the details around the floor. Big win for the Suns. They needed that one. They had just lost two straight on the Lakers front.

I saw a lot of negativity from Lakers fans in this one, honestly, Like I thought they played really hard and like this is kind of what it's like in the Western Conference. Phoenix is a really good team. They have two of the top fifteen players in the league on their team. They had just lost two in a row, including three of their last five. They needed a game, and when you go on the road in the Western Conference to a really good team who needs to win

a game, sometimes you're just gonna lose. And like there were a lot of like, like there were several players in particular, I thought D'Angel Russell and Austin Reeves really really were making efforts in rotation to contest shots and to try to get in there and help on the glass. But like, sometimes you just run into a team that's really really good at what they do, and no matter what you do to try to stop them from doing

what they do, they make the shots anyway. And they kind of just felt like that type of game to me on the Lakers front, Like I really wasn't disappointed process wise, like they were helping a little bit too much, but not in the way that I thought was really problematic for the personnel they the Suns made shots. You gotta tip the cat. They gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, but most of that was personnel. And that brings me

to my one gride. So in a game where you could not grab a rebound to save your life, which was basically the difference in the game. Like the Lakers outshot the Suns from the field, they outshot them from three, They won the points in the paint battle, they took good care of the basketball. They turned Phoenix over and got out in transition and scored like they did a lot of really good things in this game. Phoenix just dominated the possession battle. They had fourteen offensive rebounds to

three for the Lakers. They were up twenty two to ten, and second chance points in a game that they won by ten points. That was the difference in the game. And that's where I have a problem with Darvin Ham and his rotational approach because Torrian Prince and Spencer Dinwitty played fifty minutes in this game, Ruby Hatchamura and Jackson

Hayes played thirty two. And this is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to coaches, when they try to inflict their specific basketball philosophy on a roster rather than identifying what their roster is capable of and just leaning into its strengths. So Darvin Ham has all

year long overplayed Torrian Prince. It's been a consistent issue, and in general has done a lot of like we saw this even last year a lot of like three guard lineups and things along those lines, so I'm not surprised that he leaned on Spencer Dinwitty a lot in this game. Here's where I don't understand. Torrian Prince is

not actually giving you what his archetype typically provides. Like I understand the thought process, Darvin Ham is thinking, I run a five out offense, and I love to pressure the ball and try to funnel guys into.

The problem is Torrian's not actually very good at any of them, and so what ends up like he's a bench player. He's good enough to do that in bench lineups for small spurts. That's what Torrian Prince's role is on this particular team, right, But the problem is he's being given in most cases more than he can handle. He is being slotted by Darvinham into a role that he's going to fail because he's not personally really fit

for that specific role. And so as a result, like this, here's the thing, Ruey Hachimura won't navigate screens as well as Torrian Prince. Ruey Hachimura maybe isn't as good at like fluid five man, five out basketball as a guy like Torrian Prince's, right, But here's the thing, he's just a better basketball player. He's a better basketball player, and so whatever you're not getting there can help in other areas.

with Kevin Durant on the perimeter. It's just one of those things where like I would have leaned into that more, but they didn't. They leaned into lesser players. And again Jackson Hayes, like I get it, he didn't play well in his short burst today, but it's like like I would like to see in the big picture, Darvin Ham lean more into size, lean more into mainly just because

that's their best players. Those are their best players. And there will be matchups where it makes sense to play a Spencer Dinwoodie at the three, or maybe even a Toryan Prince at the two next to like Ruya Tchramur, depending on the matchup, But for the most part, it's gonna have to be based on like how the game is progressing. And in this particular game, you weren't getting anything on offense out of Torrean Prince or Spencer Dinwide. You weren't getting the benefits of what they brought to

the table, but you were getting the downsides. And like I would have been in a situation where I would have thought at the very least with Ruey out there in a larger dose, I can hold up better on the defensive glass, maybe hold up better in the possession battle, because in the half court the Lakers and the Suns were actually relatively even in this particular game. And so

just something to keep an eye. And it's something I talked about from the moment that I kind of started to pick up on Darvin Ham's you know, affinity for Torrian Prince this season, doesn't really matter what they trade for, doesn't really matter what kind of personnel is on the roster, if inferior players are playing over better players that you have available to you, And so I thought that was

kind of like the one gripe that I had. But for the record, sometimes like Darbenham might have played Torrian Prince fifteen minutes and played Ruy Hachamura thirty eight minutes, and they might have still lost, because again, like I said, Phoenix is really good. They just lost two in a row. They're at home. That's what it's like sometimes in the NBA, and so I don't want to overreact to it. Again with the Lakers, I don't view them as some sort

of legitimate title contender. Anymore since they weren't able to make an upgrade at the deadline, and so I'm not really all that high on them to begin with. And this is the kind of game that you almost kind of expect them to lose. Right, They do have a lot of home games as we head into early March against really good opponents. Maybe they can tighten some things up there and get a little bit sharper, But like, I'm not super optimistic about them in the big picture anyway.

All right, moving on to Bucks Wolves. So the Bucks actually had a huge win today on the road in Philly. They won by twenty one points. I didn't actually watch that game, though, I did watch them go in on Friday night and dominate the Wolves, though, And so that's what I want to talk about today's game, so or today's show. So, they go on a huge run in the third quarter. They get stop after stop after stop,

they get out in transition. I thought Damon Giannis both did an absolutely fantastic job of applying rim pressure and making good kickout passes. Then they were working the ball around. Malik Beasley was just completely scorching hot. Hit a bunch of threes during that run. Dame hit a bunch of nasty pull up jumpers in that stretch. Yanni's hit a three off the bounce there in the middle of the third quarter, and they just blew Minnesota's doors off.

MASSI volume. He's actually taking six point five four per game. It's crazy watching the Bucks now because Brooks like straight up playing with a massive green light. But I wanted to. I wanted to dive into the Bucks drop coverage in this particular game because that was basically the story of this game. The like Brooklynpis was guarding Rudy Gobert and

just sitting comically far back into the paint. So what that does is it puts your on ball guy in a little bit of a predicament because he's basically playing one on two right, like he's trying to guard ant or or wherever it, Mike Conley, whoever it is, it has the ball, but he's got a screener and he's not getting any help at the perimeter. So his only real job there is to try to fight over the top of the screen and try to get a contest.

But Rudy Gober is a really good screener and so most of the time like he is getting a solid screen set on the ball right. But there's a specific reason why this works for Milwaukee, and this is actually a very similar thing to what I was talking about earlier with the Lakers, as it pertains to playing into your strengths. Like this particular roster, the strength of their

defense is on the interior, So it actually doesn't make sense to over over index towards the ball handler, to try to shut down the ball handler at the expense of giving up layups and threes. That's not the strength of your defense. You're actually better off allowing the ball handler to be more comfortable. But stay home off the ball and try to force them into making a lot

of really difficult shots in the mid range. And so again, if I want to start by just looking at it from the standpoint of what a drop coverage looks like. So I want to look at just the first possession of the game. You can actually find this clip on my Twitter feed at underscore json LTS from Saturday morning if I remember correctly. So, the first play of the game was a turnover for Mike Conley in pick and roll. So if you watch the play, Mike Conley's being guarded

by Dame. Rudy Gobert comes up and sets the screen to Dame's credit, and he's been doing this really since took over. Really good job fighting over the top of the screen. But brooklynp has just sitting way back.

defend the action two on two. Jay Crowder, who's on the weak side, and I think he was guarding Jade McDaniels if I remember correctly, but I'm not a hundred percent certain guarding on the weak side, he's able to stay on the ball or on his man. And so because he's staying on his man, as Mike Conley works towards the baseline and he's there getting attacked by Brooke, he's got to get rid of the basketball. But now he doesn't have an outlet because Jay Crowder doesn't have

to help. If Brooke is higher in his dry coverage.

Now Jay Crowder likely has to come over to help in the paint. But because Brooke is back, Jay can stay out, which takes away those kickout passes. That was basically the story of the game. The Bucks played Minnesota into their worst tendencies because they are not a very good shot making team. They can make threes off the catch, they're a good catch and shoot team, but Anthony Edwards is a high volume pull up shooter who's not particularly accurate.

Mike Conley is an accurate pull up shooter who's not particularly aggressive, and so as a result of that, it played Minnesota into their worst tendencies. And it was a lot of playing pick and roll as Brooke sat back into the paint and guys missing pull up shots and floaters.

It was a lot of attacking in ISO while Brooke is just sitting in the paint waiting and for all the you know, a lot of criticism about Rudy Gobert over the years defensively is just inaccurate, and I've talked about on the show before, so I'm not going to

get into it. But where Rudy Gobert has struggled in the past is he's not enough of a threat offensively, Like he can get a few offensive reboundsy presents some vertical spacing, but he's not sharp enough when it comes to scoring on the role, like he doesn't catch and finish super well, and so on offense, it can turn into a situation where where Rudy can't actually make Brook pay enough for ignoring him, and that leads into a lot of their issues. And so I want to tie

that back into two things. First of all, that is Milwaukee's best chance they will never be an elite defense because they don't have the perimeter personnel to do so. But their pathway to defending as well as they possibly can, or well enough for them to get to the trophy is that deep drop coverage, because it allows them to cover two on two and stay out of rotation, essentially taking away layups and taking away threes while conceding comfort

and rhythm to the ball handler. The next question is that in that is which matchups will that work in? And this is where it becomes really interesting in the playoffs, because a team like New York, maybe Jalen Brunson will kill you, and maybe that's not gonna work. A team like Miami, they've got a lot of guys like Duncan Robinson and Tyler Harrow who can really do some damage if you chase over the top, and they get some good screens from bam Adebayo. Right, Terry Rozier hasn't played

super well yet and then he got hurt. But we'll see in the long run whether or not Terry Rozier fits into that mold. But like they're a team where drop coverage might be a little bit of an issue, But then you look at teams like Boston. Boston is a team where, like Man, you could really bait them into their worst tendencies by running a super deep drop right.

And so that's where I kind of look at it as matchup dependent, but even within the view of like a Miami matchup or a New York matchup, I still think that might be their best chance to win and just be like Jalen's gonna average Jalen Bunson's gona average thirty eight a game. But we're gonna take everybody else out of this thing and then we'll be good enough on offense. And again, the nuclear offense is the main thing that makes it work. They beat Minnesota. Their drop

coverage did work. I'm not gonna lie about that. But it was close for the most part through three and a half quarters. It was close. In the fourth quarter they brought it back a little bit close, although Milwaukee thought let their foot off the gas a little bit. But there at the end of the third quarter they went on an absolutely nuclear offensive run where Dame and Giannis just time and time again were able to develop

and create incredibly high quality shots. That's the formula defend as well as you can, which the strength of your personnel is your interior defense, so it makes sense to do it the way they did. And then on the other end of the floor, you need to be a nuclear potent offense in order to cover the rest of that gap there on the Wolves front, I was so disappointed in their offensive process in this game because they played right into Milwaukee's hands by spamming pick and roll

in bad isolation basketball. One of the things I'd like to see them doing again. This is something I've talked about a lot. When it comes to Minnesota. They don't have the best decision makers in the world. Mike Conley's a high end decision maker. But when you get past that, it's like Carl Towns can get a little carried away, Anthony Edwards can get a little carried away, you know, even to Kile Alexander Walker can get a little carried away.

They can take some tough shots, and they can play like Jade McDaniels even can sometimes get a little tunnel visiony and take some bad shots right and so Like, specifically during that third quarter run, I just thought the Wolves play really poor offense. There wasn't a ton of like action that they were running. It was a lot of like brute force style of basketball, which paid played directly into Milwaukee's strengths. Again, in that situation, if you

allow Milwaukee to sit back, you're gonna have issues. But if you have more ball in player movement you can have it be more likely that Brook Lopez has to direct attention elsewhere, and that's where you can maybe move him further out of the coverage and maybe you can

find more opportunities to generate high quality offense. But that's going to be an issue with the Wolves, and that's been an issue for the Wolves throughout this season, is their ability to consistently execute in the half court on offense.

a game. And Golden State in particular, especially as of late, has kind of struggled in that specific department at least in the last couple of months, and so for them in particular, you know, kind of the game was starting to follow a path that you hope for as a Warriors fan in that environment, right, Like you get big performance from Klay Thompson in that first half, Steph's not playing particularly well, although the Denver defense was very much

geared towards slowing him down. A couple of early matchup things that I thought were interesting. They put Aaron Gordon on Jonathan Kaminga and so if they had any sort of cominga screen, they were able to.

Steph have a somewhat rough first half. And now Steph still has the superpower to hit some tough shots in those environments, and he got some solid looks in that first half that he wasn't able to make really throughout the whole game that he wasn't able to make, and we'll talk about that later. But in terms of controlling what you can control as a defense, thought Denver did a really nice job. But the big part of it was Aaron Gordon can actually hold up really well against

Jonathan Kminga on an island. He's got the athletic tools kind of hanging with him. We're gonna spend a lot of time talking about Aaron Gordon tonight because I thought he was incredible. And then in addition to that, in any sort of off ball situation, Aaron and Gordon was able to help around the basket and that really junked up Golden State's offense, except for the stretch where Klay

Thompson was hitting shots. But again, based on how the game was progressing early, you're kind of stoked as a Warriors fan, right you're up fifteen, like you're a hilariously good third quarter team. In February, the Golden State Warriors had a plus twenty three net rating in third quarters. That's when they blow games open, just like the old

Warriors used to. That's kind of like what you're hoping for there is you get into the half around a double digit lead, you blow the game open in the third quarter, and then who cares about having to execute with Denver in the half court. But unfortunately Denver decided at the late first half stretch there to completely erase Golden State's lead with just a bunch of like high

level shot making. And for the record, in this particular stretch of the game, there were some execution things with Denver where especially in that second half where Golden State was giving up easy shots just because Denver was executing extremely well. But in that late first half stretch, I actually thought Golden State defended pretty well. Like Nikole Jokic ma a contested pick and pop three at the top of the key, Jabal Murray made an insanely like difficult

fade away over his left shoulder over Andrew Wiggins. Aaron Gordon just ran the floor really well and got a post up mismatch against Clay Thompson and went up and got an end one. And then there before the end of the half, just a dribble handoff drifting three to

his left for Jamal Murray that ties the game. And on the other end of the floor of the Warriors, you know, honestly, they just missed some shots, like Brandon Pizemski missed a wide open corner three out of the left, Klay Thompson missed a wide open three at the top of the key, but other than that, they defended pretty well.

And again Steph wasn't able to make those like superhero shots that he's accustomed to making, right, And so all of a sudden we go from the Warriors being up I think they led by as much as sixteen in that second quarter, to now it's a tie game.

attributes is just his IQ. You can just see things before they happen. And then again Aaron Gordon on the back line blowing everything up. And again, like Steph, this is one of those environments where Denver's is a better team, but Steph has the superpower to potentially overcome that and it just was one of those nights where he wasn't

able to make those shots. And then again especially there in that fourth quarter stretch, I thought the Warriors were really really competing on the defensive end, and they have personnel. Draymond's battling like Andrew Wiggins is battling on the ball. They're flying around in rotation, They're doing everything they can. But like there's a certain helplessness that you run into playing against Denver. They have reached a level of unguardability.

And so I've talked about this specific dynamic a million times on this show as it pertains to what makes Denver so difficult to guard. But I wanted to kind of dive a little bit deeper into two specific dynamics that take place for Denver on the offensive end of the floor and what makes them so hard to guard, and that is disguising their actions and then pre loaded counters. So those are the two concepts I want to get

into tonight. First, disguising their actions and all you have to do to look for a great example of this to start with was the first bucket that Denver had in this game, which was an Aaron Gordon kind of like contested in traffic layup right in front of the rim out of a off ball action that they ran.

So on this play, the Nuggets get to stop and Nikole Yoka is bringing the ball up the floor, and he's bringing it up point guard style, and he's coming up with a good amount of pace, and as he brings him off the floor, obviously Draymond's getting ready to pick him up. Andrew Wiggins is on Jamal Murray and Brandon Pazemski is on Michael Porter Junior, and as Nikole Jokic kind of gets up the floor, turns his back and he gets ready and you're just expecting to see

a Jamal Murray dribblehandoff right now. Again, what are you doing defensively in that situation? What most teams will do that have that kind of personnel, a really good post defender like Draymond or ball screen defender like Draymond, and

a really good on ball defender like Wiggins. What they want to do is Andrew Wiggins wants to beat Jamal Murray over the top of the screen as best as he can, because if he can compete over the top of that screen, it will make it so that Draymond doesn't have to step over, And if Draymond doesn't have to step over, he can stay home on Jokic and they can kind of shut the action down right. So again,

that's a really difficult job. This is a job that so many players in the league struggle with that on ball screen navigation piece, right, and so Andrew Wiggins has his head turned to the left to where Nikole Jokic is and Jamal Murray's in front of him, and he's getting ready to fight over the top of that screen. But all of a sudden, here comes Michael Porter Junior and he comes up from the corner and he sets

a back screen on Wiggins. Doesn't hit him that much, but hits him just enough to kind of knock him off balance, and Wiggins has to turn and chase Jamal Murray. Now Jamal Murray has beat Wiggins back door because Andrew Wiggins got backscreen. Right now, Jamal Murray's rolling to the rim. Obviously, Nikole Jokic is never gonna miss something like that. When he breaks open hits Jamal Murray on the back cut, Draymond Green has to drop down to help on Jamal Murray.

It's an easy drop off pass to Aaron Gordon in front of the rim and he lays it in point there being you're gearing up to stop one of the most unguardable actions in the league, which is the Jamal Murray Nicole Jokic two man game, and that's just a decoy. That's not actually what they're doing. They're actually running an off ball action using Michael Porter Junior to get Jamal Murray going back door away from where the dribble handoff

was gonna be. That's a great example of disguising actions and that's something that will Denver will do.

and player movement before you run your core action. Whatever ball screen or isopost up, it is right with Denver, they are essentially like putting you in a predicament where you can't actually load up on any one action because if you do, they are prepared to do something else, and often they will use their core actions as decoys to get other guys open. The second piece that I

wanted to hit on was the idea of pre loaded counters. Well, this is any single time that you run an action, there is a defensive scheme that the defense is going to implement in that specific situation. So for instance, whether it's a deep drop, whether it's kind of like a more mid level drop, whether it's a high drop with like kind of a show, whether it's a hedge and recover, whether it's a trap. Like, there's a number of different

things you can do. And then even off ball situations, maybe you're switching off ball screens, maybe you're pre switching when a guy's going up to set a ball screen, you're sending a different player up to defend the ball screen. There's all these different things you can do right and specifically with Denver, that's one of the ways that like tea teams will come up with gimmicks to try to I shouldn say gimmicks, but different defensive strategies to take

away Denver's action. So, for instance, like a Jamal Murray Nicol Jokic two man game, maybe you're tagging from the weak side to try to get to Nikole Jokic when he catches on the roll. Maybe you're blitzing Jamal Murray on the ball screen. Maybe you're doubling Nikola Jokic in the post up. Well, Denver has seen all of these coverages so many times that they just have a baked encounter to beat you when you do that, and so I wanted to provide two examples to kind of demonstrate

the concept to you guys. So the first one was aous call Contavious call of Pope backdoor cut on Steph Curry for a layup. So, on this play, Steph Curry is guarding Contavious call of Pope. Nikola Jokic has the ball on the left elbow. This was in the first half. On this play, Steph Curry knows kcp's coming off of a dribble hand off from Nikola jokicch So one of the things that Steph does is he top locks Contavious Cola Pope to try to deny him the use of

the screen. What that means is if preten Jokic is behind me and the camera is KCP, I'm positioning myself almost between and he was being physical on the ball and he was basically trying to stop KCP from using the dribble handoff. So there is a baked in, reloaded counter for denver in that situation. Those of you guys listening can probably take a guess. KCP just gets a little physical with Steph and just cuts back door.

cut back door throws the pass over the top. KCP is right there, and then obviously in the event that you know, let's say Johnathan Kaminga steps up to help out of the back line. They already know. Aaron Gordon knows I'm sitting there in the dunker spot, and I don't. I don't even think Aaron Gordon was in the dunker spot on this play. But I'm just providing an example. So let's pretend KCP cuts back door and steph and

you have Jonathan Kaminga step over and help. Aaron Gordon knows as soon as he steps over, I just jump, just jump up near the rim, and KCP knows if I turn around and there's help, I'm just floating it up around the basket. And it's a big target with Aaron Gordon because he's such an excellent, you know, vertical spacer that they can beat you with the dunk like that. And that was actually the second example that I was

going to provide. It was the Aaron Gordon dunk off the baseline there in the end of the game, towards the end of the game, in the fourth quarter. All it was Jamal Murray coming off a ball screen. There's a pass to Nicole Jokic in the role. They step up to help. I think it was Kaminga steps up to help on nicolea Jokic in the role. Jokic literally one time's the pass, meaning like didn't didn't like turn to make a read, like he just knew, he just knew.

Here comes Kaminga. This is the read. I just throw it up there. And obviously I think he actually threw a pass that was a little bit too far out in front of the rim. But Aaron Gordon is such a disgustingly good athlete that he's able to like rise up and just dunk it anyway, because that's what Aaron

Gordon does, right. But the point is is like between not just the basketball continuity of this group, meaning they've played together for so long, but the IQ of this group and just how smart they are and how well they know how to play off of each other. They just have all of these They disguise everything, they have all of these built in count to go against whatever you throw at them defensively, and then to make matters worse. Let's say you do everything right and you make every

rotation just like a perfect windshield wiper sequence and nobody's open. Well, then Jamal Murray will just make some really tough turnaround jump shot, or Nikole Jokich will just be like, all right, fine, I guess I gotta take Draymond Green to the basket out of the post and try to shoot a little hook shot. And guess what, Jamal Murray. If you're ranking tough shot makers in the NBA, I haven't really thought about it, but Jamal Murray's way up there on that list.

And then in terms of like on an island scoring, Nikole joki is about as efficient as you'll find in the league. So they have this beautifully well oiled offense that is inevitable, that is incredibly difficult to guard. You literally feel helpless watching it, and then if you do everything right, they might just make a tough shot anyway. And I mean it literally is hopeless. And like Warriors fans, you can relate to this. This is what it was

like for the most part during the Warriors dynasty. Now, it wasn't quite the same extent as Denver because I think Golden State was more of a two way team. With Golden Save was like one of the best defenses in the league every single year. Now, Denver's been been a very good defense this year. But like you guys, remember the feeling. It was like, run drop coverage on Steph He's gonna just hit pull.

And at that point in time, during the peak of the Warriors dynasty, it was Klay Thompson, the second best shooter in the world, who was unbelievably deadly off the ball, Andre Gudala, who's one of the smartest players in the league. Right,

Like that was the predicament they put you in. And then oh, by the way, Kevin Durant was out there too, like so, and there was a similar type of thing where if you happened to get in front of the action and stop everything, they had two guys that just could beat you over the top with crazy tough shot making. So like Horriors fans again, you can you can relate to this, but there is an inevitability. There's an inevitability,

there's a hopelessness that Denver puts you in. And I thought tonight was was just just a resounding example of that on Denver's front. Again, Like you know, I've seen a lot of Denver pessimism this year. Like I even saw I can't remember exactly who it was that I saw on Twitter the other day talking about how like even their effective field goal percentages down to like middle of the pack this year after it was like number one in the league last year.

physical playoff environment the way that Denver can. Every other team in the league has significant question marks in a way that Denver does not. The only thing that you can really point to is their lack of depth, which wasn't an issue that last year when they stayed healthy, and that's why I keep adding the healthy qualifier. But again, the same can be said for any of these teams.

There's not a team out there that's in the top five or six championship contenders in the league that can afford an injury to a starter, you know, like Aaron Gordon. He had an incredible night tonight. Aaron Gordon is legitimately. I was thinking about this while I was putting my notes together. Obviously Aaron Gordon is not a superstar, like he's not a guy that we put in the same echelon with the great forwards in the league.

vertical spacing. And then on the defensive end of the floor, it's the ability to defend bigger forwards on the perimeter, the ability to defend bigger forwards and bigs in the post, the ability to be an impactful back line defender, meaning like helping at the rim in like situations where he's got a tag rollers or help on drives, but also cleaning up the defensive glass and potentially having to rotate with athleticism back out to the weak side to a shooter.

If you just kind of take the big forward responsibilities, not the higher level stuff that superstars have to take care but if you just look at the bigger forward responsibilities, there aren't many players in the league that are better in his position group than him. At that I was

thinking about it earlier. Today it's like like maybe, maybe, maybe, like Giannis is probably for sure in that group, right like the five nights of a year that Lebron tries really hard, But even that feels like a stress to a stretch to me, Like there aren't It's hard to think of a forward that plays that foe position who's better at low man defensive responsibilities and off ball offensive

responsibilities out of the four spot. Like the one big knitpick with him is like he's an iffy shooter, But like time and time again, that just hasn't mattered like that. The Warriors ignored him at the three point line all night tonight and it just didn't matter.

as tough for three point looks today. I think he was one for ten from three and Draymond had six turnovers. So like, it's gonna be tough to win a game like that in that circumstance. But here's the thing, and there's a reason why I have the Warriors in the long shot tier. I don't think they're even capable of

being Denver in a series. That doesn't mean they can't win the title, Like you go for it, because what if Denver does suffer some sort of injury, What if there is some sort of confluence of events where you happen to catch some favorable matchups and then you get

to the finish line, like you go for it. And they certainly have that capability, but like at the end of the day, they just can't execute in the half court nearly as well as Denver on either end of the floor, and that, to me is where that pessimism comes from. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow breaking down a couple more games from tonight's slate, as well as our power rankings.

Then just a heads up, we're taking Tuesday off. I'm doing a day trip. There's a this really cool ancient volcano that's in northern Arizona. That's a place called flag Staff. It's where Northern Arizona University is, and there's some skiing up there, and so my wife and I and some friends are taking a day trip and do some We do these things called day trips where you literally drive four hours, wake up at four am, and then we'll go ski for eight hours and then drive four hours home.

So will I literally we'll be gone all day on Tuesday but we'll be back on Wednesday with our usual game breakdowns and stuff.