Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Denver Nuggets beating Miami Heat in NBA Finals Game 4

the very first place that you guys can get these shows. Well, the Denver Nuggets have proven so far through four games that they are significantly better than the Miami Heat, which I think most of us knew going into the series. I will say, though, I've been really impressed with the job that Miami's done in this series, just through everything that makes them great as a basketball team, keeping it

competitive and keeping it interesting. But I do think this thing is over and I think the Nuggets are going to close this out in five. But I have a lot of stuff that I want to get into because I think this Nuggets team represents the second team in a row of a good trend for the NBA and the direction that it's heading. I'm excited to dive at it. Dive into that a little bit, you guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels.

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your first purchase terms apply again. Enter your email and the code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download Game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guarantee. All Right, so you guys know the drill. When I am covering these series, I love to dive into the nitty gritty of the adjustments and all the tactical things that are going on. But I also love big picture NBA basketball. It's kind of what I was raised on, you know.

Before I started playing the game in college and covering the game and understanding it more on a tactical level, I was a fan just like everyone else, and I very much appreciated the history and the narratives and the storylines because that, to me, is part of what makes basketball great. It's never good when that's all we focus on when we focus solely on legacy, narrative and drama. That's bad for the game of basketball, but it is an important part and what it should be is it

should be the thing. In my opinion, it should be the thing that frames what happens on the court, especially after the fact. And so I believe this series is over. We're not gonna spend a ton of time talking about tactical adjustments and things like that, because I don't think there's much more that Miami can do at this point to get back into this series, especially going on the road into Denver, where I expect them to play great and I expect them to close the deal and hoist

the Lary O'Brien in front of their home fans. But I do think that there's a lot of really interesting storylines that have come out of this Finals as it has progressed, especially this particular game, because this was a game where Denver looked like a well oiled machine. They looked like a team that understood how to play with each other at a level that most teams in the

league don't. And I think it's the second team in a row that kind of carries that vibe and it's a very interesting example to me of what is winning in the modern NBA, and it's kind of to me a logical progression as talent has increased. As we have more and more talent in the NBA. Every team has a good pull up shooter. Every team has a big slashing wing, every team has a you know, an excellent rim pressuring guard. You know, like the talent is spread

around the league and everybody's got good players. You know. I have a lot of Nuggets fans that are like, you know that are are are like, hey, why weren't you saying these things about the Nuggets a couple months ago, And it's like because coming into this playoff run, it was like, take your pick. I've got the Nuggets one seed in the West, but I also have the one

seed in the East. Jannis Antanakopo and the Milwaukee Bucks, who won a title in twenty twenty one and still have largely the same core players and made some improvements on the margins. I have the Boston Celtics that were two wins away from a title. I have Joel Embiid and James Harden and Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris in the Philadelphia seventy six ers. Obviously, this Miami Heat team

that we can never take for granted again. And even in the Western Conference, it's like, you've got an interesting young Memphis Grizzlies team. You've got the Sacramento Kings team that kicked everyone's aster in the regular season. I've got the defending champion Golden State Warriors with the same six players from last year. I've got the Los Angeles Lakers reincarnated with Lebron James and Anthony Davis and good role players. And all of these great teams are in this field,

and Denver has risen well above that pack. And at the beginning of the playoffs, especially given the way that they played over the last one third of the season, you were lying to yourself if you thought that they were head and shoulders better than everybody, because they just hadn't shown it to that point. They have shown it since, and that's a lesson that we've learned, and that's something

we're gonna take into next season. But what I find is fascinating is what I just listed for you is a bunch of really talented basketball teams, a bunch of teams that have multiple stars, a bunch of teams that have spent draft capital and money and have made trades

to bring in star players to fortify their rosters. And it's funny because as we look back from right about twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, that five year stretch there was kind of like an age of mercenary team building, right Like we saw the Golden State Warriors go sign Kevin Durant outright and free agency thanks to a cap spice, a cap spike, and immediately win two championships in a row just by sheer force of talent acquired in the

open market. And then in twenty nineteen we have the Toronto Rafts trade their continuity for Kawhi Leonard who comes into the building and overnight they become this juggernaut who wins an NBA championship. Twenty twenty, the Lakers ship off all their young players, bring back Anthony Davis, immediately win a championship. Twenty twenty one, the Bucks make a big trade, a splashy trade for Drew Holliday and immediately win a championship. So continuity was not what was winning in those years.

It was sheer force of talent. But I don't think the league was deep with talent back then as it is now, and I think that's fundamentally what is different now. Every team has multiple stars. Now, every team has, you know, a stable of role players, and so I think the differentiator has become continuity because this is back to back

seasons now. Whereas we looked at the playoff fields, the playoff fields were stacked, and it was older teams that had and I don't mean older by age, but older in construction, that have come together and risen to the top despite not having the overwhelming talent. To be clear, the Nuggets are awesome. They have a ton of talent. We're gonna talk about their players a lot tonight. The Golden State Warriors had a ton of talent last year. I'm not trying to sit here and pretend like they

were bums winning a championship. That's not the case. But they are not the same type of stacked rosters of like that super team I hate that word, but that or that phrase, but that super team type of vibe that we said we had over the previous half decade. These were more organic basketball teams that were built over years and years and years with slight tweaks on the margins that supported their core players and pushed them over

the top. The twenty twenty two Warriors, for instance, Right, it was Steph Clay Draymond, but they had a couple of savvy moves post Kevin Durant that brought them Andrew Wiggins. And there was a rough year in there when they had some supporting players that weren't very complimentary, right, guys

like Kelly Ubray and Cape bays More. Right, then they flip those guys for guys that are more complimentary role players, guys like Gary Payton, right, guys like Namaanya bi Elitza, right, and the Otto Porter Junior, And all of a sudden, it all just clicks together, and that Steph Clay Draymond continuity carries them over the top as they go up against a young, talented Dallas Mavericks team and beat the hell out of them, and they go up against a

freakishly talented Boston Celtics team and beat them three times in a row to win an NBA championship. With all of the things on the margins that win basketball games and all of the things that are associated with continuity, and that's what's going gone on with the Denver Nuggets

like Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokics, Michael Porter Junior. These guys have been in wars, and they made an interesting move after Jeremy Grant left in free agency bringing in Aaron Gordon to try to fill that specific role and in a way that was even more complimentary, right, but again an ancillary piece on the margins to improve the overall compatibility of that roster. And then two really really smart moves this summer, flipping a guy like Will Barton for

Kntavious collwoll Pope. Right. And here's the thing. Will Barton's a good basketball player. He's a good basketball player, a solid starting two guard in the NBA. But Contavius Collwo Pope was a much better fit that had a better big game experience coming off of that championship run with the twenty twenty Lakers. Several specific fits with that made

a ton of a ton of sense. He is an excellent lock and trail guard, which is super important defensively, and drop coverage when you need to keep Nikol Jokic at the basket right, excellent transition running guard right, which is so important with a guy like Nikola Jokic who can throw outlet passes so well offensively when he needs to create with the ball in his hands. He's great in dribble handoffs. I'm taking and making movement jump shots.

That's a super complimentary piece with Nikola jokicch That was a really smart move that didn't seem like much, but was obviously going to dramatically improve the roster, just sheerly based on fit. And then Bruce Brown as that guy that could be that athletic guard defender, the guy that could be a guy who brings the ball up the floor with a different type of pace than Jamal Murray because he's more of a like a straight line athlete.

How clutches it that Denver could just give the ball to Bruce Brown and be like, bring the ball up the floor. Oh and if you have Duncan Robbinson on you and he's he's and he's you know, giving up an angle, just hit the jets and go to the rim. Okay, D'Angelo Russell's on you. Just hit the jets and go to the rim. These were little moves on the margins that made a ton of sense. Christian Brown, a rookie that has great physical tools that can play a specific

role off of your bench. They are very smartly put together team built in a organic in an organic format that allowed the Nuggets to capitalize on their continuity. And that's what I enjoy about this is we're seeing Denver win with the same guys they've had for years, right after we saw the Warriors win with the same guys they had for years, and instead of trying to trade salary filler for a star, they made small moves on

the margins to put it all together. What was so interesting to me about this night, in particular was the playmaking down the roster. We talked so much about Jokic, and I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about him tonight because I talked about him at length over the course of this series. We had our little four part bit on what makes them so unstoppable the other night, But it's everyone else that kind of keeps that engine rolling.

How many teams have we seen where there's elite playmaking from one specific player and the rest of the team doesn't move the ball as well. That can be a significant problem, especially in playoff basketball, when teams are targeting your weaknesses. Look at the Celtics series for the heat where Jason Tatum is really the only guy who's a decent playmaker on the roster. You know, other than Marcus Marter.

You're not putting the ball in his hands a ton and so the ball just tends to get stagnant for long stretches and guys aren't making those quick reads right. Look at Jamal Murray twelve more assists tonight. He's got forty two assists in the series. He had a couple of rough transition sequences where he missed guys I thought, But in the half court his playmaking was surgical, and

it's been surgical in this entire postseason. He's up over ten assists a game in the finals, but he's up over well over seven assists a game for the entire playoffs. Contagious call what Pope throwing a beautiful lob from from almost half court to Aaron Gordon cutting along the baseline.

There was that ridiculous pass from Aaron Gordon as he was on the right wing in the second second half when Jamal Murray cuts off of I think he cut off of a Jokic backscreen and Gorda just throw that like spinning bounce pass that bounced like twenty feet in front of him and just hit Jamal in stride for a basket. All of these guys know how to play together, and they are an old fashioned basketball team. It's not let's put three stars together in a bunch of veteran

minimums and see what happens. No, it's a bunch of really good players that aren't necessarily stars, but are stars in their role. You know, I've gotten into arguments with several people over the course of this playoff run. I do think Jamal Murray's a star, but a lot of the counterpoints are like, hey, it's a lot of it is because he's playing off Jokic. Okay, fine, let's just acknowledge that it's because he's playing with Jokic. Regardless, he's

producing at a superstar level. It's the same thing with Raymond Green. Hey, he's an offensive liability. Okay, fine, if that's what you believe. But within this Warrior system, he is a positive offensive player. It's been on the scoreboard for them every single year. They're better when he's on versus one he's off. So I get in a vacuum for the sake of your legacy debates. If you want to have a specific list based on talent and you want to put Jamal lower for one reason or another,

fine be my guest. But the reality is this is a game of basketball. It's not a game of one on one, and it's about how you can contribute to a basketball team. And every single one of these guys is contributing to a basketball team at a level far, far superseding what their actual talent level is. Aaron Gordon, for instance, Yeah, if he's playing in a bigger crowd, do I expect him to dominate in the post the

way that he has? Probably not, but who cares. He's on a team with a bunch of shooting and in his ability to capitalize on mismatches matters. Yeah. We talk all about what he does defensively, and he's been excellent defensively in this series. We talk a lot about what he does as a cutter off in Nicola. Jokich I

tweeted out tonight, and I sincerely believe it. I think he's the best behind the head finisher in the game, which is seems stupid to say, but that's such an important NBA skill When you've got elite passers in front of you, in the basket behind you, and you need to be able to make eye contact, catch and finish behind your head. But even above and beyond that, he had a much much smaller offensive role in the Lakers

series because the Lakers are huge. But now he's in this Miami Heat series, and there have been two specific stretches, the beginning of Game one and then the entire night tonight, where his ability to consistently punish mismatches, especially against a Heat team that was doing a lot more switching tonight than they did in earlier games in the series, that was a huge advantage. Everyone has been a star in

their role, even Michael Porter Jr. Rough series. And here's the thing, that's what the Miami heater are gonna do. They're gonna identify weakness. He's one of the younger guys on the team and right now he's a little one dimensional. Not great when he puts the ball on the floor, not great defensively, but man, can he shoot the piss

out of the basketball. So what have they done. They've stayed glued to him off the ball, and they've run him off the three point line, and so a lot of his weaknesses have been exposed and his minutes have been cut as a result. It's an important lesson for him. And they're so damn good it doesn't matter. And even then I thought he was awesome in the Lakers series when they were sending a lot more help at the Murray Jokis two man game and he was getting better looks.

Everyone has been a star in their role on this particular team. Katavi's called well, pope. I told you guys, I loved rooting for him when he was on the Lakers. Back to back massive stops in the fourth quarter where Jimmy Butler is trying to drive by him and play bullyball, and he knocks the ball free and then it gets down on the floor and rips it out of Jimmy's hands, and then he stonewalls bam Adebayo on a post up.

Jeffrey absolutely awful first shift in the first half. Just was giving up back cuts, not paying attention to leaving shooters open. It was rough. Then he comes in in a vitally important stretch. Nikola jokicch picks up his fifth foul and a bullshit flop from bam Medebayo awful call, and so you have to play the majority of the

fourth quarter without Nikola Jokic. Jeff Green's at center, critical late contest on a Duncan Robinson on a Duncan Robinson three at the top of the key where he was making a defensive effort he didn't make in the first half. Huge three on that swing back from Jamal Murray and pick and roll out of the left corner, like he just made plays everybody. This is an old fashioned basketball team.

I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them again. Like I know, I know, Uh, this is kind of just the the the nature of the sports media business, where like I'm expected to make predictions and then obviously if I predict against your team, you're gonna take it personally. That's so not the case. I have teams I don't like. Wasn't a huge fan of the Memphis Grizzlies this year. A lot of talk, not a lot of winning in big games, right, Like, not a huge fan of of of you know, Joel

Embiid and his foul grifting. I have things that I don't like, but I love basketball like I honestly do. I can't put it any more plainly than that. And so guess what, I love the Miami Heat, and I love the Denver Nuggets, and I love watching them play. I've had so much fun diving into the film and and going over all of these adjustments. I do root for your team in this It just in an organic

sense as a basketball fan. The only team, like I said too, I had a legit rooting interest for was the Lakers because the Lebron and he's gonna retire soon, and so I I again, I if it feels like it's late for you Nuggets fans because I was harder on them earlier in the year, it's just because I was giving preferential treatment to teams that had won championships in the past, which will always be the way that

I cover the game. And for the record, now that I god willing, if you guys finish it off on Monday, you're gonna be one of those teams that I give that same amount of preferential treatment to or that extra level of respect, because I think this is the ultimate achievement in basketball and should be respected as such. For Heat fans like look, I really thought it came down to at the end of the day that they're accepting

the fact that there just wasn't enough talent. The one way they were going to win this series is that they got an incredible series out of Jimmy and Bam, and in Game two they decided they were going to unleash Jimmy and Bam on the Murray Jokic two man game. And they got a lot of stops in Game two, and they got a lot of stops in the first half of Game four. But the reality was is it wore them out. Neither of them could finish around the rim.

Neither of them could make their pushots and their floaters and their hook shots and all those little things that they've been killing teams with throughout the entire postseason. Because that's what Denver does to you. They did it to Anthony Davis and Lebron, they did to Kevin Durant and Devin Booker outside of two games. So that's just what they do. I don't have any sort of adjustment or

magic fix for you. The only way you're gonna win in Denver on Monday is if, in my opinion, Denver brings a trash defensive effort, which I don't believe they will, because that's the only way you're gonna generate quality shots. I mean, we talked a lot about Denver and everything they did offensively in this game, but like I loved that quote for Mike Malone in the locker room before Game four, He's like, no one was talking about it,

but defense is why you guys won. And if you guys remember at least those of you guys who listened to the AMP Show. It got cut off for YouTube. But in the AMP Show, when I first talked to Colin, I said, everyone's gonna talk about the Yoks two man game, but defense was the biggest reason the Nuggets won Game three. And it was this team that what do they have five steals in the first quarter tonight or five steals

in the first fifteen minutes or so. They had super active hands, they were flying around in rotation, their defensive scheme work to perfection. I think the lesson here as it pertains to that top ten defense rule is, Look, you have to be a top ten defense if you're not unguardable offensively. NBA history has taught us that, but

as long as you defend well enough. The best example I can think of for this particular team is the twenty sixteen Calves where they were just good enough defensively, but Kyrie Irving and Lebron James were operating at an offensive level that was high enough that it made up for that gap. But I don't see an adjustment available for the heat. The reality is is they need more talent. They need more size than any more athleticism. It's been a really fun run. They've say, sure as hell of

maximized what this roster is capable of. But this is what happens when you run into a real bona fide NBA championship team, which the Celtics were not and which the Sixers were not for all of the reasons that we've discussed over the course of the season. So not gonna do a film breakdown tomorrow just because I think this series is over and it's not really necessarily worth

the time. I am going on Sunday night with mister Chris Mannix here at the volume to break down everything that's happened in this series, and going into Game five, I will rewatch the game and watch the film at some point before then, so at least if there's something interesting that stands out, we can go over it. But again, I think this thing is over all right, guys. That is all I have for tonight. I will see you on Sunday Night with Chris Mannicks and then again on

Monday night after Game five. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I will see you then. The volume