Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Nikola Jokic & Nuggets massive Game 3 win vs. LeBron James & Lakers

the Lakers, I'm a little bummed. But at the same time, as a basketball fan, I think it's really cool what the Nuggets are doing, and I'm excited to dive into that because the Nuggets are an unprecedented championship contender. I think they're going to win the title and they're going to do so without a very specific requirement that every modern NBA champion has had to dive into that concept. What makes the Nuggets this unprecedented type of championship contender?

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That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So first of all, I just want to say, obviously the series isn't technically over, but I do believe that the Nuggets are going to advance to the NBA Finals, and I actually am most likely going to pick them to win the title regardless of who comes out of the Eastern Conference. So I want to start by just

saying congratulations to all you Denver Nuggets fans. There are a bunch of you out there who have been supporting the show over the course of the season, and I'm sure for a lot of you listening to me during this series as a Laker fan, it's spend a little weird because obviously I'm going to bring my fan hood to of my fanhood to the table, but I just

want to say congratulations to you guys. Beyond this season, this is going to be a really fun team for you guys to root for for several years moving forward, and when you really look at the timeline stuff with this group, and we're gonna get to that in a minute like it, it's this there's a very bright future

here and I'm very very happy for you guys. So let's let's talk about the uh this roster a little bit, because again, there's a reason why I didn't pick the Nuggets to win this series above and beyond the Laker matchup, and why I would not have picked them to win the title going into this playoff run even if the Lakers weren't involved, And it's just rules. You know, my dad raised me on a simple idea, the idea that

the best indicator of future performance is past performance. So when you're projecting or planning for things, you should go based on you know what the past has taught you, right, And it's just a good way to try to avoid potholes and pitfalls in life and try to navigate safely. Right.

And one of the things that you know, I've learned that we've all learned covering the league is like, you don't win if you don't have a top ten defense unless you have an otherworldly talented which the Nuggets don't. They're a fantastic basketball team, but no one's comparing this team to the twenty seventeen Warriors. Right, And I was on with Mark Ryan was CBS Sports Radio earlier today and he goes, he goes, why do you think so many people have underrated the Nuggets or haven't picked them

to win? And I told him, I was like, look, all of these basketball analysts out there, they have a job, so to speak, to cover the league and to learn and to try to project forward with those things, just like we're talking about, and they're all following the same rules. And by the way, we're talking a lot of Nuggets. A lot of analysts picked the Nuggets to win this series, but not very many people pick the Nuggets to win

the title. And that's kind of what he's referencing. And what I told him is like going into the field, right, with the field of sixteen teams, you know, you've got the team who won the title in twenty twenty one, that top ten defense, elite rim protection, you know, superstar talent, all the things you look for. Right, you had a team in the Boston Celtics who was two wins away last year. Elite defense, has rim protection, has star talent,

all those different things. You have the Golden State Warriors, the defending champion, who have the same core seven players that hoisted the trophy last year, have elite rim protection, bona fide superstar talent, all those things. The Los Angeles Lakers Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and good role players who won the title in twenty twenty and once again elite rim protection, elite defense. So we had a bunch

of teams that were just safer bets, you know. And that doesn't mean like the people who picked the Nuggets to win the title, obviously they're prescient in a lot of ways. But the point is is, like, it's not disrespect to the Nuggets to learn from the lessons that NBA history has taught us and to pick accordingly. That's why I picked against the Nuggets. But here I am now, and I've learned. I've learned that I was wrong and that all of us were wrong, right, And that's what's

interesting to me. How does a team that finished fifteenth in defense and has by far the worst defensive front court of any recent NBA champion, why is it that I think that team is going to have the Larry O'Brien Trophy in three weeks? Why I want to dive into that a little bit so I wrote down some notes, and the first thing I wrote is become truly unguardable. This Laker team has really high end defensive talent, and they run these lineups where it's Anthony Davis and Lebron

James flying around in the back line. They've got another big forward, whether it's Vanderbuilt or Ruey, and those are actually better forwards than the twenty twenty Lakers had. And defensively at the guard position, they're not as good as they were in twenty twenty, but they're better at the forward position. Right, and more importantly, this particular team has a bigger defensive identity simply because that's the only way they can win games because they struggle so much offensively

at times. Right, and there was never really a stretch where the Lakers shut down the Nuggets. There were stretches in twenty twenty where they shut down the Nuggets. There were stretch against the Warriors and Grizzlies, or they shut down those teams. They the best defensive stretch in this series was the first half of Game one and they still got forty eight points. You get the point. Denver has become truly unguardable, and I think it stems from

a couple of different things, perfectly complimentary stars. So when the Jokich Murray action takes place, you have no good option. If you switch, you're going to switch a forward onto Jamal Murray who can attack, or you're gonna switch a small onto Nikola Jokic, who can attack. Right, if you sit in a drop coverage, you're gonna concede shots. If you step up on those shots, you're gonna leave the role open to Jokic. And if you help on Jokic, and

this is the pivotal part. Yokich is such a good playmaker. And even Jamal Murray, who in college averaged more turnovers than assists, has become a good playmaker six assists per game in this postseason run. And this is the This is part two. Not just guys who can shoot off ball deadly off ball threats like cannot leave them open off ball threats in Kntavious Cabo Pope and Michael Porter Junior.

Michael Porter Junior was like one point three points per spot up possession this season, which was top of the league for the vast majority of the season. That's how good Michael Porter Junior is He's absolutely devastating, deadly if you leave him open. And then Kntavious Cable Pope, and again I have been telling you Nuggets fans all season, I've been I covered him with the Lakers in twenty

twenty one, one of my absolute favorite role players. I said at the time of the Russell Westbrook trade that CACP was better than Russ. Right then, KCP and Kyle Kuzma, we're both better than Russ. Right then. That's how much I value Kntavious Cabo Pope as just a guy who can lock and trail play individual defense, attack closeouts extremely well, knockdown threes at a high clip, hit movement shots coming off a dribble, handoffs, one of the best transition defense

and offense guards that there is in the league. And he was absolutely deadly in his catch and shoot situations in this series. Then Aaron Gordon, the one guy that's technically not a shooting threat. He's amazing at everything you need to be amazing at in order to be effective in an off ball roll when you're not a shooter, and that is the ability to offensive rebound, but also also to get deep seals inside when they need him.

To and he's got the ability. He's like in the NBA two K video games, which I used to play a lot more when I'm younger. I can't remember the last time I did, but they used to have a metric for standing jump, right, it was like standing vertical and running vertical, I think, or something like that. Like Aaron Gordon's standing jump, his ability to rise up from directly under the rim, regardless of where he's at and finish is as good as anybody you'll find in the league.

And so it even became an adjustment that the Nuggets were able to attack where like Anthony Davis is on Aaron Gordon, so he can help, but like Jamal Murray just has to get to the rint and just kind of throws something up, and as long as Anthony Davis comes over, Aaron Gordon is competing against four smaller players to try to get that rebound and finish it, right, especially when Lebron James was spending time on Michael Porter Junior, or if Lebron is the one who got beat by

Jamal Murray for whatever reason. Right, So, like Aaron Gordon made himself a threat off the ball by virtue of his unique skill set and just how hard he plays, and so when you really put it all together, they're unguardable. There is no good option to defend that team. That's why I think they're going to win in the NBA Finals. Like to Darvinham's credit, and I Darvienham has had a good postseason, and I don't agree with everything he's done.

Like he he bet he Darvin Ham was at the roulette table and kept picking red and it kept going black, and he kept going red because he just thought Dlo's gonna start making shots eventually. Right. Nope, Bruce Brown's made twice as many threes in this series as D'angela Russell.

We'll talk a little bit more about that matchup in a minute, but you get the point, Like he bet on D'Angelo Russell eventually getting hot and not making all of the other bad that come with came with it worth it, and it just never happened, right, same thing with Jared Vanderbilt. He was never able to really slow down Jamal Murray and hurt them too much on the

offensive end of the floor. So if there's one thing I'd be super critical of with Darvin Ham, it's just a simple fact that he failed to make this particular adjustment, but he's been good enough in the postseason that I don't think it's fair to do that. And again, there's a version of that that works, and you can kind of conceptualize what he's thinking. Jamal Murray is shooting our face off. We need somebody to guard him. Let's try Jared Vanderbilt, you know, like we need guys to hit

those kickout threes. With the way the Nuggets pick and roll coverage works, we need D'angela Russell to start hitting shots. And it just didn't pay off. But again, and so as we look at that starting group for the Nuggets and the way that they've become unguardable, even in and of itself, that's not enough, right, If you're unguardable, you also need to be able to defend well enough. And

I credit a couple of different things here. Schematically. I love the way they use Yokic in that high drop So Yokic is not a good rim protector, certainly not compared to his peers, but just in a vacuum, he's not a good rim protector. But what's genius about the high drop covers that they use and they used at various points in the series, they dropped him further back. But what works with his high drop, and they use the high drop a lot during the regular season, is

it's like, Okay, you can't protect the rim. Let's not protect the rim. Let's just have you be the guy that you would typically be. You know, usually when you guard a pick and roll three on two, you're bringing another guy over from the weak side to be super aggressive. Right. Well, they're basically telling Jokic like, you got one job, Like when the dude comes over the top of the screen, you kind of just swade that pull up or catch that driving lane, right, and then your job is just

to get the defensive rebound. And they just fly around and rotate around him. And Caseyp's a good defender and Aaron Aaron Gordon's good. I was really impressed with Michael

Porter Junior in this series. Defensively. Jamal Murray is pretty bad defensively, but they give him a job that he's capable of doing, which is basically just chase over the top, right, and it all just works and they got enough stops and so again like as we learn, like we gotta learn, we gotta evolve as things evolve, right, So obviously, as we go into next season, regardless of what happens, we have to consider the Nuggets as a legitimate championship threat.

Right despite not having rim protection and despite not being a top ten defense, what is the pathway there become truly unguardable? Find a way to defend well enough? And it's literally that simple. So the age old question, can your offense be good enough that you don't need to be elite defensively to win? I think the Nuggets are actively answering that right now in front of our eyes. The only scenario where I see them not winning the title is if they just go really cold on jump shots,

and that's always a threat. But if there was a team that was gonna make them cold, it was the Lakers. The Lakers are better defensively than Miami, and they're better defensively than Boston. Denver's gonna get better looks against both of those teams, and so right now, I think they're a runaway favorite to win the title. Let's move on to the Battle of the Bigs. So through three games, it's become abundantly clear that Nikola Jokic is just way

better than Anthony Davis. Even in this game, AD was better than Jokic for three quarters and then Ad no show the fourth quarter, and Jokic, despite having nothing going pushed through and made a couple of big shots, a couple of big rebounds, a couple of big plays in the fourth quarter to seal the deal. Jokic is better. He's just better now. A lot of Nuggets fans were on me before the series. Why did you say Anthony

Davis is better? Again, these are just my rules. I have my rules for the way that I recognize the best player in the world. For me, I give credence to the guy with the trophy. You'll appreciate that when Jokic has the trophy and some other guys playing well chasing his tail, and I'm saying, let's give the respect to Jokic until this guy actually takes it away from him. That's the way it works for me. Again, Like everywhere, there is no like Bible or like religious texts that

describes the way that basketball players are ranked. I have my rules. You guys have your rules. I'm just gonna tell you how I look at this stuff. For me, with my show moving forward, I'm gonna always give preferential treatment to the guys that have been there and done that, especially at a championship level. If Nikola Jokic hoists v Larry O'Brien and gets the Finals MVP trophy, to me, he's got I don't care if he don't. I don't care if he averages twelve points a game in the

regular season next year. I just don't like that. That's my That's my rule. I Anthony Davis, I will say this, the gap was more than I expected. Even I knew there was always a scenario that Jokic could out play a d But I was really disappointed in Anthony Davis in this series. I think both him and Lebron James have to go back to the drawing board offensively. The You know, it's funny. The regular season is not the end all be all for postseason basketball, but it is

revealing you learn in the regular season. For instance, the Lakers were a great defensive team the entire season after after the trade deadline. Not a big shock that they went into the postseason and they were good defensively. They were a terrible transition defense team. Are you stunned that they were a bad transition defense team in the playoffs, Like that doesn't make sense. Lebron James and Anthony Davis like remarkably declined as jump shooters. Lebron kind of more

of like a one year slump. He's been pretty damn good as a jump shooter for the last decade, really, but in this particular season couldn't make a damn shot. And Anthony Davis hasn't been able to make a jump shot since the bubble, Like are you stunned that the two guys that couldn't make jump shots all season couldn't make jump shots in the playoffs when they needed to,

Like the regular season does teach us things. It's not the end all be all, like I said, and I try to sift through it to things that apply to the playoffs and like that, like Dangelo Russell for instance, Like you've seen that there's a ceiling to what he can accomplish as the comp as the competition goes up, So you got to sift through it a little bit. But there are certain things that we learned. The habits

of a basketball team. Those are the habits that you rely on when the chips are down, Like if you all season long, never ran back on defense. What makes you think that when the chips are down, you're suddenly gonna start running back on defense. It was part of their identity and it manifested on this stage. Lebron James and Anthony Davis weren't gonna suddenly start making jump shots. And Lebron in particular, his slumps really drag out for a while for whatever reason, I don't have any good

explanation for it. But no matter what, Lebron James and Anthony Davis have to go back into the lab this summer and fix their jumpers. It's fine. We're not gonna talk deep about the Lakers offseason right now. I'm gonna save that for after they get eliminated. But but no matter what, any personnel oriented things won't matter nearly as much as the fact that when they ran into Nikola jokicch he was just better. And I believe that Lebron James, when he has this jump shot going, can at least

come close to Nikola Jokic's impact in his twenty first season. Right. I believe that Anthony Davis, the one from the bubble, can at least come close to Nikola Jokic's impact in the postseason. But without their jump shots, neither of them are dependable offensive players. I broke this down in our last show, the Game to Game three preview. But like Anthony Davis, it used to be you threw it to him on the block and he turned and faced and it was over a point per possession. Now it's like

two thirds of a point per possession. It's a significant decline in shot creation. Those two guys have to go back to the drawing board. But one of the biggest lessons that we've learned here is Jokic isn't just better than Anthony Davis. He's way better than Anthony Davis. I'm not gonna apologize for rain Ad over him to start

the series, because that's my rule. Just like I wouldn't apologize if I ranked Jokic over another player and that player outplayed Jokic over the course of a series, I would proclaim the other dude after the series is over, right, That's just kind of the way I do it. But we definitely learned a lot about that Jamal Murray, he's either on a ridiculous, unprecedented heater or he's just a

lot better than we thought. Maybe he's closer to Devin Booker than he is to that tier of you know, guys who put up numbers that aren't very good, like the Dejontay Murray's, the Bradley Beals, the zach Lavines, the John Mrits, of all those other guards, of the two Guards and one Guards of the league that put up numbers but aren't really considered all stars. Like Jamal Murray.

I think he's legitimate. I think this is legitimate. I mean, everyone wanted to undercut everything that happened in the Bubble. I thought that was lame from the beginning. It's a loser mentality. But Jamal Murray made a ton of shots in the bubble. Got hurt in the time since coming back from injury, like every other dude who gets hurt, has gone through some growing pains right as he's been working his way back into rhythm. He he played like

a bona fide superstar in the series. He destroyed the Lakers in that first half, just lit them on fire. I think he's a legitimate star. And that's another big part of why the Nuggets are succeeding despite their defensive shortcomings. They just have an obnoxious amount of firepower. As always is the case, Basketball is a team sport, so don't

overlook the contributions down the roster. Bruce Brown absolutely punked the Angelo Russell in this series, got in his head, got him off his game, outshot him from the perimeter,

dominated the game in the athleticism arias. There was a sequence I was watching the game of the Buddy, and there was a play where Lebron, I think it was either Lebron or Austin, tried to throw a lob to Anthony Davis, and Anthony Davis like missed it over the front of the ram and tried to go grab it on the other side, and like three Nuggets are in there knocking around at the ball, and the Nuggets secure the loose ball. Very next possession, Jamal Murray takes like

a they go down the floor. Jamal takes like a mid range jumpshot floater thing that's like ten feet away from the rim, kind of bobbles the ball and loses it and gets it up on the rim, and Bruce Brown, in a thicket of people, just jumps over Austin Reeves gets the ball and puts it back in and I look over at my buddy, and I'm like these rim confrontations. Denver's been winning all series long, like loose balls, like

and and again. This is the thing because the Lakers did this to Golden State, where they fatigued them into looking like a shell of themselves. The Nuggets physically pulverized the Lakers and wore them down to the point where they looked like a shell of themselves. I was so impressed by them in this series. But yeah, Bruce Brown absolutely destroys the Angelo Russell. Look At how much better

Aaron Gordon is than Jared Vanderbilt. Look at Kentavious Colwell Pope versus the contributions of like Dennis Schroeder and Lonnie Walker, like down the roster. This was an outclassing And that's what That's how you end up three to zero. I used to call game I still call game three the buzzsaw game. Right, whenever a good basketball team goes and plays in front of their home crowd and is far

more desperate. It's whenever the home team goes up two oh, and you go back in Game three, that's the hardest game to win because it's desperate home crowd. Like, there's a huge gap in motivation, Uh, like you're gonna get a better whistle, all these different things, and they overcame that. The only way you do that is if it's down the roster, outclassing. Jokic out played Anthony Davis. Jamal Murray shot so well that he basically played Lebron James to

a draw. Right. Austin Reeves was awesome, so is Contavious Call a pope, call that a wash. Right, But down there it's like Bruce Brown destroys D'angela Russell, Aaron Gordon destroys, Jared Vanderbilt. Just down the roster, they were better. That's how you go up three to zero in a conference finals. So again, shout out to the Denver Nuggets, Shout out

to Nuggets fans. I'm happy for you, guys. I'm looking forward to covering this team on their path to what I think is gonna be their first NBA champion, a championship with this corps. Like I said, I'm not gonna talk too much about the Lakers until they get eliminated, but I do have a lot of thoughts about the roster and how they should proceed. But again, I'm not gonna get into that tonight. I want tonight to be about the Nuggets. So all right, guys, that's all I

have for tonight. I sincerely appreciate you guys. We're gonna be back tomorrow for Game three of the Eastern Conference Finals, and I will see you guys. Then the volume