The Denver Nuggets Always Find A Way To Win

The Denver Nuggets Always Find A Way To Win

They always find a way. The Denver Nuggets always find a way to win a basketball game. What a game from them. This This is This should not be a win for the Denver Nuggets. I’m saying that as a credit to them. This should not be a win for the Denver Nuggets. The best player in the world had one of his worst offensive showings you would ever see from him. During the whole Nicole Joic best player in the world, MVP candidacy era, this is one of his worst offensive performances. He ended with 20 points. hit a big shot down the stretch when they were up by like five or so in overtime, which is pretty pretty good. 16 rebounds. You know, he going to bore very well. Not a lot of those being offensive. They kept him off the offensive glass for majority of this game. Only six assists, eight turnovers. He shot 10 threes today. 10 of them. He missed every single one. When you think about how small of a margin this team usually has to win basketball games, you would think that if Joic is putting together a personal stinker, they have no chance, right? But then we get some stuff that you can’t quantify. We can talk about a team being the best defensive team in the recent in recent history because of the statistics. We can talk about a team being an amazing three-point shooter team. We can talk about a team being a fast break team, but certain things you can’t quantify with statistics. Championship DNA continuity having the will is stuff we won’t see on the box score. We won’t see through statistics. And the Denver Nuggets do it time and time again. Last year they’re in the they’re in the playoffs. They are down in every single first half against the Lakers and they hit two game winners and eventually take care of the Lakers. We’ve seen time and time again in game number one. 40 seconds to go. They have no business winning that game. They won that game. Uh uh Joic airboled the Sunbour shuffle and guess who was sending a dunk response? Aaron Gordon for a game-winning tip layup or tip dunk. This team finds a way time and time again. Jokic was bad today by his own standard. But guess what? Michael Porter Jr. has been phenomenal since since he was called out in the beginning of this series or in the beginning of the playoff run. He’s been stepping up. He can barely lift his hand over his head. They tell you that every time you shoot the ball. Um he’s been amazing. 21-8 today. Aaron Gordon turned himself to a capital S shooter over the last year or so. I remember they went on to win the championship in 2023. He was like a 34% three-point shooter in the regular season. And some of the playoff series that he ended up having in the finals, I remember he shot like 50 something% from three. Now, they didn’t really need him to do that cuz who they were going against and everything. But since then, he’s continued to get better and better from shooting the ball. I know in first round he didn’t shoot it amazingly well, but tonight he’s four of six and he hits the big shot to basically send it into overtime, if you will. This was an amazing game. Um, Peyton Watson, and I got to give him credit because you know, okay, on a nighttoight basis, if you are an NBA fan, you know that you’re going to trust Jokic, you’re going to trust Jamal, you’re going to trust Aaron, you’re going to trust Michael Porter Jr. more times than not. It’s about the others, right? Can we get Christian Brown to hit some open threes today? He had two. Can we get Russell Westbrook to come in and give some energy? But that’s kind of it. Pton Watson gave a ton of energy. He had a couple big blocks. He had a couple threes. He was talking to the crowd. I thought those were huge. Now, obviously, he didn’t play down the stretch cuz it turned into our stars versus your stars, our five versus your five. But just having him to be able to come off the bench and give you 17 minutes of good basketball or something, that’s like a luxury to them at this point. A luxury to them. This is a game that they should not have won and they did. And it just changes everything about the series, right? You go after game number one, you can say, “Hey, yeah, the Denver Nuggets won this game.” But I think more more um a better way to explain it is that Mark Dayton had some bad coaches decisions. OKC missed some free throws and boom, it was more like an OKC loss than a Denver win. Game number two, OKC comes out and smack that ass 43-point win. This was a game that like based on what we’ve seen between these two teams, whether it be in this series or in the regular season, when it comes down to the close games, the Denver Nuggets have the advantage even though the OKC Thunder are the better team. Right. They showed the graphic when we got to overtime that when the OKC Thunder have beat the Denver Nuggets in the season, the margin of victory is 27 points, blowing the doors off of them. But when it is close, the Denver Nuggets have won. I think that says a lot about the lack of experience from the OKC side and the fact that the Denver Nuggets kind of have this this plan once the going gets tough, once the game is close. I hated the last 10 minutes of basketball from the OKC Thunder offensively. I thought that everything that has worked well for them this entire season was going down the drain. And one thing I hate is that they absolutely uh just just lost the energy. They they absolutely lost the confidence in the shooting and the jump shooter completely. Now, you know, this game is close going into I think going into the fourth quarter OKC was shooting like 23% from three. It was something real real bad. But sometimes when it is bad, you still got to trust it because you got to keep them honest. You know who’s winning this off or this postseason? The people that love watching zone defense. Every single team is going out there and running some form of zone. And we’re going to talk about the Cavs versus Pacers game in a minute. Every team is doing some type of zone for periods at a time. And I wish I had the the resources to figure out what exactly is going on. I remember two years ago when the Miami Heat and Sper running zone, they were running the most zone in the NBA. It was 4% of their defensive possessions. That’s how much zone we got just two years ago. In the regular season, we didn’t see a ton of zone, but in this postseason, I bet that 4% is way up. I don’t have the numbers. I’m sure somebody does. I don’t have the numbers. The Denver Nuggets run out the zone. And it’s like, shoot it. We dare you. Think about how the OKC Thunder got eliminated last year. What were the two major things that we we thought about with OKC with them? A I mean, I guess there’s three them and their youth. Obviously, that youth is still showing his face today in 2025. The next thing was the rebounding. went to sign Isaiah hard staff. Sam Prey got executive of the year for that in the Alex Caruso trade. And the last thing was the jump shooting, the three-point shooter specifically. Who can we trust to hit jump shots to hit three-pointers today was really nobody. And then we got down to the down to the end of the game and stuff. People that normally are really confident shooting the ball like a Lud Door is passing up open threes because he has lost his own confidence because today he was one of six knowing four from three. They they said three times on the broadcast today, Isaiah Hardenstein’s push shot is a 82% shot for him. We got to overtime, he got three looks at those. Two of them were damn near air balls. They lost all of the confidence. And then we get to the last five minutes and in a lot of cases, this is pretty normal basketball. Hey, it’s a close game. Our MVP, our star, please take us home. Shay could not do that today. The shots that Shay were attempting were the exact shots that the Denver Nuggets wanted him to attempt because Shay Alexander is a mid-range shooting king. He’s one of the best in the world at that, but they’re packing it in because nobody else in this team wants to shoot right now. Or maybe Shay’s not trusting his shooters because some of the shots that he took down the stretch, I’m just like, you’re Shay and I know you can hit that, but I feel like there’s a better look in them. One of the things we talk about on the podcast, numbers on the boards dropping tomorrow, is how much we hate when teams are down by three and players on the opposing team feel like they need to take a three in this moment of time to get all of those back. There’s plenty of time on the shot clock. I thought Shay had a couple shots down the stretch where you didn’t need to take the three. Some possessions. One thing I also hate is when we get a one pass possession or a zero pass possession. We got a few of those down the stretch for the OKC Thunder. This is one of the few times of this season where I watched them and said, “Yeah, there’s that youth.” See, this team has not played like a the average age is 25 24 point something something. They’ve been dominant defensively. they got an MVP candidate or an MVP of the league. They got a couple great defensive bigs. They got some of the best defensive wings in basketball. Even though they are a young team, it was very rare that I watched them and said, “Yes, this team looks young.” Today, this team looked young and this is the worst kind of opponent you want to see when you are looking young because this team has been here. They’ve done that and they can exploit you. Game number two, Joic had one of his worst performances too. He fouled out in like I don’t even know how many minutes that was. I I think that so far this season, if you get rid of the 4020 game in game number one, they’ve done a pretty phenomenal job of guarding Joic. And in game number one, when Joic did have his 4020 game, they basically started off the game with Chad Homegrren guarding him solo, you know, sending some help. I know Alex Russo got like six steals or something like send us some late helps when he turned his back, yada yada yada. And then since then, it’s been Isaiah Harden as a primary defender, this bruisier type of dude. and they’ve they’ve tempered or prevented Jokic from being the best player in the world, but they’re still down 2-1. And that’s kind of scary because I don’t expect Jokic to shoot 0 for 10 from three next game. I don’t expect him to have eight turnovers next game. I don’t expect him to be a 32% from the field performance. I don’t expect to have a two shooting percent of 37 point. My god, that’s nasty, Jokic. So, they got to figure it out and they got to figure it out fast because the Denver have home court advantage right now. And when we got to the overtime, you saw Jamal Murray was so gassy. Still hit a couple shots in OT. Shout out to Jamal Murray. But you don’t want to go to OT in the Mau High City. Man, I you I just know they were so drained. And one of these teams do this 40 games a season, and you don’t. An amazing win. I feel like I’m forgetting some stuff, but damn, this game was so damn good. Um, so shout out shout out to them for for performing. I love that a lot of these games have been defensive oriented. I know it ended up ended up being 113, but that’s with the extra five minutes minutes of play. It’s been a really grinded out postseason. That’s what I absolutely love. Let’s get to the first game of the day with the Cleveland Cavaliers um have all their guys. There’s Mobley, there’s Hunter, and there’s Garland. And my question was, yeah, they’re active, but how effective or how good would they look? I thought that Daryus Garland, you could definitely tell that he was laboring out there. He got into foul trouble very early on. But the real winner of tonight was, well, I guess two big winners. The first one I’m gonna say is Evan Mobley. No, it it is um Donov Mitch number one. But I want to talk about Evan Mobley because he was so great today. I think that other than him having Rudy Goar hands in the first half, he was so great. The Cavs also threw out a zone today and I think the number said that when they ran out that zone, um the Pacers shot of 11 for three during during that stretch, which I don’t know how much of that is a zone, how much of that is bad shooting variance, but the zone looked so damn dominant and it was a different kind of zone that you would see the Cavs run. the Cavs ran some zone in the regular season, but not really did they have it be like Evan Mobley is the point of attack on like a 3-2 zone or one 122, I don’t know how you want to characterize it. And he was causing havoc and it’s like, yes, that is the defensive player of the year. You saw that type of form today. I know he had six stocks, which is great, but even though six stocks don’t don’t tell the full story of how great he was defensively, but on the offensive side of things, Donovan Mitchell’s average of 40 plus points in this series, he’s been unguardable. He shoots a lot of threes today. He actually hits some, so that’s cool. But the thing that makes it so amazing is that the Pacers don’t really have an answer for when he wants to put his head down. And he’s been wanting to put his head down. Another double digit free throw game for him. Um 10 or 14. And I just feel like he’s been so damn relentless. It’s kind of getting scary. I see that man take so much contact. So much so much contact that it’s like, man, I just I just know this is what you got to do to keep your team afloat and to win these games. I’m a little bit of frame for you, man. you hitting that floor pretty hard. But he was amazing today. And yet the Pacers don’t have an individual answer for him. You can throw some N Smith, you can throw some N them hard. Those guys can’t really stay in front of them as good as defenders as they are. Donov Mitchu has just been that relentless. And I love it because it is actually like I remember speaking of the Cavs when um one of the biggest criticism about Braun, even though it wasn’t really warranted back in the day, it’s like he’s 68 250. Why don’t he just put his head down and get to the free throw line and get to the basket every single possession? That is hard first of all, but also it’s so very taxing. I feel like Donovan Mitchell was doing exactly that. Put his head down, get to the basket. Some of the finishes he had in this game was disgusting. I know he always used that that high low dribble, but he had one and I was like, “Yeah, yeah.” When when it’s all said and done for Donald Mitchell and we go type in Donov Mitchell mix in 20 years from now, one of them finishes in that first first court, I think it was, is going to be on this highlight reel forever. He was disgusted today. Maxus was also pretty good. Good. I can’t say good bounceback game because he was good in game number two. He just had the bad turnover down the stretch. He hit four threes. Jared Allen was out there being physical as hell and they were reciprocating that. The only loser for them was Ty Jerome, man. Damn, Ty Jerome really bad in this series and he was he was destined to make so much money this off season. So, I hope that Kenny Ason don’t bench him. But through these first three games, it’s been it’s been bad, man. It’s been really, really bad. Um, the Pacers had both of their star players pretty struggle pretty heavily today. Tyres Hallebertton ended up with four point realized he got to four. I I thought he gave us a a a two-piece or a zero piece, but they were denying ball from very early on. I got to give credit for the Cavaliers there and he missed his first shot. And once Tyrese missed his first shot, things get kind of iffy, you know, but they did an amazing job not allowing him to break down the defense full stop. I mean, I think part of that is his own. He didn’t really get a lot of dribble penetration to spray out to the shooters. They really was like Miles Turner early in this game. We’re going to let you do you. We’re going to eliminate Pascal Siaka and we’re going to eliminate some of these other guys. So, an amazing win for the Cleveland Cavaliers and I think this series is alive now, especially if everybody’s going to be healthy. I think that’s it, man. Whoa. Okay. Um, great. Another great night of basketball, man. We are getting so spoiled.

Kenny Beecham Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@UCIneuRj77wdHQ5yfgDb_69Q
Spotify Link: https://rb.gy/py5oj
Apple Podcast Link: https://rb.gy/lwi9n

Subscribe to my newsletter: https://enjoybasketball.beehiiv.com/subscribe
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/KOT4Q

My Other Channels:
Kenny For Real: https://bit.ly/3gzL7m0
KOT4Q: https://bit.ly/2WuhewL
Kenny 13aseball: https://bit.ly/3mzUohZ