Nikola Jokic & Jamal Murray won with ELITE late-game execution over Shai & JDub | Nuggets-Thunder

Nikola Jokic & Jamal Murray won with ELITE late-game execution over Shai & JDub | Nuggets-Thunder

What’s up, guys? Thanks as always for supporting the show. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Also, make sure you follow us all over social media so you don’t miss any of our content or show announcements. That was probably the worst Jokic game I’ve ever seen. Uh, shades of the the Minnesota Timberwolves series last year where his jump shot completely leaves him. You know, I I thought Joic made a concerted effort early in this game to try to hunt scoring opportunities. It kind of like became one of those things where at first he was hunting scoring because he knew that was what his team needed. And then it became almost like a come hell or high water, I’m finding a way to make a jump shot and he just he just couldn’t get one to go and and it was he was also just struggling making reads. OKC was bringing some baseline doubles and um doing a good job gapping on the weak side in the twoon-one. And so Joic was turning the ball over and getting himself into some trouble. He was struggling to finish around the rim. Smoked several shots at like point blank range right at the front of the rim. And yet here we are. Denver’s up 2-1 in this series and in a really strong position when you consider the fact that it’s highly likely that Nicole Joic has a massive bounceback type of game in game four, a very very important game of this series. My guess is that whoever wins game four will win this series. And if Denver is going to win, they’re going to need a much better effort from Joic. That said, I want to give Joic some credit. He won some defensive battles late. He won some rebounding battles late, and he did get two big buckets in OT. But I want to focus on a couple of other nuggets that I thought stepped up in a big way down the stretch of this game. First of all, Jamal Murray. As it became obvious that Joic was not able to generate a quality look for himself, at least not one that he could knock down the stretch of this game, Jamal Murray had to really hit the gas as a scorer. And it wasn’t always pretty. Again, like people when you’re playing against a defense like this, especially as a guard, it’s not going to be pretty. It’s not going to be super efficient. It’s going to be a chore. Jamal Murray missed more shots than he made tonight. There were some ugly ones. He had a couple shots around the rim. He had an airball layup. He had a spinning like he tried to like shoot a 360 layup in traffic that he kind of just threw into the bottom of the rim. They were difficult shots because there were a lot of late clock situations where he had to generate something. But then there were also situations where he was able to make something happen. A little step back over Isaiah Hartinstein along the left baseline. Big threes at a couple of points in this game. He was just found a way to generate offense. He’s been always a very gifted finisher in traffic, too. A couple of nifty finishes right at the front of the rim. And then Aaron Gordon. There are so many players in the league this year that have just uh in this playoff run that have just been consistently great in the clutch over and over again. Tyresese Hallebertton, Jaylen Brunson. Aaron Gordon again, he’s already had two game winners in this postseason run. Hits the three that sends this to overtime and extends the game. I want to shout out Aaron Gordon defensively as well. He got cooked a little bit by JDub at various points in the fourth quarter, but he was playing good defense to his credit. He was hitting some tough contested shots and then he got several stops late when he needed to. And then I also have to shine the light on Christian Brown. I thought Christian Brown, you know, it’s been interesting. There have been two stretches of this series where I feel like he’s played good defense on Shay Gildas Alexander. Crunch time of game one, crunch time of game three. Now, I think there’s kind of a overarching theme there involving slow down half court basketball and we’ll dive further into that concept a little bit later on in the show, but there was a stretch there in that third quarter where I’m like, he’s just not doing a good enough job on Shay or JDub. He’s just getting beat to the spot over and over again at the point of attack. A lot of times he wasn’t even offering any sort of physical contact or resistance until Shay or or or Jade were in the lane. he just wasn’t doing a good enough job there in crunch time over and over again beating Shay to the spot on multiple occasions actually forcing Shay into trying to grift for fouls which obviously wasn’t going to work in this type of game late. Christian Brown, to his credit, I talk about all the time, the the playoffs are about solving puzzles. And while he struggled in the meat and potatoes of this series, there have been two pivotal stretches where he’s been able to get multiple stops against Jay Gilders Alexander solving the puzzle in that sort of situation. And honestly, guys, like if we zoom out on this series, it’s a whole lot of OKC outplaying Denver and Denver just pulling these games out late. And there’s two different ways to look at that, right? There’s the obvious fact that Oklahoma City is very, very good and that they’re going to be very difficult to put out of their misery. This is not a, oh, you’re up 2-1, you’re in control. This is they win game four, that thing’s going back to Oklahoma City, you’re probably not winning this series. So, like everything still hangs in the balance, but the flip side to look at that is there’s a lot of opportunity for Denver to play better. I thought Oklahoma City outworked Denver tonight. I thought they played with more force throughout the game tonight. They got Denver got demolished on the glass again, giving up 18 offensive rebounds. If you They only got five offensive rebounds. And if we go back cuz even further back into uh into game two, they didn’t have much success on the offensive glass relative to game one in that game either. They had more rebounds offensively in game one than they did in game two and game three combined. And so OKC has like completely flipped the script on the whole Joic dominating inside dynamic. They’ve flipped the script on the whole offensive rebounding dynamic. They’ve taken the two arguably the two biggest advantages that Denver has in this series and they’ve flipped them in their direction as Jookic has been pretty bad the last two games and they haven’t been able to do much damage on the offensive glass. And so again, there’s two ways to look at that. There’s OKC has clear advantages that they’re showing and and then there’s this obvious fact that Denver can play much better. Denver is capable of doing more physical damage on the glass than they’ve been doing. Jokic is obviously capable of playing a lot better. I talked about this after game two. The advantages for the two teams are pretty clear, right? Like for OKC, it’s dribble penetration. They they are dominating these games in the meat and potatoes just in those semi-transition pushes with Shay and Jdub quickly within like the first, you know, seven to 10 seconds of the shot clock getting deep dribble penetration and then everything really cascading from there. All of a sudden, you’re drawing tons of helpers, which is putting your defense in rotation. OKC it outside of crunch time in this series has passed the ball very well. They’re moving the ball out of those dribble penetration situations as Denver’s rotating. OKC is getting offensive rebounds because guys aren’t matched up to box out because they’re in rotation. There is a lot of damage that Oklahoma City is doing early in uh early in possessions with their dribble penetration that is trickling down to all of these other elements of the game. And for Denver, their advantage is very clearly the size with Joic on the interior and their ability to contend on the offensive glass. And what’s crazy is for the most part throughout this series, OKC has done a better job of leveraging their advantages. But Denver over and over again, as long as they’re within striking distance late, has been the better half court team. And that’s where we got to dig into it a little bit deeper. So JDub had a beautiful game tonight. I I thought he was in command of the floor. Uh moved the ball well on ball and offball scoring, good on ball playmaking. JDub had a great game, but once again, when things got slowed down, when things really slowed down late in the game, those semi-transition opportunities aren’t there, the I’ve got ahead of steam because I started my drive out 50 feet from the basket and Christian Brown’s picking me up at the foul line, that’s not there anymore. It’s slow down. It’s a knockdown, dragout, halfcourt fight. And in those situations, in both games, in game one and game two, it’s turned into a lot of high ISOs. A lot of high ISOs for Jdub, a lot of high ISOs for Shay. A lot of tough intra contested shots in the middle of the floor. Not a lot of kickouts. How many times did you see a kickout out of those clutch situations for the Thunder? They’re not there. So, similarly to game one, Denver was consistently able to offer late help there. A lot of these shots are being shot over double teams, over late secondary contests, just a lot of traffic in the middle of the floor. Whereas with Denver, there’s like a solid twoman game taking place in the middle of the floor where you don’t know where it’s going to go. It might be Jamal running action and looking for something from the three-point line, something in the mid-range. It might be Jokic in the pocket. It might be Joic in the post. Oh, you overplayed Joic on a roll and left Aaron Gordon wide open in the left corner. He’s going to hit a three to burn you and tie the game. There’s more variety. There’s more consistency. There is a better, more reliable clutch offense for Denver in this series. And so, that’s really where this is going to swing. I think if it’s close in game four late, Denver’s going to win and they’re probably going to win the series. Oklahoma City does have a pathway though with their speed, with their defense to build margin against this team. It’s kind of similar to the way I felt about the Clippers series. There’s just not a team in the league that’s going to be able to execute the way Denver does in the half court late in games. They’re just the very best at it. You know, I I used to uh you know, I I have a lot of like random basketball debates with my friends who cover different teams around the league. And I remember Sam Fondiari who covers the Warriors. He uh texted me once after the Lakers uh lost that regular season game, the late regular season game, the first Luca Donuch game against the Warriors. And he goes he just said to me, he goes like, I love it when teams go small ball against the Warriors because just no one’s ever going to play small ball as well as we do. And it’s such a simple idea, but it’s so true because the Warriors have been doing the Draymond at center thing literally since 2014. like that they’ve been doing it over a decade. They have every detail of that style of game down pat. Same thing goes for Denver. You’re just not going to beat them in the clutch. When you do, it’s bizarre. What was the the game they lost to the Clippers? You had Aaron Gordon missed a wideopen dunk right under the rim. I can’t remember what mistake Joic made, but Joic made a big mistake down the stretch of that game. They just that was like the exception. every other time you end up in these close games against Denver. I’ve been up I’ve been on the wrong side of this guys. I’ve rooted for the Lakers the last couple of years. So like they are just completely indomitable in a tie game with five minutes left. It’s it’s one of the crazier things I’ve seen in my time following the league and they just got it done again tonight against Oklahoma City. And like there’s obvious the the main thing if you’re looking at it from OKC’s standpoint and the way that they can try to avoid that slow down environment. Can’t change the way you play. Can’t change the way you play just because it slows down late, especially when you’re going against Denver. You got to keep pushing in transition. You got to attack early in possessions. You got to move the ball. A good semi-transition drive that kicks leads to an advantage. Yeah, you’re right. You’re going to have to count on somebody like a loud Dort to drive a close out, but you’re going to start the engine. And your speed is such an advantage when you’re in motion, when there’s ball in player movement against this team. But when you just stare down Jamal Murray in an ISO at the top of the key and you can gap into driving lanes, it’s just an easier thing for Denver to deal with. You’re playing into their style of game. And so that’s going to be the main thing that they’re going to have to flip. Again, moving forward in the series. I left game two feeling coin flip slight edge OKC. Now at game three, I’m coin flip slight edge Denver. Denver will be likely I’m not even sure what the line is in game four. I haven’t looked yet, but I give Denver a slightly better than a coin flip chance of winning game four at home. And if they win that game, I think they’re going to win the series because all of a sudden OKC has to win three games in a row and Denver just has the best player in the world on the team. And it can go either way. But I mean, you gotta be kicking yourself if you’re a Thunder fan because you played well enough to win all three of these games and you’re down 2-1 in this series. And like I’ve gotten into this argument a lot with a bunch of people and like I want to be clear, this series is not over. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if Oklahoma City won this series. And with the way Boston’s playing, guys, you could talk me into Oklahoma City right now being the most likely team to win the championship. So this is not some sort of big sweeping Oklahoma City’s bad kind of take. But I’ve been I’ve been preaching this all year. The team full of early 20 year olds that’s going to play way harder than everybody in the regular season that’s going to put up dramatic statistical markers that are going to do things like uh Jackson, what was the odds before it was minus 600 uh afterus after? Yeah. After game one when Denver won OKC was minus 600 to win the series. like the odds are being fed by these numbers and it’s everyone it’s breaking everybody’s brain greatest net rating in in in NBA history and all this kind of stuff and all year long I’ve said yeah they’re they’re awesome but young basketball players I’ve been preaching this for years what are young basketball players what is the behavior of young basketball players they struggle to have success and then replicate it and they struggle to have failure identify it and avoid it veteran Basketball teams have succeeded and failed so many times that when they identify success, they hammer it. And when they see failure, they quickly identify it and they remove it from their diet. They trim the fat. That is the difference between grown ass men playing basketball and dudes in their early 20s. And again, that does not mean OKC can’t win the series. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they won game four, won game five, won game six, beat the out of Minnesota, went into the finals and beat Boston or New York or Indiana or Cleveland or whoever it is that comes out. I would not be surprised, but they are vulnerable. And they are vulnerable because when they get into these situations, they are young and inexperienced and the veteran older team who’s been here a million times is very comfortable in these settings. and they have lost two games that they should have won in this series. And so like that’s the that’s that is why like the next time this happens, the next time we see a team full of early 20-year-olds that wins 60some games and dominates in the regular season, that is why I bring this talking point up. It is not a attempting to prevent them from getting the shine they deserve. It is simply just something I’ve learned from a long time watching basketball. The older veteran teams are just way more comfortable in adversity than the younger basketball teams. And maybe this will be the lesson. Maybe this will be the one that triggers it. And maybe they beat the Thunder six times in the series or maybe they beat the Nuggets six times in the series. But I just think it’s a really fascinating concept. The Thunder were torching the Nuggets with a high variety attack, moving the ball, driving kick, hitting cutters, hitting shooters, and then they went brain dead late in the game and played high ISO because that’s the kind of thing that can happen with a young basketball team in those sorts of settings.

Jason reacts to the Denver Nuggets getting a clutch win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 thanks to awesome execution down the stretch from Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, especially compared to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams.

Follow Jason Timpf on social:
Tweets by _JasonLT
https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/

Follow us on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/hoopstonight/
https://x.com/hoopstonite
https://www.facebook.com/hoopstonight/

@hoopstonightjasontimpf

Learn more about the Volume:
https://www.thevolume.com

GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY).

Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD).

21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS).1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $150 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 3/16/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK.

#nba #nbaplayoffs #nbafinals #nbahighlights #nbabasketball #basketball #sports #reaction #nuggets #denvernuggets #thunder #oklahomacitythunder #nikolajokic #jamalmurray #aarongordon #shaigilgeousalexander #jalenwilliams