Nuggets-Thunder Game 7 Prediction: Will Nikola Jokic or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have bigger impact?

Nuggets-Thunder Game 7 Prediction: Will Nikola Jokic or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have bigger impact?

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. Now, as far as game seven goes, this is going to be a super interesting game. It’s on the road, right, for Denver. Um, the Oklahoma City uh Thunder will be substantially favored, right? They are the young team though and I was really I was looking back at just the previous examples in recent NBA history uh in like the last decade or so of teams who have won game seven on the road and every single time there’s a consistent theme. It’s the star the superstar a apex superstar every time it’s been a top tier guy. The only example you’ll find of one that’s not really is the uh Trey Young game seven against Philly back in 2021. if you remember correctly. But even then, I have to go back and watch that game to remember exactly what happened. But I remember Trey making a bunch of big plays late in that game, like right in the final minutes as they pulled away from Philly. But if you look at the other examples of recent uh games where a team won a road game seven, you go back to like 2018 and it’s LeBron James and Boston won game one at home, they won game two at home, they won game five at home. And then suddenly in game seven when all of the pressure was on, all of their uh young players, now mind you, they they were younger players than Oklahoma City even in terms of Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum at that point in time, but LeBron just kind of alpha dogged them and was like far and away the best player in the game, far and away the most comfortable player in the game. Made all the big plays late and they ended up winning. Fast forward to 2023, Steph Curry, game seven on the road in Sacramento. Steph drops a 50 piece on those dudes and they just have no idea what to do. They just immediately crumble in their confidence and drop a game seven at home. Go to 2022, Luca Donuch on the road in Phoenix. Just right out the gates in the first quarter just alpha dogs those dudes. They all get super nervous and they end up falling apart. and specifically with the uh the the the Celtics in 2018, but especially the Suns in 2022. Those were highly ranked teams in the regular season. They were teams that won uh a ton of games. They were teams that were viewed as favorites in the series. like this was a this was uh you know this series will follow a somewhat similar trend except for Sheay is also an Apex star in my opinion and this is a more talented better Oklahoma City Thunder team but that dynamic is the dynamic that the Thunder have to avoid. If Joic rolls up into Oklahoma City in game seven and right away just looks like by far the most confident and comfortable player on the floor and he just strangles the pace and the flow and a bunch of these young Oklahoma City Thunder players get nervous, that’s where it could get dangerous. And as Denver just showed in game five, they can go into Oklahoma City and control a game for a large portion. They again they blew that one in the late fourth quarter but they were right there with a chance to win that uh with that game to win that game. So game seven all eyes are on Jokic and Shay uh you know I expect a lot of inconsistency from the role players in that game but like you know like as as as likely as Jamal and JDub are to go off. They’re just as likely to have nightmare games. It’s going to be Jokic and Shay. One of those two dominates that matchup. You’re going to see that team win that game. And I can’t wait after what’s been a pretty boring tail end of the second round. I I feel fortunate that we’re going to get an epic game seven on uh is it on Saturday or Sunday? I think it’s on Sunday, actually. So, we get a couple days off. Wow. That’s a big deal. That’s a huge deal. So, Denver doesn’t play till Sunday. That’s uh that’s a big deal that Denver is going to get a little bit of time off uh before they have to roll up into that arena. That’s advantage to Denver for sure as well. If I had to pick right now, I picked Oklahoma City in seven before the series. I still feel like they probably deserve to be about a 60 to 40 favorite in game seven. So, I’m going to stick with OKC and seven at this point, but I would not be even the slightest bit surprised if Denver rolled up in there and got the job done. And either way, Minnesota Denver and Minnesota OKC are both excellent Western Conference Finals matchups. So, us as basketball fans, we will be fine either way. But I can’t wait to break that game down when the time comes.

Jason breaks down the dynamics of a Game 7 between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, whether Nikola Jokic or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will be able to have a bigger impact on the game, if Jamal Murray or Jalen Williams can get going, and more.

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