Nuggets showed their championship form in GM 1 win vs OKC, Gordon hits game-winning 3 | THE FACILITY

Nuggets showed their championship form in GM 1 win vs OKC, Gordon hits game-winning 3 | THE FACILITY

Ah, good morning. Good morning. Good morning, beautiful people. Welcome into the facility. Hey, appreciate y’all. Y’all can be watching any show you’re hanging out with us. Last night, they have been the greatest basketball night in sports in the last 10 to 15 years. So many thrillers. The New York Knicks came back from down 20, erased a 20point deficit like it was nothing. The Boston Celtics 45 missed three-pointers. Why you even shoot 45 points? How about like the 30th miss? You would have thought maybe on Saturday. Maybe you’ll see. Oh, they made the most of the NBA. They record Aaron Gordon. Another gamewinning buzzer beating bucket by the Nuggets. And now both one seeds in the Eastern and in the Western have taken one more level tonight. The Warriors all the way winner. And real quick before we go anywhere, we need to have a poll right. Do all pro players matter or does super super talented players know all pros matter? I need to know though who’s all pro. hard to do. Everybody just walking around all frozen now. Joined now by basketball Savant the Brick. Slick Rick the Buer. Now again, I will say this several times throughout the course of the show. Rick Buer, the man to my left, he is an MVP voter. So what that means is not only do I think that he is one of the most brilliant minds in all of the sport. He’s one of the most credible minds in all of the sport. Again, very rarely do you get to see two MVP front runners play head-to-head. We saw that last night. We will see that this whole series. Shay Gildress Alexander, MVP front runner. Nicola Joic, MVP front runner has already won the award twice. Rick Buer, the man to my left, he voted for Nicola Jokic. So, let’s talk about the game at hand. Was it a great Nuggets win or was it a bad bad Thunderlaw? That’s called foreshadowing, people. At least for where Acho is going, but not where I’m going because I’m going to say it was a great Nuggets win. Um, I I can’t blame the Oklahoma City Thunder for something that I saw coming, and that was if they got into a possession bypossession game, they might be in trouble against an experienced team like the like the Denver Nuggets. They chose the Denver Nuggets showed their championship form. Yes, they did. From the very beginning, I was thinking, and I’ve seen this many of times, I’m going to date myself a little bit, but I saw this Utah Jazz against the Chicago Bulls, going back to the late 90s, and I’m like, the Utah Jazz would be ahead by 8, nine points, and I’m thinking, that’s not enough. That’s not enough against a championship team. You need to expand this to 17, 18, 19 if you have the opportunity because you’re keeping it within distance for them. And that’s what they that’s ultimately what happened in this situation. Uh the the Denver Nuggets looked comfortable that entire game no matter what the score was. And I was thinking they’re going to tighten it up. I’ve seen them do this multiple times. When we get down to the final to the fourth quarter and the final six, five, five, six minutes, they’re going to tighten the screws. It’s exactly what they did. We saw Nicola Joic demonstrate why he is the maestro getting to wherever he needed to get to. Goodness. And then to your point, we saw Russell Westbrook. He had that he had that little twitch. I’m gonna get No, I’m not. Aaron Gordon, here you go. And Aaron Gordon did what he’s done consistently through these playoffs, which is hit a big shot. And so that’s that’s why I I look at the Nuggets doing what the Nuggets do in the Oklahoma City Thunder. Thunder showing once more that they are a young team that has never been past the second round. Maybe for a reason. And you know what? The same way we looked at the Rockets, like they so young, they’re real talented, but they can’t get it done in the playoffs. Not just yet. Same thing with the Thunder. We’ve been saying that even though they’re number one seed, are they really the number one seed? Are they really going to go out there and win these playoff games? I got to go with the Nuggets had a better win, man. Greater win. You were down 11 points with four minutes left in the fourth quarter. And the the example you gave about the Bulls, that still ain’t enough cuz they had a guy named Jeffrey that just can’t deny. And so do the Nuggets. They got a guy named Joic that you cannot deny. And we all this all this conversation about who’s the MVP. It’s it’s bonafide. It got to be SGA. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Number 15 is not Carmelo Anthony. Y I’m going to show youall why I’m the MVP and he showed up. I just think the way they played, man, they played with heart. They played with dog. You talk about that that championship pedigree that you have that you built over the time. They had that down 11 four minutes left. You getting every rebound, you chasing every down loose ball. You getting second chance opportunities on the offensive side. You making three balls when you need it. Aaron Gordon played for uh tremendous game last night, right? You talk about a guy that can play the bigs or play the small. That’s what he did. They are a real world team. I like the way they played, man. A guy like Russ coming there giving that extra energy. Everything you need from from the Nuggets, they are giving you. I am nervous to see how this series goes because I do think it won’t be long. Whenever we talk about you long listening this, let me tell you why. I watched. Yeah, I did. The way the the way that the way the Thunder play is they go high tempo, play really really good defense and let SGA do his thing and shoot the trade ball. That’s what they do, right? Well, you had no answer for Joic. You got two seven footers down there that can’t do nothing with it. Yeah. One’s full of sticks and other one’s full of a little chubby and they both can’t guard him. Okay. And then on the defensive side, SG had 30 points. He also had 26 shots. So now them 30 is hard to come by. So, I’m just thinking like where the points gonna come from cuz your main star, your MVP is putting 30 points but he’s shooting 26 shots. James, you do the math. That’s a struggle for him. And you at home and you had all this rest. What you going to think when they go back to Denver cuz the job’s already done though. A playoff series don’t start until what happens? The way team wins. They already did that. I’m just saying, man. You tell me. It’s interesting. In sports, one that take is fascinating. But in sports, I’m sure y’all at home are always like, “Why do y’all bring up youth so much?” If the Thunder are better in the regular season over the course of 82 games. How are you telling me they’re not going to be better in the playoffs? And it’s very simple. You didn’t have to watch the entirety of last night’s game. It ended late, so if you didn’t, I don’t know. Shame on you. I’ll just synthesize it like this. With 13 seconds left, 13.2 seconds left. The decimals even matter. With 13.2 seconds left, y’all can watch some of it. Uh, the Nuggets go up 117. You know what? Co, forget the tape right now because it’s going to it’s going to confuse what I’m actually saying. 13.2 2 seconds left. The Nuggets go up 117 to 114. That matters because now with 12.2 seconds left, the Nuggets get fouled. Rather, Thunder go up 11714. 12 seconds left, the Nuggets get fouled. I’m texting Slick while this is happening simultaneously. Cuz I’m asking, why are the Thunder not taking more time off the clock? Joic goes down. He makes two free throws. Now it’s 117 to 116. 12 seconds left. Shay Gildas Alexander, he gets a wide open dunk. But you don’t have to you don’t have to dunk it. Take more time off the clock. You want to expedite the game, Thunder. You’re winning. You do not want to elongate the game. So now Shay dunks it. Now they go up 119 1116. 11 seconds left. Inbounds pass. They foul Aaron Gordon immediately. 10.2 seconds left. But remember the Thunder are winning at this point. 119 to 116. Aaron Gordon is in the back court. There is no reason to foul him at that point in time. take another four or five seconds off the clock as the Nuggets have to advance the ball into the front court. Foul Aaron Gordon immediately that takes one second off the clock. Now there’s just 9 seconds remaining. There should have been 3 to 4 seconds remaining. So now when Czech gets fouled, goes to the free throw line, misses both of his free throws. Instead of the Nuggets only having 3 seconds, maybe two seconds to advance the ball after this play that you all now see, now the Nuggets got nine seconds to do it. Now Russ has the opportunity to drive, kick, Gordon, gather himself, gather his thoughts, make the bucket. That is inexperienced speaking. So when somebody like Rick or Shady or James Jones comes up here and says, “The Nuggets are too are more experienced than the Thunder are too young.” I saw it in real time. The Warriors would not have made that mistake. Warriors would have allowed more time to come off the clock. The Nuggets would not have made that mistake. Neither the players nor the coaches, they would have allowed more time to come off the clock. If Steph Curry had a wideopen break like Shay had, Steph not making a layup. He’s dribbling it out to the three-point line. Wasting time, wasting time, wasting time. So that was really for me why I suggest it was a bad Thunder loss cuz their youth showed in a major way. I thought it was a great Nuggets win. I did. I thought it was a great Nuggets win and and you touched on it, uh, Slick, but but um, when the Thunder had a chance to pull away, they didn’t. The Nuggets always came back and they made a key shot or they got a key stop. They never pulled away from this game. And I was like, when they get to the fourth quarter, Yok’s going to take this game over and the Nuggets is going to come back and win this game cuz OKC didn’t play bad. 26 shots is a lot of shots, but Caruso ball. It was role players who ball. Caruso shot the air out of the ball. They played well. The Nuggets just did not go away. 21 offensive rebounds. They don’t have an answer for Joic. Come on, man. Jokic was under the rim getting any offensive rebound he want. Gordon also even even uh what is it? Braun. He was under Yeah, he was he was under the they 21 offensive rebounds. I thought the Nuggets they came out and they played extremely well, but they never went away. But the main thing he said was mindset. Russell Westbrook, the mindset that he brings to that team is different. And he’s bringing it to Joic. I don’t know if y’all seen cuz we talked about Harden in the game sevens and all that yesterday. I don’t know if y’all seen Joic on on the bench. Yep. Jokic on the bench wasn’t playing with nobody. It’s time to go. We got a chance to win this game and steal homecourt advantage. Let’s Let’s go. That’s a seven foot Russell Westbrook right now. You know what I’m saying? He got to be MVP. He playing coaching. The brothers are the mindset that they showed, man. Hey, this is going to be a good series. I don’t think it’s gonna be over soon like Shady, but they never went away in this basketball. And it’s not age youth as much as it’s young inexperience because and I said it like they played five games. I can’t the reason I can’t blame the the Thunder is because they’re a victim of their own success. They played five close games during the regular season because they were blowing everybody out. But as a result and they were they lost four of those five games. They played five games that were decided by three points or less. So when you get in these situations to to to your point AO where you got to milk the clock like you don’t foul right away. They’ve never been in a collectively they’ve never been in a situation like that. The Denver Nuggets have been in a multitude of games like this and won a championship as a result of their execution. So one of the things that Aaron Gordon said after the game when he was asked about why like why did you take that shot? And he said, and he he had to think about it just for a second, but he said the first open shot is a good shot. Didn’t matter that it was a three. It was like, why did you take a three? You didn’t need a three. First open shot is a good shot. Like that has been drilled into them so that when you get in these clutch situations, you’re not questioning like you’re not questioning what you’re supposed to do. It’s like, oh, first I’m open. I’m going to shoot it. Yeah. The Oklahoma City Thunder don’t the coach supposed to prepare you for because it was a lot of timeouts. It’s free throw timeouts, free throws like a coach, but the coaching but the coaching is based on failure. The the coaching is based on you make a mistake, how do we correct it? The Oklahoma City like Mark has never had Mark Dagnel has never had to coach them through how do you know when do we foul, when do we milk the clock. Uh but it’s it’s different experientially. Like I don’t think if Shay was in that situation again, Jay, I don’t think Shay’s dunking it. I think Shay’s going and I think he’s dribbling back out to the three-point line now that Duncan gets cost of the game. Coven, if y’all have that play, show that one. I don’t think Shay’s dunking it. I think Shay’s like, I’m going to waste those extra five to six seconds as opposed to dunking it cuz Steph Curry’s been in that situation. Steph doesn’t dunk it. I think James, you are right. A coach can say something auditorially, but it’s that experiential knowledge that is vastly right here. Say, you don’t need to dunk this. Dribble out, burn another four or five seconds. Now there’s opposes the two free throws. Now there’s no time for Aaron Gordon to gather. My thing go ahead. No, I just think that like having coaching is one thing and they prepare you all the time. And I’m not saying anything about taking away from the coaches. But as players, when you talk about experience, we already know that. You think Steve, you think Steve Kirk got to constantly tell these dudes just small things like that? They already know that. Matter of fact, when as the game is winding down, Draymond and Steph and Jimmy, they already talking about it. You know what I’m saying? Yo, let’s move this clock. Let’s You already So, as a players, like I remember even like playing the game where um you know, we’re milking the clock. We got the league. We’re up by like three. I don’t know. And we’re trying to get a first down. Coach, ain’t you going to tell me to hold on to the ball and stay in town? I’m already thinking that. The only thing is, right, they talk about you shouldn’t score. I’m scoring. Other than that, you I’m joking, but other than that, like I know what’s going on. And I think like if you watch the whole game, the Nugs were down the whole game and like 14 points, 12, 15, 9, seven, it kept coming down. And I never thought they were out the game. You know why? Because the experience. And then as the game got late and got close, it favored them. Because we’ve been here before and y’all haven’t. But it came if you run the play again. This play came off of a timeout. You mean to tell me as a coach, Slick, you like this sh the Shay play? The Shay play. You mean to tell me at coming off of a timeout, hey man, inbound this ball, make a value. We do not have to score. We’re winning. This this don’t this is like the mindset to go score like you’re down. But it’s twofold, Jay. It’s twofold, bro. Because if you’re if you’re Shay, you already know at the end of the day, I’m going to get two points. So, should I get two points at the free throw line? Should I get two points? Right now, as a coach, no shot. Make them foul you. If this is a clear layup, like you said, dribble it out. You’re going to waste five more seconds and they’re going to foul you. But here, here’s why. Another thing is I think I I think they also and from the timeout they were told yo we score get right on defense and pressure the ball up court cuz look at once they score they all get to not only that once they score they inbound this they foul but they call they call they call time out right there but here the reason I’m sh is because you know this Jay we all hear a coach say something in meeting we hear him say it in practice we might even hear him say it in the timeout beforehand but you still got to go execute it. How many times have you been in a game and coach said, “Hey, don’t run out of bounds. Receiver catch a quick hitch route and run out of bounds.” Everybody’s like, “No, no.” Like, I’ I’ve seen that time after time. How many times you hear a coach say, “Hey, end of the game, two hands on the ball, running back.” And somehow someway defender still forces a fumble. How many times you don’t even hear it. You’ve watched the tape of a player, hey, don’t go score cuz if you slide, we win the game. And the player scores and they’re like, well, I’m that player, but I’m the different I’m not just like acting like I don’t know what’s going on. Like, you know what’s going on? No, I’m going to score. But I I say that to say like we hear the coaching a lot, but do you have the experience to go execute it? And that’s what the Thunder just didn’t have last night, but I do think going forward they will have. Hey, got to What up YouTube family? Welcome to the facility. 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Emmanuel Acho, LeSean McCoy, Ric Bucher and James Jones react to the Denver Nuggets snagging a Game 1 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, thanks to Aaron Gordon’s game-winning three. Nikola Jokic finished with 42 points and 22 boards.

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Nuggets showed their championship form in GM 1 win vs OKC, Gordon hits game-winning 3 | THE FACILITY

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