Game 02 : Denver Nuggets (1-0) @ Memphis Grizzlies (0-1)

Post #1 » by **THE J0KER** » Fri Oct 27, 2023 6:10 pm

Memphis without Ja Morant can't win this game but the mighty Nuggets if they underestimate the opponent too much can lose it :lol:

Post #2 » by **THE J0KER** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 12:20 am

Apart from Murray, all other starters were obviously bored in 1st half by Memphis' physical game but thanks to bench X-factors Reggie Jackson and Payton Watson's extra efforts we still lead at halftime (+5). If Watson repeats this level in 2nd half this will be remembered as his breakthrough game!

The big problem is rebounds, Jokic and MPJ 14rb as usual, but the rest of the team has just 7 altogether, so the undersized Grizzlies lead 28-21 (8-2 offensive rebounds) in that segment on halftime.

Post #3 » by **THE J0KER** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 1:39 am

Win is a win and winning ugly against a team playing without a franchise player in this case is not that ugly considering our bench scored 37 points.

Richard Miller · Post #4 » by **Richard Miller** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 4:13 am

Reggie Jackson played really well. I guess this is why he got paid

Maf · Post #5 » by **Maf** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 12:59 pm

I´ll take ugly win over nice loss 10 out of 10, so good.

Watson looks really interesting. I am very pleasantly surprised by Reggie. Last season he looked he is done but so far he plays exactly as I hoped when we traded for him. Even better.

Surprised Nikola had "only" 9 TO. Felt like 15 or 17...

There is one thing I am not happy about, we talked about it last season and it´s still the same. Zeke has 0 rebounds in 25 minutes.

skywalker33 · Post #6 » by **skywalker33** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 4:09 pm

Maf wrote:I´ll take ugly win over nice loss 10 out of 10, so good.

Watson looks really interesting. I am very pleasantly surprised by Reggie. Last season he looked he is done but so far he plays exactly as I hoped when we traded for him. Even better.

Surprised Nikola had "only" 9 TO. Felt like 15 or 17...

There is one thing I am not happy about, we talked about it last season and it´s still the same. Zeke has 0 rebounds in 25 minutes.

Liked the 3-pointers Watson was throwing down, and those blocks were outstanding. Hope he continues to get mins, obvious he’s got talent but needs to develop his offensive game more, he’s got star potential.

Zeke’s lack of rebounding is an issue, even Malone brought this up. He played with energy but if he’s to continue getting PT he’ll need to hit the boards, gotta develop that part of his game.

Agree with Maf, seems they looked disinterested though much of the game, almost like they were underestimating the Grizz ( thought they played well, a very underrated team until Ja gets back )

skywalker33 · Post #7 » by **skywalker33** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 4:31 pm

Richard Miller wrote:Reggie Jackson played really well. I guess this is why he got paid

I hope he plays well enough to get traded, his style of play doesn’t really mesh well with the Joker offense IMO

Maf · Post #8 » by **Maf** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 10:11 pm

skywalker33 wrote:
Maf wrote:I´ll take ugly win over nice loss 10 out of 10, so good.

Watson looks really interesting. I am very pleasantly surprised by Reggie. Last season he looked he is done but so far he plays exactly as I hoped when we traded for him. Even better.

Surprised Nikola had "only" 9 TO. Felt like 15 or 17...

There is one thing I am not happy about, we talked about it last season and it´s still the same. Zeke has 0 rebounds in 25 minutes.

Liked the 3-pointers Watson was throwing down, and those blocks were outstanding. Hope he continues to get mins, obvious he’s got talent but needs to develop his offensive game more, he’s got star potential.

Zeke’s lack of rebounding is an issue, even Malone brought this up. He played with energy but if he’s to continue getting PT he’ll need to hit the boards, gotta develop that part of his game.

Agree with Maf, seems they looked disinterested though much of the game, almost like they were underestimating the Grizz ( thought they played well, a very underrated team until Ja gets back )

Let´s hope Watson goes Leonard´s way. I mean first focus on becoming great defender and if he can develop creating own offense as well, great. But I can already seen why Calvin was so confident we might not feel Brown´s loss too much.

Disinterested or underestimating might be. But gotta say Jamal looked like when the game seemed dubious he made couple of great plays to make us feel confident. His stat line doesn´t look that great but I liked him a lot.

Only thing I don´t agree with is Reggie. You know I am not local but I think Denver tries to sell that "local kid" thing a lot. Same with Billups before. So I hope no trade will happen (not going to get that great of value for him), instead he keeps this performances going on.

Richard Miller · Post #9 » by **Richard Miller** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 10:27 pm

skywalker33 wrote:
Richard Miller wrote:Reggie Jackson played really well. I guess this is why he got paid

I hope he plays well enough to get traded, his style of play doesn’t really mesh well with the Joker offense IMO

The bench never played Joker offense anyway, and they do need someone to score while not being completely useless otherwise (like Bones)

Post #10 » by **THE J0KER** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:21 pm

Richard Miller wrote:
skywalker33 wrote:
Richard Miller wrote:Reggie Jackson played really well. I guess this is why he got paid

I hope he plays well enough to get traded, his style of play doesn’t really mesh well with the Joker offense IMO

The bench never played Joker offense anyway, and they do need someone to score while not being completely useless otherwise (like Bones)

I agree, we have a big problem with Will Barton's inability to adapt his game to Jokic's game simply because Coach Malone insisted Burton be the starter for years. The problem also always appeared when he tried to pair Plumlee with Joker in the starting lineup (and that season with Nurkic), but Plumlee as a bench player did not cause problems due to his incompatibility with Nikola, only as a starter.

BelgradeNugget · Post #11 » by **BelgradeNugget** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 8:53 am

Maf wrote:There is one thing I am not happy about, we talked about it last season and it´s still the same. Zeke has 0 rebounds in 25 minutes.

skywalker33 wrote:Zeke’s lack of rebounding is an issue, even Malone brought this up. He played with energy but if he’s to continue getting PT he’ll need to hit the boards, gotta develop that part of his game.

In this game Zake's lack of rebounds is more proof of deficiency of box score than his lack of "securing the ball after misses shot". In the list you can see there were 4 fouls committed on Nanji by Memphis players by simple fact he was boxing out to secure offensive rebounds. If he wasn't fouled he would have secured 4 O boards. This way he secured 4 new possessions after missed shots by Nuggets + 4 fouls drawn. You can add 1 tipped ball that Braun secured as 1/2 so it would be 4.5 rebs in 13 mins.

Defensively he switches a lot and contests shots a lot (maybe too much sometimes) but in that case other players must help with boards.

Watch on YouTube

skywalker33 · Post #12 » by **skywalker33** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 9:12 pm

Richard Miller wrote:
skywalker33 wrote:
Richard Miller wrote:Reggie Jackson played really well. I guess this is why he got paid

I hope he plays well enough to get traded, his style of play doesn’t really mesh well with the Joker offense IMO

The bench never played Joker offense anyway, and they do need someone to score while not being completely useless otherwise (like Bones)

Reggie definitely got some significant PT with Joker this last game

Richard Miller · Post #13 » by **Richard Miller** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 9:23 pm

skywalker33 wrote:
Richard Miller wrote:
skywalker33 wrote:
I hope he plays well enough to get traded, his style of play doesn’t really mesh well with the Joker offense IMO

The bench never played Joker offense anyway, and they do need someone to score while not being completely useless otherwise (like Bones)

Reggie definitely got some significant PT with Joker this last game

And their off/def numbers are off the charts. Though still very small sample