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Always a tough matchup, Jokic will need a nice game, so will Murray. More important, they will need two or three other players to step up in scoring. jokic will also need help with the rebounding from Millsap and Plumlee.

Unfortunately, this game starts before OKC-HOU showdown, so we don't know is this "must win" game or not.

If Jazz also wants to calculate, they will realize that today they have more benefits from a loss than from a win

When Oklahoma game once starts I don't know which game I should watch today

Mitchell must hate us for trading him to UTH, he's going off on us again. And how does the Jazz front line get up on ours ??

Glad to see us finishing the season strong...

Major backfire on the resting, maybe they thought they were STILL resting. Feels like the same old story though, that Wizard game came back to bite us in the a$$, sure there were a few more just like that.

Our front line SUCKED tonight, like they didn't even show up. Worst performance of the season by Jokic, he saved that one for a crucial time Six fouls in 17mins...did the refs have it out for him or did he just get frustrated ?

We are dumbest or smartest team in the league, I will tell you in next 10 minutes.

Hard to win in Utah when 3/5ths of your starting lineup (including your best player) do absolutely nothing. Utah has mastered Houston's gameplan with Mitchell/Gobert filling the roles of Harden/Capela.

I'm worried this team could be in for a rude awakening when faced with playoff physicality. Their inability to draw fouls and get to the line when jumpers aren't falling could become a big problem.

Our defense looked like our guys came from 12 different countries, speaking 12 different languages, who had only 3 minutes to plan their game. They didn't know when they were supposed to switch on a pick or when they were supposed to trail over the top or drop under or let the big hedge out.

Rebounding was Plumlee doing some and Jokic/Murray doing just a little.

Scoring was led by Beasley off the bench followed by starter Murray and bench Morris. Harris started well, pushing to the hoop, but ... Murray, Harris, Beasley, Morris, Plumlee scored 94 of our 108 points while Millsap, Barton, Jokic, Craig, Hernangomez, Vanderbilt combined for 15 points - that's 3 starters scoring 7 points & 3 bench players scoring 7 points.

Interesting to see Denver have fewer turnovers and more steals.

Everything except Nuggets have been perfect tonight, what a 3 from PG!!

Towns won't play tomorrow. If SAS wins DAL, we won't meet OKC in first round.

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Jokic played only 12 minutes in the 1st half, despite not have fouls trouble (only 2), but he was obviously humiliated when Malone sit him down about 3 minutes before halftime. And as we know, when Jokic loses his coolness, he is able to do something irrationally childish, to be ejected, or in this case to commit fast several silly fouls (4 fouls in just his 4 minutes played in the 2nd half). The guy with such high BBIQ and all-star status should stop doing such things, but also, Malone should not ignore NBA golden rule "TRUST IN YOUR STAR", especially in so important games. He decided to reduce Jokic minutes on under 25 in a potentially most important game of the regular season which decides our seed status (ok, we was lucky at the end) just because he missed three shots in the row!? Crazy!

THE J0KER wrote:Jokic played only 12 minutes in the 1st half, despite not have fouls trouble (only 2), but he was obviously humiliated when Malone sit him down about 3 minutes before halftime. And as we know, when Jokic loses his coolness, he is able to do something irrationally childish, to be ejected, or in this case to commit fast several silly fouls (4 fouls in just his 4 minutes played in the 2nd half). The guy with such high BBIQ and all-star status should stop doing such things, but also, Malone should not ignore NBA golden rule "TRUST IN YOUR STAR", especially in so important games. He decided to reduce Jokic minutes on under 25 in a potentially most important game of the regular season which decides our seed status (ok, we was lucky at the end) just because he missed three shots in the row!? Crazy!

Some players can play with foul trouble.
Some players can learn how to play while in foul trouble.
Clearly Malone isn't going to give Jokic a chance to find out if he can play with foul trouble or not. That's too bad because I suspect he could do it sometimes.

There were a couple of terrible foul calls on Jokic and Harris, ensuring we were taken out of the game, but Jokic and Millsap both looked like they were at practice more than a game last night, no intensity.

Something interesting did occur to me last night though, running makes Gobert very ineffective, in the 1st half when we were running we caught up quickly and the Jazz were out of sorts. Don't know why that changed in the 2nd half but the running clearly stopped.

Why is it the Nuggets have 1 rule book that is enforced against them and everybody else seems to have another? The Jazz were clearly being physical and committing hard fouls on almost every play but they sure did not get called for them.

I wonder what a package of Barton and a 1st would have brought back if we did not use our 1st in a salary dump this year already?

I cannot believe that the Thunder pulled off their late game comeback, they really did not want to be the 8th seed, and it saved the 2nd seed for us, now we just need to beat the Twolves and we can still lock up the 2 seed.

The Rebel wrote:Why is it the Nuggets have 1 rule book that is enforced against them and everybody else seems to have another? The Jazz were clearly being physical and committing hard fouls on almost every play but they sure did not get called for them.

I''ve thought about it and I think it's because Jokic is doughy and looks like a pillow. If he were a 260 lbs of muscles and asking for the same calls they would probably agree because of some mix of intimidation and also physical respect.

U hova wrote:

The Rebel wrote:Why is it the Nuggets have 1 rule book that is enforced against them and everybody else seems to have another? The Jazz were clearly being physical and committing hard fouls on almost every play but they sure did not get called for them.

I''ve thought about it and I think it's because Jokic is doughy and looks like a pillow. If he were a 260 lbs of muscles and asking for the same calls they would probably agree because of some mix of intimidation and also physical respect.

It's been like that for a few years. It sure seems like Gallinari & Jokic earned a lack of respect because of their flopping and with Jokic, his incessant whining doesn't help. Makes me feel like he belonged on the Griffin-Paul Clippers. The truth is that the Nuggets tend to play a "soft" game. When our bigs set a pick, our smalls tend to not cut close, etc. The only "tough guy" seems to be Murray. I love watching him shove the bigs when he's isolated down low. The rest of the Nuggets are soft-to-average in terms of toughness. That's why the Nuggets receive physical play IMO.

Why don't the Nuggets get the same calls? Because they tend to play soft and lazy on defense. In particular, they don't move their feet/bodies - instead they do a lot of reaching and slapping. Since it's pretty much everyone on the team, I have to believe it is the planned approach to defense.