RealGM

Before yesterday's game, I hoped Nuggets will finally win some close game, because the close game was the most realistic scenario between the two teams considering Nuggets' advantage in quality and Suns' better shape. And fortunately, Denver makes overtime win.

Today Phoenix playing without their best player Booker, so Denver is the bold favorite unless Murray will not play too (we see before he is not 100% healthy, and now he is officially listed as questionable). If Murray will play I hope for a routine win, if not, chances are still in the Nuggets' favor if several players will be positively involved, just like yesterday.

Denver better win tonight and Jokic needs to dominate Ayton , I think he can , he has to attack him all the time.

Booker out with a hamstring injury will help but we still need this as a win to help vault us back to where we belong in the playoff standings. Should also build come confidence and chemistry as it's one of the 1st times the team is healthy.

MPJ is IN THE BUILDING !

Jokic is getting owned by Ayton yet again, Ayton is scoring at will against him and Jokic can't do anything on the other side, Ayton can hold his ground and Jokic wont mix up offensively , no jump shots , three point attempts , just pathetic effort.

Hard to complain, since we have the 3rd best offense and are on somewhat of an upwards trajectory. But our offense is sooo stagnant the last few games. Not a lot of ball movement, not a lot of player movement. A lot of Jokic iso with all the other players watching, a lot of Jokic/Murray two man game with no involvement of other players.

Mickey8 wrote:Jokic is getting owned by Ayton yet again, Ayton is scoring at will against him and Jokic can't do anything on the other side, Ayton can hold his ground and Jokic wont mix up offensively , no jump shots , three point attempts , just pathetic effort.

Without Booker, Ayton is the ultimate Suns option today, so our problem in 1st half is not 15pts from Ayton but 12 points both from two role players forwards Cameroon Johnson and Jae Crowder. Malone has wrong playing time management on forwards position once again, so Porter and Green shooting 7-9 scored 21 points in just 20 minutes while Millsap and Barton playing 28 minutes scored only 3pts (1-6 shooting). He should change it in 2nd half.

Murray have bailed out Jokic and the Nuggets tonight, Jokic did everything to loose this game , Ayton pretty much shut Jokic down, he couldn't do anything back to the basket against Ayton, Jokic was slow and predictable and he didn't mix it up his game,he did not attempt jump shots and the three point shots , no pick and roll and pick and pop . Only when Ayton was fouled out Jokic was able to bully Kaminsky and score over him easily. Also if Malone had the guts and left the bench in the game to close the fourth quarter , this would have been a win without going into double overtime, I don't understand why the coaches have the need to bring the starters to close the game , when the bench is playing great , almost cost Denver game tonight

Mickey8 wrote:Jokic is getting owned by Ayton yet again, Ayton is scoring at will against him and Jokic can't do anything on the other side, Ayton can hold his ground and Jokic wont mix up offensively , no jump shots , three point attempts , just pathetic effort.

LMAO on your statements as usual, you have a VERY BAD troll job going on there, bro.

Jokic have to start figuring out Ayton, he's already problem for him, since that first game when Jokic had that monster triple double double, when Ayton was the rookie, Ayton have won pretty much every head to head duel . Ayton's size ,length and mobility is bothering Jokic a lot, that's why Jokic have to change playing strategy against him , shoot from the perimeter, drive the basketball, beat him off the dribbling, less post up's.

Those were two big wins but the team is playing bad , also lots of luck that Booker got injured.

Undeserved, but important win for the Nuggets. The good news is that Mavs and GSW lost their games too, so Nuggets in just two days with two back-to-back wins jumped from #10 place to #5 on the West!

29-22-6 Jokic has MVP numbers once again, but this time thanks to great rebounding and double overtime extra 10 minutes.
26-6-5 Murray has a good all-around game once again and literally saved Nuggets with a 3pt buzzer to put the game into overtime.
14-11 Porter can't miss a shot in 1st half (including 3-3 for 3pt) but Malone benched him after 10 minutes. In the rest of the game, MPJ was very passive, scored only 2pts in 25 minutes, but with Jokic he secured Nuggets rebounding domination, so there is the reason why he has +19 in +/- in a close game.
Harris was good at limiting M.Bridges and good from 3pt.
Morris has bad 1st half but the rest of the match was very good offensively.
Green was 16-5 very useful playing just 23 minutes.
Dozier is decent except at the end of 1st OT when in the last 15 seconds he makes a bad foul (happily Nader missed 2 of 3) and bad defense on Crowder who tied with a three-pointer. Better if MPJ stays, he is not undersized.
Unlike yesterday, Barton and Millsap were two-way bad today with 1-11 shooting (3pts overall) and bad defense on Crowder and Johnson (40pts together). They should be replaced in starting lineup with Porter and Green.

Mickey8 wrote:Jokic have to start figuring out Ayton, he's already problem for him, since that first game when Jokic had that monster triple double double, when Ayton was the rookie, Ayton have won pretty much every head to head duel . Ayton's size ,length and mobility is bothering Jokic a lot, that's why Jokic have to change playing strategy against him , shoot from the perimeter, drive the basketball, beat him off the dribbling, less post up's.

Those were two big wins but the team is playing bad , also lots of luck that Booker got injured.

Since Ayton was drafted Denver lead 10-2 vs Phoenix, so I don't see the true rivalry there. Jokic's real rivalry on center position is with Embiid (honorary mention Gobert and KAT). Davis and Giannis are big too despite more playing on PF, while LeBron and Doncic are elite all-around players, so these 4 also deserved to be mentioned when we talking about a rivalry with Jokic. Ayton must establish himself first as a true TOP50 player before comparing him with true TOP10 players like Jokic.

Suns playing without their #1 offensive player and the Nuggets have to make an at-the-buzzer shot just to get to OT. It seems like the Nuggets just didn't feel like applying themselves until they were desperate. It didn't help that we only played 3 bigs and Malone's new ultra-small ball lineup dominated our game.

Phoenix outscored the Nuggets in the first three quarters. Jokic only had 6 assists for the game and that is a good indication that there wasn't enough movement on offense.

As for the Jokic - Ayton debate; Jokic did not have a very good game shooting and Ayton did. That seems fairly normal when these two teams play - mostly that Ayton tends to have a good offensive game against Jokic. Often times that seems to be due to pick-n-rolls involving Booker. But in this game, it didn't seem like Jokic was in very many pick-n-roll situations. So I'm not sure why Ayton seemed to do so well. The truth is Ayton shot 50% and had 17 pts with 13 rebounds; while Jokic shot 43% and had 29 points with 22 rebounds. Ayton does well against Denver but I'd say Jokic had the better game - especially because Denver won.

Phoenix had 61 points in the first half. That's a good indication of lack of effort and hustle on defense.

As has been said, scoring isn't our problem. Defensive rankings on the year point out a problem.

21st - points allowed

20th - FG allowed
27th - Opponents FG%

22nd - 3pt allowed
25th - Opponents 3pt%

28th - assists allowed

25th - defensive rating

Its Jokic fault that he didn"t get involved into pick and roll and pick and pop's , he's the best player on the team, he has all the leverage, let his teammates run those plays , he can score in the variety ways yet he settled for the most inefficient way against Ayton (with the basketball iq Jokic posses ,I thought he should know better but he's so stubborn at the times ) , Jokic took him self out of the game, first he didn't look to score at all in the first five minutes of the game and when he did, he tried the post up's every time and he was stopped by Ayton on every attempt easily, he couldn't move him at all , he was either blocked or left for some impossible fade away's , yet when he drove the basketball and attacked Ayton he was able to score once I think, easily , why not mix up the game , let Ayton think a little , against some players Jokic is not able to score withe the back to the basket effectively, Howard is another one , those strong , long physical players, gives him the trouble.

THE J0KER wrote:

Mickey8 wrote:Jokic have to start figuring out Ayton, he's already problem for him, since that first game when Jokic had that monster triple double double, when Ayton was the rookie, Ayton have won pretty much every head to head duel . Ayton's size ,length and mobility is bothering Jokic a lot, that's why Jokic have to change playing strategy against him , shoot from the perimeter, drive the basketball, beat him off the dribbling, less post up's.

Those were two big wins but the team is playing bad , also lots of luck that Booker got injured.

Since Ayton was drafted Denver lead 10-2 vs Phoenix, so I don't see the true rivalry there. Jokic's real rivalry on center position is with Embiid (honorary mention Gobert and KAT). Davis and Giannis are big too despite more playing on PF, while LeBron and Doncic are elite all-around players, so these 4 also deserved to be mentioned when we talking about a rivalry with Jokic. Ayton must establish himself first as a true TOP50 player before comparing him with true TOP10 players like Jokic.

That's not the point that Denver is 10-2 against the Suns , someday they will meet in the play off's and Ayton will own him there too , if Jokic plays this way against him, I think Ayton is in his head. One of the players he really struggle against.

Good game. Jokic is a star. Good fortune in the wars to come.

Mickey8 wrote:Its Jokic fault that he didn"t get involved into pick and roll and pick and pop's , he's the best player on the team, he has all the leverage, let his teammates run those plays , he can score in the variety ways yet he settled for the most inefficient way against Ayton (with the basketball iq Jokic posses ,I thought he should know better but he's so stubborn at the times ) , Jokic took him self out of the game, first he didn't look to score at all in the first five minutes of the game and when he did, he tried the post up's every time and he was stopped by Ayton on every attempt easily, he couldn't move him at all , he was either blocked or left for some impossible fade away's , yet when he drove the basketball and attacked Ayton he was able to score once I think, easily , why not mix up the game , let Ayton think a little , against some players Jokic is not able to score withe the back to the basket effectively, Howard is another one , those strong , long physical players, gives him the trouble.

Make no mistake, Malone calls the plays and if the players don't run what he calls, ... well, he calls the plays.

The pick-n-rolls I worry about are when Booker is on offense. When Jokic is on offense, our opponents worry. He can score against almost anyone. You are correct, he doesn't look to score enough IMO. But that's his game. I've said it before and I believe it; Jokic's ideal game would be around 15 points, 20 rebounds, and 30 assists.

Without Booker, this should have never gone to OT . That's not to say PHX is a one-man team, they have talent and should be a force in the playoffs as seen in their playoff run last year as well as their start this season. However, we were at full strength, guess that also lends to the PHX talent as well but Millsap didn't show, Barton was MIA which show me that Malone is too set to play his best 5 (Green and MPJ should be starting).

skywalker33 wrote:Without Booker, this should have never gone to OT . That's not to say PHX is a one-man team, they have talent and should be a force in the playoffs as seen in their playoff run last year as well as their start this season. However, we were at full strength, guess that also lends to the PHX talent as well but Millsap didn't show, Barton was MIA which show me that Malone is too set to play his best 5 (Green and MPJ should be starting).

You're right, the game should have ended on a Jamal Murray FT hohoho...

but yes the game was a little too close for against a team missing their 2nd best player. Perhaps that simply means we were missing out on a key contributor too..