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Capt'n Obvious, reporting for duty ! To me, MPJ and Campazzo are the keys to this series, MPJ for his offense, Facu for his defense on Dame. This first game will show us where we're gonna land and how hard we're gonna have to work.

Go Nuggets !

skywalker33 wrote:Capt'n Obvious, reporting for duty ! To me, MPJ and Campazzo are the keys to this series, MPJ for his offense, Facu for his defense on Dame. This first game will show us where we're gonna land and how hard we're gonna have to work.

Go Nuggets !

That does not qualify for "Capt'n Obvious" - sorry about that. Capt'n Obvious would have started with:

1. Jokic must have a dominant game.
Then
2. MPJ is a key to the series for his offense
and
3. Campazzo needs to be a real pest on defense against Lillard.

Capt'n Obvious' side kick would have said

But what about Denver needing some bench help?

skywalker33 wrote:Go Nuggets !

NuggetsWY wrote:

skywalker33 wrote:Capt'n Obvious, reporting for duty ! To me, MPJ and Campazzo are the keys to this series, MPJ for his offense, Facu for his defense on Dame. This first game will show us where we're gonna land and how hard we're gonna have to work.

Go Nuggets !

That does not qualify for "Capt'n Obvious" - sorry about that. Capt'n Obvious would have started with:

1. Jokic must have a dominant game.
Then
2. MPJ is a key to the series for his offense
and
3. Campazzo needs to be a real pest on defense against Lillard.

Capt'n Obvious' side kick would have said

But what about Denver needing some bench help?

My #1 would probably be to outscore POR at the end of regulation.

Kidding aside, I gotta agree with Sky. If Facu could somehow frustrate and take Dame out of his element, then we'd probably already won 50% of the ball game.

MPJ shouldn't settle for jumpers since no one on that Blazers starting unit can match-up with him size-wise. Covington in my opinion has become overrated defensively.

Also looking forward to see what Gordon brings to the table in this series.

Let's GO Nuggets!

Gotta say, I hate being the late game

In an expected close game anything can be the key. But I really hope we will win this game one. It would be so important for our goal to reach the 2nd round of playoff 3rd straight year.

Those 3-pts shots are gonna kill us.

Tight game, but that's what all our games have been so far.

1st half, good things: rebounding, and Jokic and Porter scoring and efficiency.
The bad things: 3pt shooting and defending and lack of assists. Melo from the bench 15p in just 12 minutes.

We will not win the title this season, it is clear after Murray's injury, but we still can beat Portland in this series. It is nothing new for Denver to give an early lead to the opponent. In all 6 playoff series, Malone played with Denver the opponents first take a break, so this series is no exception. But that also means that once we are ready to fight for the title we need some other coach. Malone's preparation for the PO series is awful. And he once again irritates me with his playing time management. Why Jokic played just 35 minutes (compared to Lillard's 40) and Gordon only 28 in a game after 7 days pause??

Jokic was 34-16 great, but just one single assist, his best weapon. Porter was 12-21 from the field (25 points) but just 1-10 for the threes, his best weapon... Denver shooting 3pt was pathetic 11-36 while Blazers shooting was 19-40 impressive, and that makes difference.

1.) Pathetic defense. Both in terms of PnR and just individual. Portland is abusing that 2 man game with Lillard and Nurkic, and it's working well. Because Lillard attracts two defenders and is able to thread the pass to Nurkic who either has a choice to get a layup or pass it to the open man. That was what killed the Nuggets and I'm not sure if they have the personnel to deal with that. Unless the Blazers start missing their 3s.

2.) The inability to make 3s. This has been a theme in the last few games for the Nuggets. If they can't match Portland offensively, they're going to get swept.

THE J0KER wrote:We will not win the title this season, it is clear after Murray's injury, but we still can beat Portland in this series. It is nothing new for Denver to give an early lead to the opponent. In all 6 playoff series, Malone played with Denver the opponents first take a break, so this series is no exception. But that also means that once we are ready to fight for the title we need some other coach. Malone's preparation for the PO series is awful. And he once again irritates me with his playing time management. Why Jokic played just 35 minutes (compared to Lillard's 40) and Gordon only 28 in a game after 7 days pause??

Jokic was 34-16 great, but just one single assist, his best weapon. Porter was 12-21 from the field (25 points) but just 1-10 for the threes, his best weapon... Denver shooting 3pt was pathetic 11-36 while Blazers shooting was 19-40 impressive, and that makes difference.

Perhaps you are right, that we won't win the title, and I'm not going to bet that they will, but I still think it's possible.

I wasn't too upset with Malone's rotation - in terms of who he played and didn't.
But I also wonder at why Jokic didn't play more minutes. He's perfectly capable of doing so.
I wonder why Gordon didn't play more minutes. He's supposed to be a defensive ace and we sure needed more defense! For only 28 minutes, he had a nice all-around game.

As for Jokic's assist count, I've complained about that too many times. He can't get an assist, if everyone stands still watching him.

As expected, Portland's guards dominated. We've got some nice guards. I've been impressed with Campazzo this year and I'm still a Morris fan. I hope we keep them long-term - but as bench players. Howard has impressed me too - great effort. Rivers looks like a nice fit in Denver. However, I don't believe even Murray would have made enough of a difference. Perhaps we can outscore Portland, but our defense allowed Lillard & McCollum to score 55 points (around what's expected).

Also as expected, Portland's bench out-scored Denver's bench 34-20 (just 60 minutes to our 75 bench minutes). They only played 8 players to Denver's 9. We like our players but our team is not as deep as we'd like to believe. But that's just my opinion and I've been wrong before. Then again, as I said at the beginning of my post - "Perhaps ... we won't win the title ... but I still think it's possible.".

Their 3-pt shots were going down, but can they sustain that ? They hit almost 50% from beyond the arc, that has been a weakness here before. Have to see what kind of adjustments Malone and this team makes.

I hate to say it but as soon as I saw Marc Davis was the ref I knew we were going to lose. Every time we started to go on a run we were getting called for touch fouls last night. Even worse than that, Jokic is considerably less aggressive on defense in the games that Davis refs as well.

We do have some big issues though. Malone needs to switch MPJ and Gordon on defense, having Gordon on Covington and being the primary help defender makes no sense. Gordon has always been a better man to man defender and it was obvious he was intimidated trying to cover the paint when Nurkic and Kanter were coming down the lane. While MPJ may miss some rotations he is not intimidated and he is a considerably better shot blocker. MPJ is also never going to be great covering the guards on switches while Gordon is at least solid in that situation.

The lack of shooting from our guards kills our offense. Is Morris still on a minutes restriction? If not than I think you need to start him with Campazzo. When Morris goes off than we have to play Howard at PG, at least until Barton or Dozier get back. We cannot have 2 guys on the court that the defense does not respect their shooting with JOkic, it kills the entire offense when they can go under screens and have an extra defender around the paint.

While the speed and energy from our bench going small worked in the late 3rd early 4th, it was pretty obvious to me that Malone stuck with it too long. I also think to win the series we need to play McGee. While the spacing for the bench suffers, if we get out and run, we can still score and create the defensive havoc that the bench created during their good stretches.

If our perimeter defense remains as bad as it was last night than I fully expect the Trailblazers to continue to hit shots at close to 50% from outside, but I also expect MPJ to shoot better from outside as well.

It is a long series, I still think we can win, but our guard's are a big problem. Malone needs to figure **** out now before the series gets out of control.

8 free throw attempts. 0 by the entire Denver bench. 64 minutes of starting backcourt play and 14 points. When I saw Austin Rivers in the starting lineup staring at Dame and CJ I shed a tear. If I'd told you that your starting game 1 playoff backcourt would be Austin Rivers and Campazzo back in October you'd have assumed that Denver's team plane had crashed mid-season.

Malone has to stop using Jokic for full 3rd Q, instead do it in 4th, i hate that, every time game is breaking Jokic is on the bench

psimanic1 wrote:Malone has to stop using Jokic for full 3rd Q, instead do it in 4th, i hate that, every time game is breaking Jokic is on the bench

Well, we do have 3rd quarter problems and letting him rest a little at the start of the 4th makes him more ready for the end --- but I totally get it. Malone often rests him too long at the beginning of the 4th, in my opinion.

nedleeds wrote:8 free throw attempts. 0 by the entire Denver bench. 64 minutes of starting backcourt play and 14 points. When I saw Austin Rivers in the starting lineup staring at Dame and CJ I shed a tear. If I'd told you that your starting game 1 playoff backcourt would be Austin Rivers and Campazzo back in October you'd have assumed that Denver's team plane had crashed mid-season.

Well, thanks for the positive encouragement - and you are correct. But we overcame two missing starters last year, and I'll wait to see if we can do it again.

I'm not saying I totally agree with you - but I totally agree with you.

The Rebel wrote:I hate to say it but as soon as I saw Marc Davis was the ref I knew we were going to lose. Every time we started to go on a run we were getting called for touch fouls last night. Even worse than that, Jokic is considerably less aggressive on defense in the games that Davis refs as well.

Sad but true. It's a problem for various teams with various officials. I know Mark Cuban started charting refs so he could report them to the NBA - but I doubt they did anything because they don't like Cuban either.

The Rebel wrote:We do have some big issues though. Malone needs to switch MPJ and Gordon on defense, having Gordon on Covington and being the primary help defender makes no sense. Gordon has always been a better man to man defender and it was obvious he was intimidated trying to cover the paint when Nurkic and Kanter were coming down the lane. While MPJ may miss some rotations he is not intimidated and he is a considerably better shot blocker. MPJ is also never going to be great covering the guards on switches while Gordon is at least solid in that situation.

I disagree with Malone often on defense, but since our defense has never been great under Malone, there's a lot of things to complain about. Your suggestion seems perfectly logical, so I doubt we will see it happen - Malone tends to be one who sticks to his plans regardless of what happens.

The Rebel wrote:The lack of shooting from our guards kills our offense. Is Morris still on a minutes restriction? If not than I think you need to start him with Campazzo. When Morris goes off than we have to play Howard at PG, at least until Barton or Dozier get back. We cannot have 2 guys on the court that the defense does not respect their shooting with JOkic, it kills the entire offense when they can go under screens and have an extra defender around the paint.

Totally accurate and true. I'm really liking Campazzo's game but the problem is, he prefers to pass instead of shoot and yet he only gets a few assists per game. Passing is Jokic's greatest strength and our guards need to shoot if they are open. If they can't hit open shots, they don't need to play. Our current guard rotation seems almost afraid to shoot - my opinion. If they would pass and cut, they would get open more often. This would give them even more scoring opportunities. Unfortunately, they like to think of themselves as Jokic-fans and they just stand around and watch him.

The Rebel wrote:While the speed and energy from our bench going small worked in the late 3rd early 4th, it was pretty obvious to me that Malone stuck with it too long. I also think to win the series we need to play McGee. While the spacing for the bench suffers, if we get out and run, we can still score and create the defensive havoc that the bench created during their good stretches.

Traditionally, most short players have been used in short spurts as change-of-pace players. I do not understand Malone's usage of Campazzo & Howard - even when we are short-handed. He tends towards a more traditional game - but not in his usage of guards. (Then again, Portland's using three not-so-tall guards, so ...)

The Rebel wrote:If our perimeter defense remains as bad as it was last night than I fully expect the Trailblazers to continue to hit shots at close to 50% from outside, but I also expect MPJ to shoot better from outside as well.

Two very true statements. That's why the Blazers do and that's what Porter does.

The Rebel wrote:It is a long series, I still think we can win, but our guard's are a big problem. Malone needs to figure **** out now before the series gets out of control.

I still believe we can win and since I don't trust Malone, I'm hoping the players figure **** out in time.