charley barkles wrote:bwgood77 wrote:Back to our game. I don't expect the Nuggets to come back but Utah beat them by 19 in game 2 last year, then 37 in game 3, and then up 2-1 after those blowouts, they hung on to beat the Nuggets by 2 in game 4, to go up 3-1 before losing the last 3.
Clips also beat the Nuggets in game 1 last year by 23, and then games 3 and 4 by 17 before the Nuggets won 3 straight. So they do have resilience.
Of course they are missing Murray but just thought I'd point that they got blown out a few times in the beginning of series last year and trailed by 2 games before winning the series.
No Murray, no Harris, no Grant, no Craig. This Denver team is way different. Plus, I think this Suns team is better than last years Utah or Clippers teams.
I guess anything is possible - I just don’t see it happening.
Sure, the Nuggets have Gordon, Barton, JaMychal Green, Campazzo and Rivers instead of Murray, Harris, Grant and Craig, but I don't know that the latter is THAT much better. Grant was good but not great last year..Murray was great and Harris solid, but Gordon and Barton are no scrubs, Campazzo plays hard and Green and Rivers are decent.
But I agree. I think we are better than the Jazz last year, but Mitchell was on fire kind of like he's been the last few games, and they were still a tough team that had been there.
Then the Clips...are we better? I don't know. I know we beat them in the bubble on that last second shot, and are obviously a lot better this year, but they still had their same big guns plus 6th man of the year Montrezl Harrell and I think the runner up in Lou Williams.
The Clips were 49-23 to our 51-21, but we did play a lot more injured teams. The bubble win was actually the difference or we actually have the same record they did last year.
And they didn't take all 8 bubble games seriously.
Kawhi was coming off a championship.
Most here have wanted to avoid the Clippers this year and they may have been better last year.
My point is that 2-0 series are blown all the time...even with blowout wins. I've seen it with the Suns against the Rockets...twice.
The first time in 94 we won the first two on the road, and then lost the next two at home.
In 95 they were the 6 seed and I thought we were the best team in the NBA and we beat them by 22 in game one and 24 in game 2, lost game 4, won game 4 to go up 3-1 and lost the series.
I doubt we lose, but Jokic, who was better this year, Porter, who is better this year, Gordon, who is tough and Barton who wasn't in the playoffs last year are not bad. A lot may depend on Porter, if they come to play hard and if Jokic chokes.
I think we will come out strong though. Nothing would surprise me except us getting blown out. I could see us killing them, pulling one out, or them playing tough and pulling one out, or possibly two. We could sweep them, come back up 3-1, or even 2-2.
I guess my bet would probably be 3-1. I don't know that we shoot quite as well as we did, and we have been fortunate with injuries, with none for us and a few for them.
However, I do think this is the best we've played all season the way we are distributing the scoring evenly and all the starters have been in double digits, and are shooters are starting to break out of their slumps.