2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West Semifinals: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Denver Nuggets (DEN leads 2-1)

[TheGeneral99]

Wait you expect his team to win the championship every year?

So in other words if your team doesn't win a championship your supporting cast isn't good enough. Man stop with all these excuses.

Uhhh no. You're basically saying that Jokic has help, using the one time he won a championship. But are conveniently ignoring all of the other years he didn't win, when a lot of times of his teammates were either injured or didn't play well in the playoffs. He's been in the league 10 years you know.

OKC has had one of the best rosters in basketball and still haven't won a championship.

LeBron and Luka were teammates they won no championship.

Harden/Kawhi can't win a championship.

Giannis/Dame didn't win a championship.

Boston has the best roster in the NBA and they about to get bounced in the 2nd round!

Sir you don't seem to understand winning a championship is hard. Just because Jokic doesn't win a championship every year doesn't mean his supporting cast sucks. Cmon man wake up!

OKC - Still extremely young with players not even at their primes.
Harden/Kawhi - Harden is 35 years old and not near the player he was in his prime
Giannis/Dame - Dame missed the end of the season and most of the 1st round
Boston - Great all around without a true MVP caliber player.

I think it's fair to say that Jokic is the best player in the world and compared to most championship teams he has had less talent on his roster around him. I don't think people are saying the supporting cast sucks, but we know Murray is a streaky player and while very good, not an all-star. MPJ is also a very good, but not all-star caliber player. The Nuggets depth has not been very good this year. The Nuggets split with Jokic on vs. Jokic off are just insane.

I think the difference is this...if lets say Tatum got hurt, or Lebron got hurt, or Harden got hurt...those teams would still be solid teams as long as the rest of the team is healthy. If Jokic got hurt the Nuggets aren't making the playoffs.

I do think that if Jokic was paired next to another superstar player they would be the clear favorites every year.

[Bergmaniac]

Never expected the Nuggets to beat the Thunder on a night Jokic shot so poorly and was a turnover machine. Happy for AG and I am amazed how much he improved as a shooter, even last year he was pretty porr as a shooter and now he is so reliable and confident. Murray proving his doubters wrong, MPJ gutting out a great performance.

Hopefully both teams have enough left in a tank for another great game on Sunday afternoon, it's idiotic there is so little time between the games.

[Yoshun]

What's so suprising? They bailed him out when he won the chip too.

But it does sound pretty cool to say he has never had an all-star play next to him.

Adds to the mythology and hagiography of Jokic.

You need to take a look at Jokic's numbers from that championship run, they're historically good. Murray played the best ball of his career and was an absolute beast in that run and his whole team played well, don't get me wrong, but to say his team bailed him out is just not accurate. He was an absolute monster in those playoffs.

[Lunartic]

Notice how the discourse is all about Jokic having a poor shooting night and winning vs SGA the presumed MVP having a poor shooting night and losing.

Clearly, we all regard Jokic as the actual MVP this season and thus he's held to a higher standard

[Los_29]

Jokic’s been worse than SGA in the series, though.

18 assists to 21 turnovers for Jokic on bad defense

24 assists to 4 turnovers for SGA on good defense.

Jokic’s cast stepping up has been the difference for them

Not to be rude but if you think Jokic has been bad defensively this series you don’t know basketball

No you

Jokic has not been bad defensively. In fact, he’s been quite good.

[KGDirkTD_Fan]

sure the players have a lot to blame for their struggles down the line, but mymain issue with okc is that mark d is not using his best performing players

cason and caruso have both outplayed dort by a sensible margin. dort has been smoked by jamal murray all series long (and he usually has problems vs quicker and nimble guards that get skinny).

obviously hartenstein is having a decent series in many aspects (even though he choked yesterday) but having a non shooter above jaylin williams who has looked fine bugs me too.

at the beginning of the series i thought the problem of being deep is that coach has too many ways to **** it up and it's happening.

yesterday we were terrible at shooting from anywhere. why not betting on a more suffocating perimeter defense that has brought the games to us so often in this series

i don't understand...

He hasn't figured out that his regular season tricks don't work in the playoffs. His inexperience is showing the most, especially in tight quarters.

His seat is still quite cold but he needs to learn quickly.

They have a good problem in that they have too many good players on the bench. They can't all be getting minutes. Eventually you are forced to play your best 7 to 8 guys almost all of the minutes in the playoffs. Maybe player #7 and #8 is different series to series but Mark D is going to have to consolidate some of those minutes...to much is spread out between 6-10.

[SweetTouch]

I don’t understand what’s so difficult

NBA is about superstars and robins

The thunder lack both

Well they got the robin in SGA? But they need the superstar

[karmew32]

The swings on the narrative of this series have been wild

after game 1: thunder choke can't recover
after game 2: thunder best team ever no one can compete with them
after game 3: thunder are done cant beat nuggets in a close game.

I see it as the Thunder clearly being the better team but if a game is close, the Nuggets will win.

[Dadouv47]

I don’t understand what’s so difficult

NBA is about superstars and robins

The thunder lack both

Well they got the robin in SGA? But they need the superstar

say that to the Boston Celtics that won the Championship last season

[Dadouv47]

The swings on the narrative of this series have been wild

after game 1: thunder choke can't recover
after game 2: thunder best team ever no one can compete with them
after game 3: thunder are done cant beat nuggets in a close game.

I see it as the Thunder clearly being the better team but if a game is close, the Nuggets will win.

agree but it's not often that the better team is +20 before the 4rd quarter. OKC scored 2 basket in the last 8 minutes yesterday and I don't think they scored a ton in the 4th quarter in game 1 either so your odds to win a game are not good (even more on the road)

[Dadouv47]

If OKC is unable to win close games they might (unlikely) get past Denver but then will lose against Minny or whoever they face in the Finals. Not being great late in games is one thing but being this bad offensively in clutch time is insurmountable

[Stone]

Denver is looking like the team to beat. Porter and Gordon have been difference makers, if they can keep dropping 20 +, the Nuggets are going to be hard to beat.

[karmew32]

If OKC is unable to win close games they might (unlikely) get past Denver but then will lose against Minny or whoever they face in the Finals. Not being great late in games is one thing but being this bad offensively in clutch time is insurmountable

Minnesota is similarly bad in the clutch. Just watch last year's WCF. Granted, the Mavs were an insane clutch team, but still.

I think the Warriors will make the WCF though. Like Denver and last year's Mavs, they're a team you don't wanna be in a close game against.

[nbafan38]

If OKC is unable to win close games they might (unlikely) get past Denver but then will lose against Minny or whoever they face in the Finals. Not being great late in games is one thing but being this bad offensively in clutch time is insurmountable

Depends if the more accurate narrative is the thunder are bad in close games or the nuggets are clutch in close games. I don't know.

I agree though Minny with Edwards and GS with Curry and Butler both have big time closers so it may be hard for the thunder to get to the finals if they even get out out of this round.

[Raps in 4]

If OKC is unable to win close games they might (unlikely) get past Denver but then will lose against Minny or whoever they face in the Finals. Not being great late in games is one thing but being this bad offensively in clutch time is insurmountable

I wonder if this is because they blew out every team during the season. They rarely got to practice playing in close games.

[nbafan38]

The swings on the narrative of this series have been wild

after game 1: thunder choke can't recover
after game 2: thunder best team ever no one can compete with them
after game 3: thunder are done cant beat nuggets in a close game.

I see it as the Thunder clearly being the better team but if a game is close, the Nuggets will win.

agree but it's not often that the better team is +20 before the 4rd quarter. OKC scored 2 basket in the last 8 minutes yesterday and I don't think they scored a ton in the 4th quarter in game 1 either so your odds to win a game are not good (even more on the road)

The celtics also say hi lol

[Upperclass]

I think Denver will see some impactful Ajay Mitchell minutes over Cason in a few of these games. Denver has absolutely earned these victories thus far and either team could take it obviously. Reminds me of the Minn/Den series from last season

[nbafan38]

I think Denver will see some impactful Ajay Mitchell minutes over Cason in a few of these games. Denver has absolutely earned these victories thus far and either team could take it obviously. Reminds me of the Minn/Den series from last season

I'd expect thunder to bounce back and win the next two, i do kind of think they need to win 3 in a row though because usually the more experienced teams seems to win these games 7's although Min/Den was an exception last year so i wouldn't say the thunder can't win a game 7 especially on their homecourt but it would be tough.

[reload141]

Imagine thinking SGA was on Jokic’s level

[JustBuzzin]

Uhhh no. You're basically saying that Jokic has help, using the one time he won a championship. But are conveniently ignoring all of the other years he didn't win, when a lot of times of his teammates were either injured or didn't play well in the playoffs. He's been in the league 10 years you know.

OKC has had one of the best rosters in basketball and still haven't won a championship.

LeBron and Luka were teammates they won no championship.

Harden/Kawhi can't win a championship.

Giannis/Dame didn't win a championship.

Boston has the best roster in the NBA and they about to get bounced in the 2nd round!

Sir you don't seem to understand winning a championship is hard. Just because Jokic doesn't win a championship every year doesn't mean his supporting cast sucks. Cmon man wake up!

OKC - Still extremely young with players not even at their primes.
Harden/Kawhi - Harden is 35 years old and not near the player he was in his prime
Giannis/Dame - Dame missed the end of the season and most of the 1st round
Boston - Great all around without a true MVP caliber player.

I think it's fair to say that Jokic is the best player in the world and compared to most championship teams he has had less talent on his roster around him. I don't think people are saying the supporting cast sucks, but we know Murray is a streaky player and while very good, not an all-star. MPJ is also a very good, but not all-star caliber player. The Nuggets depth has not been very good this year. The Nuggets split with Jokic on vs. Jokic off are just insane.

I think the difference is this...if lets say Tatum got hurt, or Lebron got hurt, or Harden got hurt...those teams would still be solid teams as long as the rest of the team is healthy. If Jokic got hurt the Nuggets aren't making the playoffs.

I do think that if Jokic was paired next to another superstar player they would be the clear favorites every year.

You're assuming a lot.

2 superstars don't guarantee you a championship. We seen it throughout history. It takes a team to win a championship.