2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West Semifinals: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Denver Nuggets (DEN leads 1-0)

[falcolombardi]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.

You know that denver shots a lot more free throws than okc does right?

[Belos]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The yesteryear parallel seems very à propos. It's worth noting that in the game which was played near the end of season in which OKC faced the Lakers and Doncic was ejected, a certain "timidity" was observed from the Thunder in the face of a team with big names and Superstar talent(the Lakers imo would have won had Doncic stayed in the game). Currently, no ones brings as much of a daunting ask as the Denver Nuggets of Nikola Jokic so it'll be interesting to see if the young Thunder will not succumb to the pressure that Jokic presents - offensively in terms of offensive timidity and defensively in regards to being overwhelmed physically (by a much bigger team) and mentally. OKC does have a top 3 coach in the NBA however.

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[sp6r=underrated]

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

The posters who see this as a close series value head-to-head, dismiss RS records and ignore MOV. I really disagree with this approach. OKC is the clear favorite.

But if h2h is so important wouldnt you have okc as favorite against boston ?

Which i dont think any of the people picking denver would do

You could also add previous champion to my list.

[MrPainfulTruth]

I don't like the Nuggets in this series at all. The Clippers were not a team who could effectively exploit the areas where the Nuggets D was weakest but OKC can. Shai is the best slasher in the game currently and the Nuggets have no one to matchup with him. Shai should have a monster series and will be able to live in the paint. I expect OKC to go on scoring runs frequently

The OKC D is fueled by two way players instead of one way elite guys like Dunn and DJJ. The ball hawks on the Thunder have offensive skills so the Nuggets won't be able to do 4 on 5 strategies. Murray is going to be seeing 48 minutes of high intensity ball pressure. Jokic is going to have to contend with Hartenstein while Chet is helping from the offside. He's a maestro so he'll figure things out but they won't have enough to keep up with OKC

The Thunder have been a machine all year and the Nuggets defense especially isn't going to hold up to the level of strain OKC can put on it. I think this is OKC in 5

How are they 2-2 in the regular season if it is so lobsided?

[Dadouv47]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.

good officiating = denver win; bad refs = OKC win, right?

[MrPainfulTruth]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.

You know that denver shots a lot more free throws than okc does right?

You keep coming up with that argument when i explained before that their favorable whistle mostly comes from "non-whistle", because they are allowd to do stuff on D that others will routinely get called for. Kinda like i wrote in my post.

[Belos]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The yesteryear parallel seems very à propos. It's worth noting that in the game which was played near the end of season in which OKC faced the Lakers and Doncic was ejected, a certain "timidity" was observed from the Thunder in the face of a team with big names and Superstar talent(the Lakers imo would have won had Doncic stayed in the game). Currently, no ones brings as much of a daunting ask as the Denver Nuggets of Nikola Jokic so it'll be interesting to see if the young Thunder will not succumb to the pressure that Jokic presents - offensively in terms of offensive timidity and defensively in regards to being overwhelmed physically (by a much bigger team) and mentally. OKC does have a top 3 coach in the NBA however.

On other news, want more basketball and other topics discussed from my lens, consider subscribing below. "Journey of a new project" will get your feet into the water and "the nba's team building framework" will touch on most remaining team's strengths and weaknesses while also adding a few basketball thoughts.

https://belos1.substack.com

[MrPainfulTruth]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.

good officiating = denver win; bad refs = OKC win, right?

Good officiating = consistent on both ends. Denver can handle both super physical and also very technical but if its a foul to look at SGA on one end, please do not look away when Murray or Joker get hacked.

[durden_tyler]

Out of respect for Jokic, Thunder in 6.

Could go just five but i think Nuggets have enough to steal a couple of games.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[falcolombardi]

I don't like the Nuggets in this series at all. The Clippers were not a team who could effectively exploit the areas where the Nuggets D was weakest but OKC can. Shai is the best slasher in the game currently and the Nuggets have no one to matchup with him. Shai should have a monster series and will be able to live in the paint. I expect OKC to go on scoring runs frequently

The OKC D is fueled by two way players instead of one way elite guys like Dunn and DJJ. The ball hawks on the Thunder have offensive skills so the Nuggets won't be able to do 4 on 5 strategies. Murray is going to be seeing 48 minutes of high intensity ball pressure. Jokic is going to have to contend with Hartenstein while Chet is helping from the offside. He's a maestro so he'll figure things out but they won't have enough to keep up with OKC

The Thunder have been a machine all year and the Nuggets defense especially isn't going to hold up to the level of strain OKC can put on it. I think this is OKC in 5

How are they 2-2 in the regular season if it is so lobsided?

Good to know okc is favorite vs boston then

[Patches Perry]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.

good officiating = denver win; bad refs = OKC win, right?

That's been the trend we've seen in the game threads all year for OKC games, so yes lol.

[Dadouv47]

somehow Vegas likes our odds to win the title a lot more after Denver winning tonight. Are they right for sure? Of course not. My guess is that our intensity is too much to overcome against a team that can play only 6 players (and one is still injured in MPJ). We won multiple regular season games not by being much better but just because opponents were too tired after 3 quarters of having multiple elite defenders guarding them.
Of course in a vacuum I'm worried about a guy like Murray that is so elite comes playoff time but I know he's gonna be guarded 48 minutes by 2 or 3 elite defenders.

I think OKC gonna need to underperform a lot on offense to lose this series but that's a real possibility because we still don't have a true option #2 and while JDub was great against Memphis, he sucked last season against a better defense in the postseason.

[RB34]

Murray is going to be in hell this entire series.

[mdonnelly1989]

Denver better pray it doesn’t come down to MPJ as the X factor because they are in trouble if it does

[falcolombardi]

somehow Vegas likes our odds to win the title a lot more after Denver winning tonight. Are they right for sure? Of course not. My guess is that our intensity is too much to overcome against a team that can play only 6 players (and one is still injured in MPJ). We won multiple regular season games not by being much better but just because opponents were too tired after 3 quarters of having multiple elite defenders guarding them.
Of course in a vacuum I'm worried about a guy like Murray that is so elite comes playoff time but I know he's gonna be guarded 48 minutes by 2 or 3 elite defenders.

I think OKC gonna need to underperform a lot on offense to lose this series but that's a real possibility because we still don't have a true option #2 and while JDub was great against Memphis, he sucked last season against a better defense in the postseason.

Is denver a better defense than memphis?

[ChuckChilly]

OKC with the sweep. The Thunder's defense will have the Nuggets fighting each other by game 3.

[Johnny Tomala]

Thunder in 6.

[Black star]

I don't like the Nuggets in this series at all. The Clippers were not a team who could effectively exploit the areas where the Nuggets D was weakest but OKC can. Shai is the best slasher in the game currently and the Nuggets have no one to matchup with him. Shai should have a monster series and will be able to live in the paint. I expect OKC to go on scoring runs frequently

The OKC D is fueled by two way players instead of one way elite guys like Dunn and DJJ. The ball hawks on the Thunder have offensive skills so the Nuggets won't be able to do 4 on 5 strategies. Murray is going to be seeing 48 minutes of high intensity ball pressure. Jokic is going to have to contend with Hartenstein while Chet is helping from the offside. He's a maestro so he'll figure things out but they won't have enough to keep up with OKC

The Thunder have been a machine all year and the Nuggets defense especially isn't going to hold up to the level of strain OKC can put on it. I think this is OKC in 5

How are they 2-2 in the regular season if it is so lobsided?

Because it's the regular season. The Bucks were 3-1 against the Pacers. The Magic were 2-1 against the Celtics. The records don't mean anything unless you are talking about concrete trends or matchup you think they can exploit in the post season. I don't see it for the Nuggets despite their regular season series record

[Mavrelous]

Surprised by the amount of Thunder in 6, I expect a shory and decisive Thunder won, in 4 or 5.

[falcolombardi]

Gonna vote for okc in 5