NBA Finals Thread, 2023 – Nuggets, NBA Champions (4) vs Heat (1)

[JaMarco]

Denver's gonna be a huge obstacle for this core to break through in the next couple years. Jokic is the best player in the league, he's still on the younger side (and should probably age well based on his playstyle), and they built the perfect team around him. I think we would have been more competitive than Miami, but still probably lost in 6. Need Tatum to make another leap.

Need Tatum AND Brown to make leaps to compete with Denver.

What improvement can you think the Jays can work on? I think they are near their peak, especially JB.

You think but you don't know, unless you have a crystal ball. They are both young enough to make major unexpected leaps like other players of done in their late 20s. Some guys like Butler/DeRozan hadn't peaked until their early 30s.

Tatum's biggest improvements imo should be in improved accuracy/consistency in 3pt shooting and better mid-range game. Brown, lol, has a lot of room improve in every area.

How can you declare they have peaked when they have significantly improved basically every year they have been in the league? Obviously they haven't reached championship level ability yet but there aren't many players their age that have.

[Triple7]

Need Tatum AND Brown to make leaps to compete with Denver.

What improvement can you think the Jays can work on? I think they are near their peak, especially JB.

You think but you don't know, unless you have a crystal ball. They are both young enough to make major unexpected leaps like other players of done in their late 20s. Some guys like Butler/DeRozan hadn't peaked until their early 30s.

Tatum's biggest improvements imo should be in improved accuracy/consistency in 3pt shooting and better mid-range game. Brown, lol, has a lot of room improve in every area.

Tatum needs to improve his mental. Easily gets frustrated. Tendency to be a chuckster. He needs to improve on his handles and shot making. Too many point blank misses. Gathers the ball too early on the dribble. I don’t know about brown. too many flaws to his game. Flaws that can’t be corrected. Tunnel vision and poor dribbling skills and bbiq, can’t really be taught at his age. Even his free throw shooting hasn’t improved thru the years.
Jt has room to improve. He is basically one of the best players already. Its more mental on his part, and some improvement on his shot making and efficiency. Brown, on the other hand, needs to improve a lot on his game, but may very well peaked already. Well, maybe being a number 1 option, may force him to be better.

[GotDaSauce]

^^Those four averaged 55.9 ppg against the Celtics. Down to 32.4 ppg vs. the Nuggets.

Because Horford, Smart and Brown are toast defensively!
Smart went from DPOY to a turnstile this year.
Scheme from Joe sucked too!
What a waste of a year!

[Hal14]

If only we drafted this guy instead of James Young.

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[Triple7]

^^Those four averaged 55.9 ppg against the Celtics. Down to 32.4 ppg vs. the Nuggets.

Because Horford, Smart and Brown are toast defensively!
Smart went from DPOY to a turnstile this year.
Scheme from Joe sucked too!
What a waste of a year!

Yup smart really declined defensively this year. I remember one play game 7, smart was directing the defense, and brain farted forgot to cover his own man lol.

[JaMarco]

What improvement can you think the Jays can work on? I think they are near their peak, especially JB.

You think but you don't know, unless you have a crystal ball. They are both young enough to make major unexpected leaps like other players of done in their late 20s. Some guys like Butler/DeRozan hadn't peaked until their early 30s.

Tatum's biggest improvements imo should be in improved accuracy/consistency in 3pt shooting and better mid-range game. Brown, lol, has a lot of room improve in every area.

I don’t know about brown. too many flaws to his game. Flaws that can’t be corrected. Tunnel vision and poor dribbling skills and bbiq, can’t really be taught at his age. Even his free throw shooting hasn’t improved thru the years.
Brown, on the other hand, needs to improve a lot on his game, but may very well peaked already. Well, maybe being a number 1 option, may force him to be better.

Brown doesn't have poor dribbling skills, he just isn't an elite enough of a ball handler to handle the ball as much as he does (one of the higher usages in the league). I don't believe he's too old to improve on that. I don't know why he "can't become a smarter player at his age". It's straight up false to say he's never improved his FT shooting since he came into the league.

Maybe Brown will never get any better but it's not impossible as you say.

[Triple7]

You think but you don't know, unless you have a crystal ball. They are both young enough to make major unexpected leaps like other players of done in their late 20s. Some guys like Butler/DeRozan hadn't peaked until their early 30s.

Tatum's biggest improvements imo should be in improved accuracy/consistency in 3pt shooting and better mid-range game. Brown, lol, has a lot of room improve in every area.

I don’t know about brown. too many flaws to his game. Flaws that can’t be corrected. Tunnel vision and poor dribbling skills and bbiq, can’t really be taught at his age. Even his free throw shooting hasn’t improved thru the years.
Brown, on the other hand, needs to improve a lot on his game, but may very well peaked already. Well, maybe being a number 1 option, may force him to be better.

Brown doesn't have poor dribbling skills, he just isn't an elite enough of a ball handler to handle the ball as much as he does (one of the higher usages in the league). I don't believe he's too old to improve on that. I don't know why he "can't become a smarter player at his age". It's straight up false to say he's never improved his FT shooting since he came into the league.

Maybe Brown will never get any better but it's not impossible as you say.

Lol. The guy literally losses the ball on his own. It’s a known fact that JB can’t dribble to his left, and defenders are using this against him. He’s average at best when it comes to dribbling. Well in fairness to JB, he did improved on most categories other than 3pt%. The problem is he really doesn’t fit with JT. When Jt has it going, JB barely touches the ball. They don’t play off each other. It would be better to pair JT with a point guard or a big man.

[JaMarco]

I don’t know about brown. too many flaws to his game. Flaws that can’t be corrected. Tunnel vision and poor dribbling skills and bbiq, can’t really be taught at his age. Even his free throw shooting hasn’t improved thru the years.
Brown, on the other hand, needs to improve a lot on his game, but may very well peaked already. Well, maybe being a number 1 option, may force him to be better.

Brown doesn't have poor dribbling skills, he just isn't an elite enough of a ball handler to handle the ball as much as he does (one of the higher usages in the league). I don't believe he's too old to improve on that. I don't know why he "can't become a smarter player at his age". It's straight up false to say he's never improved his FT shooting since he came into the league.

Maybe Brown will never get any better but it's not impossible as you say.

Lol. The guy literally losses the ball on his own. It’s a known fact that JB can’t dribble to his left, and defenders are using this against him. He’s average at best when it comes to dribbling. Well in fairness to JB, he did improved on most categories other than 3pt%. The problem is he really doesn’t fit with JT. When Jt has it going, JB barely touches the ball. They don’t play off each other. It would be better to pair JT with a point guard or a big man.

So why do you think the Celtics will get a good player and picks for Brown if he can't dribble to his left and everyone knows?

[zoyathedestroya]

Another season where one of the healthiest teams won.

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[Hal14]

^^Those four averaged 55.9 ppg against the Celtics. Down to 32.4 ppg vs. the Nuggets.

Because Horford, Smart and Brown are toast defensively!
Smart went from DPOY to a turnstile this year.
Scheme from Joe sucked too!
What a waste of a year!

Yup smart really declined defensively this year. I remember one play game 7, smart was directing the defense, and brain farted forgot to cover his own man lol.

Smart's effort, his focus, decision making and overall production seemed to be inconsistent this season. My theory is that it was a combination of:

-He was butt hurt about the Ime situation (getting blind sided with the suspension, then nets interview him, we extend Mazzulla, rockets hire him) and all of this got to Smart because he had a bond with Ime

-He felt like with White and Brogdon here (plus the jays initiating offense a lot, both the Jays with really higb usage) but more so white and Brogdon cramping his style. As opposed to last year, Smart no longer felt like he was THE PG for this team. And he never really was cool with having to sacrifice so much with all the other guards we had. He even made a passive aggressive comment at one point (after a game we won and he had like 10 assists) where he said something like "see what happens when I have the ball more / the offense runs through me and you don't just have me standing in the corner"

-Ankle injury get lingering and bothering him here and there

I think getting rid of Brogdon could help things. Hopefully his ankle is better next season, too. But we might just have to trade Smart - if he is never fully able to get over Ime..

[zoyathedestroya]

Do Davon Reed and Bones Hyland get their own rings?

[zoyathedestroya]

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[zoyathedestroya]

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Celtics lost 3 games to Miami where they shot below 30% from 3. Nuggets won 3 such games.

Nuggets defended the Heat better than Cs did. 105.5 DRtg vs. 116.6 DRtg, 50.9% TS% vs. 58.9% TS%.

[steefP2]

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Celtics lost 3 games to Miami where they shot below 30% from 3. Nuggets won 3 such games.

Nuggets defended the Heat better than Cs did. 105.5 DRtg vs. 116.6 DRtg, 50.9% TS% vs. 58.9% TS%.

This really doesn't tell the story. Heat got the fewest amount of open or wide open 3's vs the Celtics (a very low amount) but made an absurd amount of them, in all categories (contested or open). The heat shot 43.5% from 3 vs the celtics, only 35% vs the nuggets. That's a massive gap. Yeah the nuggets won 3 such games but in 1 game the heat shot 25% from 3 to the nuggets 18.5% (difference of 4 made 3's), another game was 29.4% to 32% and the last one was 35% to 29.

In the 4 games the celtics lost to the heat, the heat shot 55%, 54%, 46% and lastly 35% in the game tatum got injured. Celtics shot 34,22,20 and 29% from 3 in those games. I think thats a meaningful difference wouldn't you say.

You can absolutely say the Nuggets played better vs the heat than we did. No arguments but that's largely on offense. We at the very least played as good defense as denver and probably better, its just that we got historically bad outshot on mostly contested shots.

The heat got 27 open or wide open 3's vs denver per game, only 22 vs boston. They had 10 wide open 3's a game vs denver and same vs boston BUT they shot 38% on those vs denver and 58% on those vs the celtics. The numbers dont lie

[Hal14]

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Celtics lost 3 games to Miami where they shot below 30% from 3. Nuggets won 3 such games.

Nuggets defended the Heat better than Cs did. 105.5 DRtg vs. 116.6 DRtg, 50.9% TS% vs. 58.9% TS%.

This really doesn't tell the story. Heat got the fewest amount of open or wide open 3's vs the Celtics (a very low amount) but made an absurd amount of them, in all categories (contested or open). The heat shot 43.5% from 3 vs the celtics, only 35% vs the nuggets. That's a massive gap. Yeah the nuggets won 3 such games but in 1 game the heat shot 25% from 3 to the nuggets 18.5% (difference of 4 made 3's), another game was 29.4% to 32% and the last one was 35% to 29.

In the 4 games the celtics lost to the heat, the heat shot 55%, 54%, 46% and lastly 35% in the game tatum got injured. Celtics shot 34,22,20 and 29% from 3 in those games. I think thats a meaningful difference wouldn't you say.

You can absolutely say the Nuggets played better vs the heat than we did. No arguments but that's largely on offense. We at the very least played as good defense as denver and probably better, its just that we got historically bad outshot on mostly contested shots.

The heat got 27 open or wide open 3's vs denver per game, only 22 vs boston. They had 10 wide open 3's a game vs denver and same vs boston BUT they shot 38% on those vs denver and 58% on those vs the celtics. The numbers dont lie

This ^

Also, Denver had literally all of their guys at 100% health vs Miami. We had Tatum ankle (game 7), JB's wrist, Brogdon's elbow, Grant's hand, Rob puking (game 7) and Gallo out the whole series (yes, I know he missed the whole season, but it's still a guy who took up a roster spot who could have made a difference if healthy)

Denver also has had the same guy coaching them for 8 years. We had a rookie HC, 3rd HS in 3 years and lost 3 members of the coaching staff that helped get us to the finals the previous season (Ime, Hardy, Stoudemire).

[JaMarco]

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Celtics lost 3 games to Miami where they shot below 30% from 3. Nuggets won 3 such games.

Nuggets defended the Heat better than Cs did. 105.5 DRtg vs. 116.6 DRtg, 50.9% TS% vs. 58.9% TS%.

This really doesn't tell the story. Heat got the fewest amount of open or wide open 3's vs the Celtics (a very low amount) but made an absurd amount of them, in all categories (contested or open). The heat shot 43.5% from 3 vs the celtics, only 35% vs the nuggets. That's a massive gap. Yeah the nuggets won 3 such games but in 1 game the heat shot 25% from 3 to the nuggets 18.5% (difference of 4 made 3's), another game was 29.4% to 32% and the last one was 35% to 29.

In the 4 games the celtics lost to the heat, the heat shot 55%, 54%, 46% and lastly 35% in the game tatum got injured. Celtics shot 34,22,20 and 29% from 3 in those games. I think thats a meaningful difference wouldn't you say.

You can absolutely say the Nuggets played better vs the heat than we did. No arguments but that's largely on offense. We at the very least played as good defense as denver and probably better, its just that we got historically bad outshot on mostly contested shots.

The heat got 27 open or wide open 3's vs denver per game, only 22 vs boston. They had 10 wide open 3's a game vs denver and same vs boston BUT they shot 38% on those vs denver and 58% on those vs the celtics. The numbers dont lie

This ^

Also, Denver had literally all of their guys at 100% health vs Miami. We had Tatum ankle (game 7), JB's wrist, Brogdon's elbow, Grant's hand, Rob puking (game 7) and Gallo out the whole series (yes, I know he missed the whole season, but it's still a guy who took up a roster spot who could have made a difference if healthy)

Denver also has had the same guy coaching them for 8 years. We had a rookie HC, 3rd HS in 3 years and lost 3 members of the coaching staff that helped get us to the finals the previous season (Ime, Hardy, Stoudemire).

Sounds like it just wasn't the Cs year this year and they need to just run it back.

[Infinite Llamas]

Another season where one of the healthiest teams won.

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After losing MPJ and Murray for an entire year, I’d say that Denver got some luck to finally swing their way.

[Infinite Llamas]

If only we drafted this guy instead of James Young.

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Could be worse…The Bucks picked Johnny O’Bryant a pick or two before him. Imagine dealing with a Giannis-Jokic pairing for a decade?

[Bar Fight]

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The Nuggets are trolling the Lakers the way the Warriors trolled us last year

[zoyathedestroya]

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