2016 Thunder vs 2023 Nuggets

[Matt15]

Who wins in 7?

[uberhikari]

The Nuggets would get destroyed. Maybe Jokic would be able to get a game by himself?

First, this is a matchup nightmare for the Nuggets defensively. Even if they have decent 1-on-1 defensive matchups, neither KCP nor Gordon is keeping Westbrook/KD out of the paint. In this year's PS, Jokic got lucky facing a pedestrian cast of perimeter players.

vs PHO: Booker and a KD who basically no longer has the ability to get to the rim.
vs LAL: Reaves, LeBron (with a bum foot), and Schroder.
vs MIA: Old Lowry and Butler (who may have had an ankle injury).

Second, the Nuggets wouldn't have any size advantage with respect to rebounding vs a team with Adams, Westbrook, Ibaka, and KD.

I also think Roberson on Murray wouldn't be a fun matchup for Denver.

[No-more-rings]

Seems like a bad matchup for the Nuggets. They have some solid perimeter defenders and all, but KD and Westbrook would have a field day against those guys, and Westbrook in particular considering there’s no viable rim protection.

[Dutchball97]

Thunder are better on paper but with the KD that showed up (or more like didn't show up) in the 2016 post-season I'm giving this to Denver in a close series.

[AdagioPace]

Thunder by far.
It's the best ever OKC team, the most impressive seen in the PS given competition, one of the best teams to never win a ring.
I think all 4 top teams from 2016 would have a chance.

[Mikeball]

I go with the Nuggets. The Thunder still have a huge hole in lack of shooting and 1 rule that I have going into any playoff series is that you can never trust Westbrook to have a good series.

See Jamal Murray outplaying him

[Saints14]

I kinda think the 2023 Nuggets are underrated historically, maybe over the next few years hindsight will give us a clearer picture. They were pretty meh in the RS for a championship team, but that was with Murray playing at a far worse level than he did in the playoffs, a focus on health and reacquainting their injured players back into the lineup, and a general lack of urgency once they locked up the top seed. If the "real" 2023 Nuggets is the one where Jamal Murray is one of the best ~15 or so players in the league, along with Jokic being the best player since prime LeBron and with a very good, well-fitting supporting cast, that's a much better team than the 53 win, 3 SRS team they were in the RS. And of course they obliterated everyone in the playoffs albeit against not elite competition.

Idk...it would be a great series, and 2016 OKC is indeed one of the strongest non-title teams we've seen over the past decade. But I think the 2023 Nuggets are about as good as any non-KD Warriors team we've seen since then too

[Ryoga Hibiki]

The Thunder would put Jokic in 75 pick and rolls per game and win easily

[SpreeS]

On paper - easy OKC, but in reality I trust more Jokic and Murray. It gives me vibes of DEN - LAC in 2020

[TheGOATRises007]

I'd lean Thunder, but I do think it'd be very close.

The Thunder are essentially facing a better version of the 2016 Warriors offensively and they're dealing with Jokic's apex thus far.

[Peregrine01]

Thunder still have awful shooting, allowing the Nuggets to pack the paint. And Westbrook and Durant are still prone to your turn/my turn hero ball. Give me the Nuggets.

[Peregrine01]

The Thunder would put Jokic in 75 pick and rolls per game and win easily

It’s funny how the same tired criticisms keep surfacing with respect to Jokic. Westbrook is not Curry and he wasnt a serious threat in pick and rolls even in 2016.

[Peregrine01]

The Nuggets would get destroyed. Maybe Jokic would be able to get a game by himself?

First, this is a matchup nightmare for the Nuggets defensively. Even if they have decent 1-on-1 defensive matchups, neither KCP nor Gordon is keeping Westbrook/KD out of the paint. In this year's PS, Jokic got lucky facing a pedestrian cast of perimeter players.

vs PHO: Booker and a KD who basically no longer has the ability to get to the rim.
vs LAL: Reaves, LeBron (with a bum foot), and Schroder.
vs MIA: Old Lowry and Butler (who may have had an ankle injury).

Second, the Nuggets wouldn't have any size advantage with respect to rebounding vs a team with Adams, Westbrook, Ibaka, and KD.

I also think Roberson on Murray wouldn't be a fun matchup for Denver.

Pedestrian perimeter cast?

They played:
-Ant, the most explosive two-guard in the league
-Book, the best two guard in the league
-KD, who’s still one of the best scorers ever
-Bron and AD who many thought would pick and roll the Nuggets to death
-Playoff Jimmy who had a historic series against the Bucks

Yeah they didn’t play Curry but the Nuggets would’ve most definitely wrecked them if they did.

[AEnigma]

^ If anyone thought the Lakers would pnr Jokic to death then they must have stopped watching the team after Lebron broke the scoring record.

And Playoff Jimmy similarly faded as a threat when he injured himself in the Knicks series.

[Peregrine01]

That was the common trope - just run Jokic through endless pick and rolls. No way he’ll be able to keep up with AD on the perimeter. And Booker and KD before that. Etc etc.

And now it’s: “Jokic got lucky cause he played against pedestrian perimeter players.”

[AEnigma]

If all you can talk about is strawmen then how is anyone going to be able to carry a discussion with you.

[Peregrine01]

I was responding to a straw man voicing the same tired tropes about why 2016 OKC would destroy the 2023 Nuggets. Never mind that 2016 OKC had even worse spacing than the 2023 Lakers and that the 2023 Nuggets just had one of the most dominant playoff runs in recent memory.

[lessthanjake]

It seems like the answer would clearly be the Nuggets, since they have a more modern game knowledge. They’d shoot a good deal more threes and be better at the threes they shot. That’d be a pretty massive tactical advantage (even though the Nuggets are not a huge three-point shooting team by today’s standards). Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector. So the Thunder would definitely be able to generate offense on the Nuggets. But I’m skeptical that it’d be possible for them to generate as much offense as the 2023 Nuggets could generate, given that the Nuggets have modern game knowledge and Jokic.

Leaving aside the specifics of how the teams would actually match up, I also think a lot of people aren’t quite understanding/acknowledging how good the Nuggets were. It’s rare for a team to dominate in the postseason as much as the Nuggets did. The teams that have lost as few playoff games as the Nuggets and have outscored opponents in the playoffs as much as the Nuggets did is basically limited to a list of the greatest dynasties in history in their best year or two. People do try to discount that by saying they played some low seeds. And I do think they were lucky to face the Heat in the finals, as opposed to the Bucks or Celtics. Just because the Heat beat those teams doesn’t mean they were necessarily the best team in the East or the team that would’ve been the toughest Finals opponent. But it’s very common for luck to go a title team’s way in some significant way. For instance, one of the teams that’s in that group of teams that dominated the postseason as much or more than the Nuggets is obviously the 2017 Warriors. But would they have so few postseason losses and whatnot if Kawhi hadn’t gotten injured in game 1 against the Spurs? Another is the 2007 Spurs. Would the Spurs have dominated (or even necessarily won at all) if Horry hip checking Nash into a scorer’s table didn’t get Amare suspended? Another is the 2002 Lakers—and we all know the story in the WCF that year. Would the 1999 Spurs have had a more difficult time if Ewing hadn’t been out in the Finals? Or, to go back a bit, what about the 1986 Celtics? Were the Celtics lucky to face the Rockets in the finals (as opposed to the Lakers) in the same way that the Nuggets were lucky to face the Heat? You can do a “Yeah but” about almost any title winner. And I think it’s easy to discount the most recent title winner with that the most, because the “Yeah buts” are closer to one’s mind and in one’s memory. Ultimately, I think the reality is that the Nuggets were a pretty historically dominant team, and I don’t find the “Yeah but” arguments to be particularly persuasive as compared to the “Yeah but” arguments that could be made about a lot of championship teams that we all nevertheless acknowledge were incredible. Does this mean that they’d beat the 2016 Thunder? Not necessarily. Perhaps the 2016 Thunder were a historically great team that just happened to not win the title. They did beat the 67-win Spurs and almost beat the 73-win Warriors. But I think the 2023 Nuggets were great enough that you’d genuinely have to see the 2016 Thunder as a truly historically great team in order to take the Thunder above the Nuggets.

[AEnigma]

I was responding to a straw man voicing the same tired tropes about why 2016 OKC would destroy the 2023 Nuggets. Never mind that 2016 OKC had even worse spacing than the 2023 Lakers and that the 2023 Nuggets just had one of the most dominant playoff runs in recent memory.

None of that requires you to pretend that anyone was scared of a torn tendon Lebron pnr, or that anyone thought Jimmy Butler would or could play anywhere near his Bucks level.

[Peregrine01]

I was responding to a straw man voicing the same tired tropes about why 2016 OKC would destroy the 2023 Nuggets. Never mind that 2016 OKC had even worse spacing than the 2023 Lakers and that the 2023 Nuggets just had one of the most dominant playoff runs in recent memory.

None of that requires you to pretend that anyone was scared of a torn tendon Lebron pnr, or that anyone thought Jimmy Butler would or could play anywhere near his Bucks level.

This sounds like a lot of rationalizing in hindsight.