2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

[OhayoKD]

Haven’t watched individual player highlights since like 2018 Bron, had to tonight for the Joker. That was an all time special performance from him, got the MVP trophy and came out with a vengeance, embarrassed the DPOY along with the “best team defense we've seen in 20 years”, he wins a ring here I have to put him top 10 all time, how can you not career wise. Without an all star on the roster too lmao what!
I already went against the grain and said something sacrilegious with him being better than Jordan ever was already but I stand by it. We’ve seen Jordan clones, but Joker is one of a kind, we’ve never seen an anomaly like him, and you couldn’t accurately replicate his game if you tried. He’s doing this against an absolutely stacked league. And he’s lapping the field.

He's on pace to be an easy top 10 if you aren't high on era-relativity, but the one thing Jordan has on most of the other offensive top-tiers is, at least in his time and at his best, he was especially hard to exploit defensively.

[penbeast0]

Read on Twitter

Big reason Rudy is the historic playoff dropper he is and doesnt compare at all to the Ads and Bams

Far too one dimensional and only excels in 1 scheme when he can roam from the paint

same old story make 1 adjustment and his teams defense is cooked even if he has great perimeter defenders like now

In the game, despite Edwards having a shaky game, the T-Wolves were -2 during the 40 minutes that Rudy was in the game and got blown out in the short stretch he sat down. Jokic is one of the NBA's generational players and was truly great so maybe you can blame Rudy for not succeeding in man to man against him but I don't think you can blame Rudy for the team defense failing other than that.

[Fadeaway_J]

Read on Twitter

Big reason Rudy is the historic playoff dropper he is and doesnt compare at all to the Ads and Bams

Far too one dimensional and only excels in 1 scheme when he can roam from the paint

same old story make 1 adjustment and his teams defense is cooked even if he has great perimeter defenders like now

In the game, despite Edwards having a shaky game, the T-Wolves were -2 during the 40 minutes that Rudy was in the game and got blown out in the short stretch he sat down. Jokic is one of the NBA's generational players and was truly great so maybe you can blame Rudy for not succeeding in man to man against him but I don't think you can blame Rudy for the team defense failing other than that.

Trust me, Gobert can be blamed for anything. It's enshrined in law at this point.

[Colbinii]

Read on Twitter

Big reason Rudy is the historic playoff dropper he is and doesnt compare at all to the Ads and Bams

Far too one dimensional and only excels in 1 scheme when he can roam from the paint

same old story make 1 adjustment and his teams defense is cooked even if he has great perimeter defenders like now

Huh?

Gobert has been excellent in this series. What are you even talking about here?

You're blaming Gobert for not protecting the rim when his man is involving him in the P&R?

Denver's entire adjustment is to involve Gobert in actions to pull him away from the paint.

And guess what? Minnesota is still outscoring Denver in Gobert's minutes this series, including Game 4.

The irony here is you should see how bad Bam was beat in the Finals last year. Can you do that GSP? Or is that against your MO?

[penbeast0]

Trust me, Gobert can be blamed for anything. It's enshrined in law at this point.

It's only fair, he's French and they blame America for everything (ok, except for Le Pen and company who blame Muslims).

[Outside]

I know Kyrie didn't shoot well in game 4, but this postseason is the best I've ever seen him play. He's much steadier on defense than ever, and his offensive game is more well-rounded than ever also. Whether it's because of him or the Mavs, he's not the destructive force to team chemistry that he's been since Cleveland. And he's healthy.

I thought his chances of being this type of player were done. I'm glad to see it.

[Ambrose]

I'm not a Gobert guy, and there's real issues you can have about his offense, but I don't know how people can watch and say he's been the issue defensively. When he's off the floor Denver does whatever they want. He's matched up with an ATG, that's all it is.

[Bergmaniac]

Yeah, Jokic just kept making absurd shots against very good contests most of the time when Gobert was on him, and Gobert was awesome as a help defender, hard to blame him really.

And also Gobert's teammates were just dreadful at getting him the ball when he made rim runs, so many times he was in a position for a dunk if he had gotten a pass yet the ballhandler decided to chuck a constested shot instead. I know his hands aren't all that good, but ignoring him so blatantly was not a good basketball.

[Heej]

I'm not a Gobert guy, and there's real issues you can have about his offense, but I don't know how people can watch and say he's been the issue defensively. When he's off the floor Denver does whatever they want. He's matched up with an ATG, that's all it is.

Gobert is doing the best job I've ever seen of having to clean up messes when they rotate off Aaron Gordon on the backside. Idk what to tell people at this point. This is an insanely well constructed and well oiled team. AG is basically a bigger and better Warriors Iguodala to me at this point.

[Heej]

Yeah, Jokic just kept making absurd shots against very good contests most of the time when Gobert was on him, and Gobert was awesome as a help defender, hard to blame him really.

And also Gobert's teammates were just dreadful at getting him the ball when he made rim runs, so many times he was in a position for a dunk if he had gotten a pass yet the ballhandler decided to chuck a constested shot instead. I know his hands aren't all that good, but ignoring him so blatantly was not a good basketball.

He had a few too many times with a little guy buried under the rim while the Wolves couldn't get anything going and they missed him on every single one. Typa stuff that I'm assuming Mike Conley would've seen happening 2 steps ahead and gotten it to him. Also, the way Ant buckled under swarms is essentially what I'd expect to happen to Jordan in the modern era given his penchant for forced fadeaways and inefficient passes.

[Texas Chuck]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

[70sFan]

Jokic played one of the most insane games I have watched in a very long time and he did all of that with Murray being a non-factor for the majority of the game. I enjoyed this performance in particular, because of how he torched every Wolves defender down low with his incredible skill and shooting touch. It really reminds me the oldschool performances of Kareem and Hakeem, done against one of the best defenders ever nonetheless.

Gobert was the best player on his team last night by the way. I just can't stand listening to basketball fans **** on Rudy everytime his team loses a game, it's boring and dumb. Gobert played very good game and has been very strong throughout the series. He did some absolutely incredible things like completely shutting down Jokic-Gordon game, shutting down Jamal on switches, limiting Denver inside game significantly and preventing Jokic from taking good shots. Of course it doesn't matter, because Jokic making circus shots over his 7'8 wingspan was Gobert's fault.

[sp6r=underrated]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

Eh, typically teams that fall down 0-2, losing the first 2 are home are done. That the Nuggets were getting obituaries wasn't the typical Realgm extreme over-reaction.

And if you told me how bad Murray would be Games 3-5, I would have completely written them off.

[Texas Chuck]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

Eh, typically teams that fall down 0-2, losing the first 2 are home are done. That the Nuggets were getting obituaries wasn't the typical Realgm extreme over-reaction.

And if you told me how bad Murray would be Games 3-5, I would have completely written them off.

Of course it was. It's far from unprecedented for a team to lose the first two games at home and come back in a series. And it wasn't just the Wolves have this series wrapped up. It was Jokic is just a RS player. Denver has to break up the team. Jokic's one title was a fluke against terrible competition. Minnesota has solved NBA defense.

It was wild. It was over the top. And when I and one or two others tried to say let's hold up a second here, we were laughed at. I was even told in order to say Jokic was still a great player I had to tell them exactly what Jokic would accomplish in the playoffs the next 5 years lol.

I get people want to be first. They really really want to be first. So they jump at any signs of something. I accept I am always going to be late. I'm cool with it. I'm not all-in on Wemby yet for instance. But most people want to be first, some need to be first. And it leads to some of these Doritos Mountain Dew Xtreme takes.

[rk2023]

In Games 1-4, Jokic shot 11-28 with Gobert as his primary. 8-9 in game 5. Just an incredibly skilled and cerebral player adjusting, not really a grounds to slander Gobert’s defense.

[yoyoboy]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

I’ll admit I’m pretty shocked. I get that Joker is the best player in the world and that the defending champions should be afforded the respect of waiting to see how they’ll adjust, but being down 2-0, with 3/5 remaining games on the road is a big hole to climb out of. And especially after scoring just 80 points and losing by nearly 30 in a game the DPOY didn’t even play, it didn’t seem likely in my eyes that Denver would even make this series competitive, much less be in commanding position to win it. I’m very impressed by how the whole team has responded.

[Special_Puppy]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

I’ll admit I’m pretty shocked. I get that Joker is the best player in the world and that the defending champions should be afforded the respect of waiting to see how they’ll adjust, but being down 2-0, with 3/5 remaining games on the road is a big hole to climb out of. And especially after scoring just 80 points and losing by nearly 30 in a game the DPOY didn’t even play, it didn’t seem likely in my eyes that Denver would even make this series competitive, much less be in commanding position to win it. I’m very impressed by how the whole team has responded.

Murray+KCP also looked very hobbled by injuries so they would have needed to get better

[sp6r=underrated]

Who could have predicted that Jokic and the Nuggets might come back in this series? Shocking developments. Just shocking.

Eh, typically teams that fall down 0-2, losing the first 2 are home are done. That the Nuggets were getting obituaries wasn't the typical Realgm extreme over-reaction.

And if you told me how bad Murray would be Games 3-5, I would have completely written them off.

Of course it was. It's far from unprecedented for a team to lose the first two games at home and come back in a series.

The team that wins the first 2 games of a series is 421-33. Only 5 times has a team come back to win a series after losing the first 2 at home. History overwhelmingly said the Nuggets were in terrible shape.

https://www.landofbasketball.com/statistics/playoff_series_2_0_recovered.htm
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/nuggets-aiming-to-be-sixth-team-to-come-back-to-win-a-playoff-series-where-they-lost-the-first-2-games-on-their-home-court/

I get people want to be first. They really really want to be first. So they jump at any signs of something.

Through the first 7 games of the playoffs.

1. Nuggets were losing by an average of 3 ppg.
2. Their opponents had led for 233 minutes of basketball. The Nuggets had led for 81 minutes of basketball.
3. Their number 2 offensive talent was, and still is playing like trash.
4. In the RS, the Wolves had an almost identical record.
5. The defending champs who've fallen down 0-2 this century have lost (2011 Lakers, 2012 Mavericks, 2017 Cavs, 2008 Spurs, 03 Lakers, 00 Spurs). You have to go back to 95 to fine a champion who did come back from 0-2.

If it was an over-reaction to say the Nuggets were in terrible shape we should just lock this thread until the playoffs are over or limit it to 1-8 series.

I was even told in order to say Jokic was still a great player I had to tell them exactly what Jokic would accomplish in the playoffs the next 5 years lol.

That was stupid but that was much more haters that come out against any player rather than series analysis.

[lessthanjake]

Some potentially interesting context to add here:

Out of the 5 teams that have previously come back after losing the first two games at home, only two of them managed to finish off the series in 6 games. Those were the 2017 Celtics against the Bulls and the 1969 Lakers against the Warriors. In both cases, it was a first round matchup against a .500 team. I’m expecting the Timberwolves to take Game 6. Not that I’d be *super* surprised if Denver won Game 6, but it’s almost impossible to win 4 in a row (with 3 of them on the road) against a team that’s as good as the Timberwolves and that is competitive enough with you to have won the first two games on your home court.

[Texas Chuck]

The team that wins the first 2 games of a series is 421-33. Only 5 times has a team come back to win a series after losing the first 2 at home. History overwhelmingly said the Nuggets were in terrible shape.

I was super wrong lol.

I still think the tenor of the takes was largely hot takey, but if I ignore that, then my apologies to all.