THE J0KER wrote:This is our best win this season. Don't look at OKC current record, but look at their roster, arguable TOP5 in the league.
The only thing which I don't like to see is (once again!) Jokic strange schedule in 4th quarter (played only last 4 minutes). Is Malone once again want to wait until middle of December, like the previous season, to realize that his biggest star deserves more? OK, tonight Mudiay played the match of his life, Millsap was heroic in defense (including career-high 6 blocks), and Westbrook underperformed badly, so we are not punished for this Jokic reduction. But in general, why we should do such gamble and so often risk anything? There simply no point to force veteran Millsap to play 40 minutes, while Jokic is "protected" (from what?) with just 27. I checked now his 2017-18 stats and believe or not, this is already 7th match (out of 12) in which Jokic is not Denver TOP3 player in played minutes (5th tonight), and also 7th match where he played less than 31 minutes. Such star is this season so far not even league TOP80 in mpg (last season out of TOP110), and only other "franchise player" which playing with reduced minutes are Joel Embiid (fully justified if we know Embiid injury history).
No sense at all.
Next match vs in-form Orlando is very important to win (home match, and we are an arguable better team), and go in the next week with an encouraging 8-5 record before we face back-to-back two our direct rivalries for a West playoff, Portland and New Orleans.
If you watched that bench unit took the lead late in the 3rd and held off OKC early into the 4th, hence why Malone kept them in as long as he did, Milsap included. I was worried he'd keep them in too long but OKC never picked it up. It's a long season...if you've got a lead and you're holding it which is rare for these Nuggets I'm fine with Jokic getting a few less minutes. Malone coached them to a win I didn't expect at all so I'm not going to bust his chops on this one.
