Playoffs Game 1 Round 1: San Antonio Spurs (7) @ Denver Nuggets (2) - 10:30 PM ET

[The Rebel]

There is a ton to be happy about last night Murray tried to force it at the end but I thought everybody outside of Millsap played pretty damn well last night. Those were good shots that would not drop, it happens. I think we win in 6 or less especially after this game.

[RRFB]

I've been feeling for a while that our poor shooting would be a problem in the playoffs. San Antonio made a lot of tough shots and we missed a lot of open shots, and that was the difference imo. I thought the defense, especially from the starters, was actually pretty good. It was great to see Gary Harris play like his old self too. Gonna need more of that. Of course we'd always like to see Jokic be more aggressive, but I don't think there's that much else to complain about. Just need someone to step up and make some shots.

[Mickey8]

Its going to be an easy sweep for San Antonio if Malone continues to limit Jokic as a scorer. Jokic has to score at least 20 ppg for this team to advance to second round. Barton and Murray are not looking to pass the ball back to Jokic off the pick and roll at all , San Antonio can double Jokic on the block but they cant stop pnr, there were many times gurads could have pass the ball to Jokic and they didnt. Barton is the player with the single digit basketball IQ.

[skywalker33]

Its going to be an easy sweep for San Antonio if Malone continues to limit Jokic as a scorer. Jokic has to score at least 20 ppg for this team to advance to second round. Barton and Murray are not looking to pass the ball back to Jokic off the pick and roll at all , San Antonio can double Jokic on the block but they cant stop pnr, there were many times gurads could have pass the ball to Jokic and they didnt. Barton is the player with the single digit basketball IQ.

It’s MORONIC to think Malone is limiting Joker’s scoring opportunities, you’re just being a Jokic apologist

[NuggetsWY]

Its going to be an easy sweep for San Antonio if Malone continues to limit Jokic as a scorer. Jokic has to score at least 20 ppg for this team to advance to second round. Barton and Murray are not looking to pass the ball back to Jokic off the pick and roll at all , San Antonio can double Jokic on the block but they cant stop pnr, there were many times gurads could have pass the ball to Jokic and they didnt. Barton is the player with the single digit basketball IQ.

It’s MORONIC to think Malone is limiting Joker’s scoring opportunities, you’re just being a Jokic apologist

Jokic just doesn't look to score. He can be wide-open at the free throw line and not even look at the basket. As great a talent as he is, he can never carry a team until he learns that scoring is more important than assists. Sure, an assist means the team scored, but watch other teams, they do not feel they need to guard Jokic for shooting. They guard against his passing. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, when he starts taking 20+ shots a night, other Nuggets will be open. When he is double teamed every time he touches the ball, other Nuggets will be open. That's when he can get his assists.

20+ shots per game will make Jokic an easy 25-30 ppg player. When he can do that, he'll find it easy to get 15 assists per game. When you add his strength and rebounding ability; he's an automatic triple-double --- but it all starts with taking the open shots!

[U hova]

I think you can kind of blame it on Malone for forcing Jokic to play so many minutes next to a guy who's taking pull-up 3s on 4 on 2 situations instead of waiting for our offense to set up, or can't make entry passes when our 7' guy is posting up a guard... etc. we know who we are.
Malone also has the freedom to call plays, or tell the guys to focus on doing this or that during timeouts. That clearly didn't happen. We ran 0 Jokic-Murray pick and rolls last night, which was one of our strongest weapons throughout the season.

But Jokic was incredibly passive even for his standards on Saturday. There's a couple specific moments that left me hollering "take it to the rim you giant ******". That can't happen again. Maybe the whole "don't make mistakes in the playoffs because every possession counts" type of narrative psyched him out, but it can't happen again. Especially when I can't even remember the guy he's matched up against. And I don't want to see him taking 3s because that doesn't count.

Props to Jokic for limiting Lamarcus Aldridge though, the refs were a little inconsistent but he held his ground in the post.

And when it's all said and done, we shot an absurdly low 3pt% despite the wide open looks we were getting, so if that solves itself Jokic not taking it to the hole might not even be an issue... here's hoping we still have a series.

[NuggetsWY]

Malone also has the freedom to call plays, or tell the guys to focus on doing this or that during timeouts. That clearly didn't happen. We ran 0 Jokic-Murray pick and rolls last night, which was one of our strongest weapons throughout the season.

"Malone also has the freedom to call plays" and yet the only play the Nuggets need when Jokic is in the game is to pass the ball to Jokic in a high post and everyone else start moving and cutting and running the baseline and setting screens for each other. Yet what we see today is that even when Jokic does have the ball, everyone seems to want to stand around and watch Jokic make a spectacular play. He can't do that very easily all by himself.

At the end of a game, for instance, have Plumlee throw the ball in. Set a back-pick to give Jokic one second to catch the ball and then everyone move. With Jokic in the game, it is not rocket science!

[Darklight]

Murray cost us this game, it was like I fared. He 0 assist and missed a open 3 to put us up by 1 and a open mid range jumper with a very costly turnover also a airball 3 8-24 dude was straight up chucking up shots and bricking them, his defense was good from what I saw (missed the first half, my alarm didn't go off damn) altough hadn't malone used all his timeouts we wouldn't have the need to bring the ball up the court but whatever doubt we would have made it anyways.

I am a massive Jokic fan but he has to take alot of the blame here aswell, dude was passive as **** yeah, yeah they double teamed him whatever it wasn't like they did it every possession and when he wasn't double team the dude didn't even look at the basket but just handed it off instead. I know he is not a alpha by nature and will never be it but you can't be that passive when we need to hit some shots. You simply have to demand the ball if they aren't giving it to you, it just reminds me of shaq and wade when they had to tell him to shoot it, Jokic still have to find the balance between playmaking and looking for his own shot. I thought he would have figured it by now and for someone of his IQ and how highly he is thought of in that regard but he needs to get it through his head or we will lose this series.
This is one of the reasons I am looking foward to seeing MPJ becuase he is alpha and with jokic being more beta by nature they could work perfectly but we will see.