Post#3397 » by Doctor MJ » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:28 am
God what a night, and I'm loving seeing other just jazzed about it. There's a thread in the GB about focusing on crucifying players instead of celebrating greatness. Today makes me want to celebrate greatness. First that great Boston-Miami game with Bam at the finish, and Denver. Just wow.
To try to string together some thoughts:
1. If has to be noted that the Clippers just went ice cold. I'm not saying that the Nuggets don't deserve credit for their defense, but this also felt like a situation where once the Clippers went cold they got rattled and it got even worse. I think it's important to emphasize that while some teams are more prone to this than others, in 100 universes, this wouldn't happen anywhere near every time, but...
2. In the end it didn't even feel like that mattered. The way the Clippers came from behind and then blew the game open 3 times in a row, this was a TKO. Match up makes the fight, but this match up, with these coaching strategies, is settled. Nuggets > Clippers in the direct match up, the only question - other than whether a different coach would change things for the Clippers - is the Nuggets are a better team against most teams than the Clippers or whether the teams as currently constructed and orchestrated represent an unusual match up edge for the Nuggets.
3. And on that aspect of things, things are going to be different when Jokic has to face AD. The way AD has handled in Jokic in the past, along with the fact that the Lakers were the better team all season and have LeBron, makes the Lakers big favorites in the next round...
4. But Jamal Murray changes things. I have to be honest, I dismissed him as another would-be alpha that wasn't really good enough to be an alpha, and felt the Nuggets should think harder before giving him a max. I was wrong. There's just no way to think Bubble Murray isn't a legit star, and as good as the Lakers are, they're "lumpy" with their talent structure. I won't be at all surprised if the Nuggets put a scare into the Lakers.
5. Incidentally, clearly Paul George was not one of the Top 3 players in this series. That's something that needed to never be true except against the Lakers. It's just stunning to think that the Clippers emptied their proverbial clip to get George because Kawhi made them, and now what? There's reason to hope here going forward, but there's also a serious danger of collapse because, of course: Trading for George like that was clearly a bad move. Not necessarily a mistake by the Clippers because it got them Kawhi and they may still rally with George finding his vibe again, and not a mistake simply because it was an overpay, but because it was an overpay based on a certain individualist notion of "counting stars" that individualist-of-a-player Kawhi clearly bought into. George has been classified as a minor superstar, so clearly you can count on him, right?
6. I don't want to be super-negative tonight, but I've been shaking my head at George for years. This is a guy who is clearly easily rattled who has insisted on carrying himself as a hyper-masculine "ice in my veins" kind of guy. It's been an epic run of self-sabotage that has until now somehow managed to work out for him off-the-court convincing other people he actually was the thing he pretended to be. Dude needs to go on a hippy retreat and come back with a complete absence of ego.
7. Not that an exaggerated ego is necessarily a bad thing, because for Jimmy Butler, it clearly works. He's not as good as he thinks he is, but he's clearly inspired by his own narrative of himself, and he's capable of the same impact on the guys around him.
8. Back to the Nuggets: I just find myself thinking that the provably great vibe they have when down is a) completely unexpected and b) HUGE! I've always loved watching Jokic play and how he galvanized the movement of his teammates. And I would have told that I thought the way he fostered proactivity helped his teammates develop confidence. But I also thought that his tendencies toward petulance and whining would make the vibe brittle. Maybe they still are brittle, but there's something to be said for actually proving to yourselves what you can do on the grand stage. These guys feel empowered, and they feel like they feel like they can just keep learning to get better.
9. Last note: Key to all of this of course is that the Nuggets defense has found a way to solidify. Yes they got a bit lucky tonight with the Clippers missing shots, but this defense can be stout, and the notion of Jokic being a soft defender is I think really put to rest now. But AD is a different beast, so we'll see what happens next.
Briefly on the ECF:
i really like how Boston's been playing, but I like how Miami's been playing better. I could see this series going either way, but I love the diversity of attacks the Heat have. It's not just that they have many weapons, is that you can't optimize your defense against all of them at the same time even if you're Boston.
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