2019-20 NBA Season Discussion

[Peregrine01]

Jokic is an absolute load for anyone in the low post, Lakers’ bigs included. He got deep in the paint no matter who was guarding him...he just needs to be way more aggressive.

[freethedevil]

Jokic didn't score in easy situations in the 4th though, he made a lot of tough shots and he scored his share of points against Dwight and Davis. I mean, he backed down Davis with ease for a potential game winner.

I'd have to rewatch this game to decide who was better, but both had amazing games and Jokic was inarguably more consistent offensively. Davis played phenomenal defense on P&Rs and he contained Murray on some switches, but I didn't like his rim protection in this game. Overall, very good defensive game (not on all-time great level though). Jokic looked inconsistent to me - he had some very nice moments and he defended Davis well, but his rim protection wasn't good (as usual) and he fouled a lot.

All I know right now is that I haven't seen so many exciting bigmen duels in years! Firstly, Gobert vs Jokic and now Davis vs Jokic - this is something I like!

yeah not sure how jokic's buckets were less valuable. If anything scoring on lebron dwight and ad's a lot harder for a center than scoring on jokic and grant

[GSP]

Gotta suck for Nuggets fans to see Plumlee get subbed in precisely for his defense and seconds later completely dying on a soft screen. Inexcusable defense.

What? Plumlee didnt die on a screen at all

He thought they were switching and expected Grant to rotate over to Ad but Grant stayed on Bron

It was horrible miscommunication at the worst time

[clearlynotjesse]

Jokic's streakiness from three is what keeps me from putting him at the absolute top tier. When he's not hitting threes you can manage, but when he's raining them there's nothing you can do.

[MisterHibachi]

That tip in off the air ball by Jokic was insane btw

[MyUniBroDavis]

Jokic cleary outplayed Davis overall in the game imo.

Two sides of the court my G, davis was great on defense and had a few key possessions where he completely stopped guys getting to the rim, jokic gabe up like 4-5 easy shots at the rim at least including a really dumb foul on davis in the restricted

Almost all of jokic's buckets were off of mismatches, he got a few good ones off of davis and howard, davis created most of his and in the furst half almost all of then were literally on jokic

I think its arguably that jokic had a better offensive performance than davis
, although taking into account various factors, like how davis got most of his buckets on jokic or millsap wheb offense qas stagnant or action was broken down vs jokic against pick and roll mismatches, i think its arguablt at best, but when you take defense into consideration its no contest. Despite the steals (that were errant or poorly times passes going out of bounds for the most part) jokic was still pretty bad on D and got bailed out by lucky misses on that end, not to mention he was for the most part inneffective on the boards and wasnt boxing out.

No.....and there was nothing easy about Jokic's 4th quarter buckets. They were all substantially hard shots or complete isolations including one he had on Davis. The gap between Jokic and Davis on offense is pretty dang clear, even without looking at the stats (which favor Jokic).

Davis was hardly indestructible on defense. The Nuggets 12th man was scoring on him in the paint (or should have been if he did not shoot 20% from the line). If the Nuggets win this game no one would even consider who was the best this game.

Anthony Davis wasn't very effective in the first half, while James was basically the polar opposite. That made a gigantic difference. I don't know how we're bringing up ease and saying that's in Davis favor - the Nuggets are less talented and have to play way harder, and have had a playoff game nearly every other day for a month straight. Stamina is not on their side and it shows.

First three quarters, i agree on the fourth, and pj dozier was literally going off

Theres a misunderstanding on what better teammates mean

Better teammates either create more for yoy or mean you cant gelp off of them. But the lakers didnt usually help on jokic onless the mismatch is ridiculous or they went into scramble mode

Im watching to make sure, here are jokic's buckets

Transition into kcp 1
Iso Jumper over AD 2
Post up over Kuz 3 (late ish shotclock)
Catcg and shoot Turnaround over mcgee 4 (late shotclock)
Post up vs green 5
Catch and Shot over caruso 6 (was tuff and late shot clock but keep in mind hes shooting over someone thats 6ft5 as a center lol)
Catch and shoot over AD 7
Shot over AD 8
The putback 9

It was less than i thought in terms of mismatches, but he created offense in 2/9 of his shots. (And almost all of his non transition assists were against mismatches or handoffs).

Davis's buckets

1. Post up on jokic
2. Post up on jokic
3. Iso on jokic (4 on shotclock)
4. Iso pullup on grant (4 on shotclock)
5. Iso on jokic (3 on shotclock)
6. Post up on jokic
7. Open dribble pullup (was a mismatch catch and soot didnt know who)
8. Stepback three vs millsap (expiring shotclock)
9.Iso drive against i think pj dojier (although he shot it, over jokic in the midpaint)
10.Game winner catch and shoot

(Couldnt find 1)

So with davis, 5 of his 9 buckets were against Jokic himself, a 4 late shotclock

Jokic had TWO buckets creating his own offense againsta good defender. (Kuz is a mismatch in the post, hes a wing defender, and is weaker than green in terms of strength). In 4/9 of his overall buckets he wasnt even guarded by a big man.

And in his mismatch possessions the defense usually didnt help all too much

Davis had 5 isos or post ups against jokic. All of his shots against mismatches, against grant, dojier, and millsap, consisted if a steo back midrange pullup, a drive right into jokics help, and a stepback three with an expiring shot clock. All three were from the perimeter.

Jokic also didnt face much help in his mismatch scores. Against kcp was trnasition, no help vs kuz, vs green you had kuzma try to block ut from behind and miss

So jokic created two buckets on his matchup, 3 against guards and wings (without help, in the post or in transition where he got to the paint), had 2 catch and shoots and a put ack

AD created 5 buckets on his matchup, 3 against guards or wings (consisting of a wing iso pullup stebpack, a stepback three with the clock expiring, and a drive right into the help that stepped up).

So AD

- scored more buckets against his matchup
- scored tougher buckets against mismatches
- made more late shot clock shots
- hit the game winner

Had a easier shot profile than Jokic?

No, he definately 100% did not.

So davis was a more effective scorer, espexially since at the end of the day he was more effecient despite his buckets being significantly harder (alternatively yoy can say the ines over jokic arent that hard but that doesnt make sense for the argument).

So the argument is jokic's playmaking, which outaide of handoffs and mismatch post up passes (and keep in mind its help in the sense that you have rindo and caruso up in ur grill, grant cut from the perimeter leaving someone in the corner since AD has to tag grant meaning theres literally only one possible read a bunch if the time) i counted 3 really good passes (which were mostly off mismatch drives again).

The argument makes no sense, hos is it wasier for davis this game?

Did davis have easier shots? Not even close

Did he carey the slack when his teammates were ofd the floor? No, the nuggets were +4 with jokic off the floor, the lakers -6 with davis off the floor

1. Had a tougher shot profile
2. Created his offense, and salvaged more broken possessions
3. The nuggets went on their run (outside the fourth) to make it a contest WITHOUT jokic
4. Had few mismatches and faced LESS help than jokic did

How in any planet does this translate to jokic having it tougher? Especially when he gets switches as a function of his team?

Sure you can argue that its his playmaking that means they cant help, but to argue that the offense is harder for jokic doesnt make sense, when he has a playmaking scoring guard that forced them to switch, more respectable shooting, and better off ball movement and cutting.

The only real argument is when rondo or bron give him easy buckets but there wasnt a single one today like that.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Jokic didn't score in easy situations in the 4th though, he made a lot of tough shots and he scored his share of points against Dwight and Davis. I mean, he backed down Davis with ease for a potential game winner.

I'd have to rewatch this game to decide who was better, but both had amazing games and Jokic was inarguably more consistent offensively. Davis played phenomenal defense on P&Rs and he contained Murray on some switches, but I didn't like his rim protection in this game. Overall, very good defensive game (not on all-time great level though). Jokic looked inconsistent to me - he had some very nice moments and he defended Davis well, but his rim protection wasn't good (as usual) and he fouled a lot.

All I know right now is that I haven't seen so many exciting bigmen duels in years! Firstly, Gobert vs Jokic and now Davis vs Jokic - this is something I like!

yeah not sure how jokic's buckets were less valuable. If anything scoring on lebron dwight and ad's a lot harder for a center than scoring on jokic and grant

Jokic had 2 iso buckets on davis, every other bucket was a catch and shoot or a mismatch post up

Davis had 5-6 on jokic, and every iso was a perimeter one and not a single one led to a shot where ur like "ez" other than maybe the floater into jokic at 10 feet

Theres you can tell me that davis had easier shots when literally EVERY single shot he took had a sense of self creation. The only ine you can argue wasnt created was after he got i think dojier with the pump fake and did an open pullup from 20 feet

Jokic created TWO buckets on a center, and every single other one was a mismatch or a catch and shoot or the putback

Not to mention not a single shot davis he created got him to the rim without running into help, outside of the ones against jokic, which obviously isnt a good look for jokic

[dreamshake]

Jokic VS Ad.was basically a wash this game. Not sure how you can say one was clearly better

Ad is still far ahead for the series considering the massive gap in play in game 1

That was more because of Dwight Howard though. Big body leaning and roughing up Jokic in game 1.

Davis doesn't have to worry about someone tiring him out for an entire game. Who is even on him when it's not Jokic, Grant?

Meh, being tired is a weak cop-out in a game he played 25 minutes. He was pretty good tonight but he was awful in game 1.

[Heej]

Gotta say man this is one of those games where you see the Jokic as one of the GOAT peak passers people being validated. Cuz once Denver started building the wall on LeBron it was jarring to see how much harder it was for LeBron to handle those low hard doubles vs Jokic hooking over them and throwing someone open. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was underrating his ability to pass cuz people said it was better than LeBron's and this game definitely Made me realize that.

[Joey Wheeler]

Great ending. Both Jokic and AD have so much skill on offense, it's great to watch them go at it.

[Blackmill]

Rewatching the 3rd and 4th quarters, a lot went wrong with the Lakers offense. They missed on most of their good looks and they really struggled to generate an advantage on screens. This last part led to a lot of plays where there was 10 seconds on the clock and nothing to work with. Losing this game is a hard blow to the Nuggets. The second half may be the worst 24 minutes of basketball the Lakers play this series and Jokic was having his way. I could see us looking back at this game as the best and only opportunity for Denver to win one.

[MisterHibachi]

I'm very happy about how AD and Jokic are dominating, mostly because it's awesome to watch but even more so because it disproves the Morey all wings method of team building. No team in the West is going to dare copy Houston knowing they'll have to go through Jokic and AD to get to the finals for the next 5 to 10 years.

[E-Balla]

Gotta say man this is one of those games where you see the Jokic as one of the GOAT peak passers people being validated. Cuz once Denver started building the wall on LeBron it was jarring to see how much harder it was for LeBron to handle those low hard doubles vs Jokic hooking over them and throwing someone open. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was underrating his ability to pass cuz people said it was better than LeBron's and this game definitely Made me realize that.

I've always felt LeBron's passing was overrated up until his last year with Kyrie in Cleveland where he finally improved to that upper echelon of finding great looks out of nowhere but now I'm not too sure about it. He's still the first passer right under that level but he's closer to TMac than Bird when it comes to his passing game I think.

[limbo]

I'm very happy about how AD and Jokic are dominating, mostly because it's awesome to watch but even more so because it disproves the Morey all wings method of team building. No team in the West is going to dare copy Houston knowing they'll have to go through Jokic and AD to get to the finals for the next 5 to 10 years.

Tbf, if Morey had the option of getting AD, he'd trade any cluster of players on his team not named Harden to do it...

Fact of the matter is that there's only one guy with AD's profile/skillset in the entire (history of the) league... And that's AD himself.

Most of the time, most teams will have a slow-footed, lumbering Big that can't handle, pass or shoot. Which is what Capella was for Houston... So in that sense, i'm not mad at Morey for trying a different approach, especially with Westbrook's non-shooting arse in there as well, which would make Houston have two non-shooters on the court a lot of the time.

So yeah, AD and Jokic are mostly huge exceptions to the rule here... At the same time, i can't help but feeling if you swapped LeBron for Westbrook this season, Houston goes on to win the title... And then everybody would be saying Morey was a revolutionary genius with this 'smallball' approach, when in reality, the raw talent of the players was really the deciding factor, not whether Tucker/RoCo or Capella played the 5...

[Heej]

Gotta say man this is one of those games where you see the Jokic as one of the GOAT peak passers people being validated. Cuz once Denver started building the wall on LeBron it was jarring to see how much harder it was for LeBron to handle those low hard doubles vs Jokic hooking over them and throwing someone open. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was underrating his ability to pass cuz people said it was better than LeBron's and this game definitely Made me realize that.

I've always felt LeBron's passing was overrated up until his last year with Kyrie in Cleveland where he finally improved to that upper echelon of finding great looks out of nowhere but now I'm not too sure about it. He's still the first passer right under that level but he's closer to TMac than Bird when it comes to his passing game I think.

I definitely agree with him hitting another gear as a passer in Cleveland, but imo you're dragging it a little with that last part. I guess another thing to think about is that Jokic at this point has more experience seeing hard doubles and it's much easier to pass out of them from a stationary position on the low block than it is initiating from the perimeter. We've seen LeBron pick apart teams that double or collapse, so I'm fairly sure with some film work the Lakers will have the appropriate counters built in next time the Nuggets try to do the wall

[MyUniBroDavis]

Jokic didn't score in easy situations in the 4th though, he made a lot of tough shots and he scored his share of points against Dwight and Davis. I mean, he backed down Davis with ease for a potential game winner.

I'd have to rewatch this game to decide who was better, but both had amazing games and Jokic was inarguably more consistent offensively. Davis played phenomenal defense on P&Rs and he contained Murray on some switches, but I didn't like his rim protection in this game. Overall, very good defensive game (not on all-time great level though). Jokic looked inconsistent to me - he had some very nice moments and he defended Davis well, but his rim protection wasn't good (as usual) and he fouled a lot.

All I know right now is that I haven't seen so many exciting bigmen duels in years! Firstly, Gobert vs Jokic and now Davis vs Jokic - this is something I like!

yeah not sure how jokic's buckets were less valuable. If anything scoring on lebron dwight and ad's a lot harder for a center than scoring on jokic and grant

I watched through game highlights again and

There is NO way in living hell that davis had it easier than jokic tonight its actually absurd lmfao

He scored on jokic 6 times on post ups or isos.

Of the 4 shots not on jokic, in only 2 of them was it possible for him to get to the rim, or i guess i mean its be the right choice, and in 1 of then he ran right into the help. (He had one possession against grant, should have drived but made the steoback 20 footer). Not a single mismatch he was in the post, all were perimeter, 2 late shotclock, one with help defense positioned.

Jokic has 2 possessions on davis, the rest were mismatches or catch and shoots. Of his mismatches he got to the rim every single time because they were post up mismatches, or in transition. Of these, not a single one did the help defense effect the shot.

Passing wise, jokic had two assists outside of either a handoff or an initial mismatch. One a drive and kick (half the floor was cleared out and it was against mcgee) and a throw to millsep who had pushed green out of the way

Like, its ridiculous to say jokic's shots were less valuable when he created 2 of them against a non advantageous mismatch va davis who created 6-8 of them lol. Even out of his assists almost all were handoffs, or passes after getting doubled during a rondo/caruso/green level mismatch by one of the other /

Jokic is in a ridiculously good offensive situation for his talents it doesnt make sense to say otherwise. Take out him murray this is a top 10 shooting team from three, substitute mirray for lillard because suddenly he is, add a strong offensive coach and good off ball movement

The lakers have 3 guys on their current rotation who shot above 33.3% from three in the RS, and one of them is bron.

Bron isnt a better oick and roll partner than murray in terms of getting ad advantage because switching that gives him a strong wing defender vs a guard defender. Rondo isnt a scoring threats in the pick and roll, caruso cant run it. Vogel is great but offensively hes league average ish

Its like, how is davis in a better situation for his talents? The fit is horrible on one end and near perfection in the other. Hes in a much better team but thats different.

There isnt a way to justifiably say jokic was better because you either have, davis was taking much tougher shots and it was much harder for hin to offense based off of circumstance, vs jokic's defense wasnt hard to beat which sets itself up

Like the equivilant of jokic's squad would be, for davis, i guess

Current CP3, top 5 shooting team, + elite offensive coach.

Its odd to me to say that jokic had a better gane or is in a harder situation when his team is built so ridiculously perfectly without him in comparison, when the inly reason is "but lebron"

[E-Balla]

Gotta say man this is one of those games where you see the Jokic as one of the GOAT peak passers people being validated. Cuz once Denver started building the wall on LeBron it was jarring to see how much harder it was for LeBron to handle those low hard doubles vs Jokic hooking over them and throwing someone open. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was underrating his ability to pass cuz people said it was better than LeBron's and this game definitely Made me realize that.

I've always felt LeBron's passing was overrated up until his last year with Kyrie in Cleveland where he finally improved to that upper echelon of finding great looks out of nowhere but now I'm not too sure about it. He's still the first passer right under that level but he's closer to TMac than Bird when it comes to his passing game I think.

I definitely agree with him hitting another gear as a passer in Cleveland, but imo you're dragging it a little with that last part. I guess another thing to think about is that Jokic at this point has more experience seeing hard doubles and it's much easier to pass out of them from a stationary position on the low block than it is initiating from the perimeter. We've seen LeBron pick apart teams that double or collapse, so I'm fairly sure with some film work the Lakers will have the appropriate counters built in next time the Nuggets try to do the wall

I mean it's no slight, Bird is insane as a passer and T-Mac is still arguably the best passing SG ever (Manu is really the only one I'd consider outside of him - Harden makes too many flat out bad passes for me).

[MyUniBroDavis]

Gotta say man this is one of those games where you see the Jokic as one of the GOAT peak passers people being validated. Cuz once Denver started building the wall on LeBron it was jarring to see how much harder it was for LeBron to handle those low hard doubles vs Jokic hooking over them and throwing someone open. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was underrating his ability to pass cuz people said it was better than LeBron's and this game definitely Made me realize that.

I've always felt LeBron's passing was overrated up until his last year with Kyrie in Cleveland where he finally improved to that upper echelon of finding great looks out of nowhere but now I'm not too sure about it. He's still the first passer right under that level but he's closer to TMac than Bird when it comes to his passing game I think.

I definitely agree with him hitting another gear as a passer in Cleveland, but imo you're dragging it a little with that last part. I guess another thing to think about is that Jokic at this point has more experience seeing hard doubles and it's much easier to pass out of them from a stationary position on the low block than it is initiating from the perimeter. We've seen LeBron pick apart teams that double or collapse, so I'm fairly sure with some film work the Lakers will have the appropriate counters built in next time the Nuggets try to do the wall

I mean its also how the teams function and are positioned

Jokic's assists come from mismatch doubles vs a wall. Like he'll have a combination of rondo/caruso/green harass him for a bit and he'll have more time to look for the right oass compared to bron reacting to a sudden wall, not to mention how smart the nuggets are off ball and how theyre basically a top 5 shooting team with murray and jokic in this form, the lakers missing most of their best shooters from the rs already ranked bottom ten in threes

Jokic had 2 assists that werent handoffs or doubles by smalls last night, both were easy passes (the millsap one i relooked and that was all him lol)

If you've seen cranjis's playmaking talent data, lebron blows everyone incluidng jokic out of the water

I think 2020 lebron has levelled up as a passer

[MyUniBroDavis]

AD is gonna have a trash game today

[70sFan]

I've always felt LeBron's passing was overrated up until his last year with Kyrie in Cleveland where he finally improved to that upper echelon of finding great looks out of nowhere but now I'm not too sure about it. He's still the first passer right under that level but he's closer to TMac than Bird when it comes to his passing game I think.

I definitely agree with him hitting another gear as a passer in Cleveland, but imo you're dragging it a little with that last part. I guess another thing to think about is that Jokic at this point has more experience seeing hard doubles and it's much easier to pass out of them from a stationary position on the low block than it is initiating from the perimeter. We've seen LeBron pick apart teams that double or collapse, so I'm fairly sure with some film work the Lakers will have the appropriate counters built in next time the Nuggets try to do the wall

I mean it's no slight, Bird is insane as a passer and T-Mac is still arguably the best passing SG ever (Manu is really the only one I'd consider outside of him - Harden makes too many flat out bad passes for me).

Richie Guerin is highly underrated as a passer. I don't have a lot of footage of him, but in two full games I have seen he looked spectacular (had 11 and 13 assists in them). I can't tell you if he's better than Manu, but I know he's extremely good and was true floor general for the early 1960s Knicks.