2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West Semifinals: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Denver Nuggets (DEN leads 1-0)

[Patches Perry]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

I imagine Gordon will guard SGA a lot. Jalen Williams hasn't proven himself to be a reliable #2 in tense situations (hope he proves me wrong). OKC's offense can really slow down if SGA is halted at the point of attack and Dub isn't stepping up.

OKC also tends to become very beatable when they aren't forcing a bunch of turnovers. If Denver can limit turnovers and win the rebound battle, OKC is in for a long series. Limiting turnovers and rebounding are things Denver is capable of being disciplined on, by virtue of the wealth of playoff experience they have.

[Loaf_of_bread]

Okc will display their dominance. Will be a walk in the park.

[meh]

OKC wins all 3 at home and 1 of 2 in Denver. OKC in 5.

[Joerezz7]

The real question is will OKC double Jokic or play him straight up

[Dadouv47]

OKC in 6.

Denver is legit, they have Champions DNA and Playoff Murray is a thing but their lack of bench is too much to overcome IMO.

[falcolombardi]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

I imagine Gordon will guard SGA a lot. Jalen Williams hasn't proven himself to be a reliable #2 in tense situations (hope he proves me wrong). OKC's offense can really slow down if SGA is halted at the point of attack and Dub isn't stepping up.

OKC also tends to become very beatable when they aren't forcing a bunch of turnovers. If Denver can limit turnovers and win the rebound battle, OKC is in for a long series. Limiting turnovers and rebounding are things Denver is capable of being disciplined on, by virtue of the wealth of playoff experience they have.

Gordon on sga sounds like a disaster waiting to happen tbh, not only does it take away jokic help at defending the rim (a jokic who will probably be put on screens by harstentein or needing to stay home on chet a fair bit)

But a bigger, stronger guy like gordon will have a hard time dealing with shai zig zagging. Is lankier (or at least leaner) long athletic guys (dunn, herb, amen) who have had more success on shai. Not power forwards (and denver usually matches him with braun regardless)

The jalen thingh has been discussed ad nauseum all year long and all what could be said has been said, he struggled last year yes, but this is a new season, he is more experienced and already burned the grizzlies last round (and denver has not been a super defense squad compared to memphis) so we have to wait and see

Okc issues with size are fairly overblown (imo) this season, even last year we won the chet minutes against dallas twin towers and this is a better team that added harstentein too. Our rebounding with chet and ihart has been lowkey good (our rebounding ranks in reg season are dragged down by centerless games) and we won the offensive rebounding battle against memphis who played a big front court

[THE J0KER]

Nuggets vs Clippers was the 1st round best series, and the Nuggets vs Oklahoma will be some kind of WC "final before final" type of showdown.

Home court advantage is big in this type of close matchups, and the Nuggets will be more tired for game#1, but everything else is way closer in this series than the regular-season record of those two title contenders suggests (75%-25% early poll result here is unrealistic)!

[SpurNani]

Joker will have easier time scoring i say he will average 30+. Murray, Westbrook, Braun, the walking corpse of MPJ will find it difficult.

SGA should average 33 if he stops being mid in these playoffs. Denver doesnt have a prayer of stopping him from doing anything he wants to do.

[Black star]

I don't like the Nuggets in this series at all. The Clippers were not a team who could effectively exploit the areas where the Nuggets D was weakest but OKC can. Shai is the best slasher in the game currently and the Nuggets have no one to matchup with him. Shai should have a monster series and will be able to live in the paint. I expect OKC to go on scoring runs frequently

The OKC D is fueled by two way players instead of one way elite guys like Dunn and DJJ. The ball hawks on the Thunder have offensive skills so the Nuggets won't be able to do 4 on 5 strategies. Murray is going to be seeing 48 minutes of high intensity ball pressure. Jokic is going to have to contend with Hartenstein while Chet is helping from the offside. He's a maestro so he'll figure things out but they won't have enough to keep up with OKC

The Thunder have been a machine all year and the Nuggets defense especially isn't going to hold up to the level of strain OKC can put on it. I think this is OKC in 5

[ShouldaPaidBG]

The Thunder just have too many weapons on defense. MPJ won't complete a single dribble in this series.

[GiannisAnte34]

Denver's role players too flawed for this series, I'd be surprised if they pushed it to 6 unless OKC plays with their food too much

[Clav]

OKC needs to shoot better than they did vs MEM. It's gonna be a closer series for me, tight games, I think OKC gets it in 6 but wouldn't be surprised to see them beaten convincingly in a few games either.

[Patches Perry]

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

I imagine Gordon will guard SGA a lot. Jalen Williams hasn't proven himself to be a reliable #2 in tense situations (hope he proves me wrong). OKC's offense can really slow down if SGA is halted at the point of attack and Dub isn't stepping up.

OKC also tends to become very beatable when they aren't forcing a bunch of turnovers. If Denver can limit turnovers and win the rebound battle, OKC is in for a long series. Limiting turnovers and rebounding are things Denver is capable of being disciplined on, by virtue of the wealth of playoff experience they have.

Gordon on sga sounds like a disaster waiting to happen tbh, not only does it take away jokic help at defending the rim (a jokic who will probably be put on screens by harstentein or needing to stay home on chet a fair bit)

But a bigger, stronger guy like gordon will have a hard time dealing with shai zig zagging. Is lankier (or at least leaner) long athletic guys (dunn, herb, amen) who have had more success on shai. Not power forwards (and denver usually matches him with braun regardless)

The jalen thingh has been discussed ad nauseum all year long and all what could be said has been said, he struggled last year yes, but this is a new season, he is more experienced and already burned the grizzlies last round (and denver has not been a super defense squad compared to memphis) so we have to wait and see

Okc issues with size are fairly overblown (imo) this season, even last year we won the chet minutes against dallas twin towers and this is a better team that added harstentein too. Our rebounding with chet and ihart has been lowkey good (our rebounding ranks in reg season are dragged down by centerless games) and we won the offensive rebounding battle against memphis who played a big front court

Ultimately I think it's unwise to guard Shai with any one player because great scorers will eat up a steady diet, but I think Gordon will be on him in crucial possessions. Gordon typically defends guards fairly well if I'm not mistaken. Fast enough to cut off driving angles, big enough to absorb Shai's shoulder bump, and long enough to contest Shai's jumper. As with any great player though, no defense can guard great shotmaking. We'll see.

I agree on Jalen, but until he breaks through, I can't give him the benefit. He is like my favorite player on OKC so don't mistake that for hate.

I agree the bigs angle is overstated. Chet, Hartenstein and Jwill is a very good big man rotation on both ends.

[Catchall]

Jokic is going to need to be amazeballs in this series. Aaron Gordon is going to need to bully Chet, if possible. Murray is going to need to match 80%+ of Shai's shotmaking, which will be difficult given the level of OKC's defenders.

Maybe Denver can extend the series to 6 games.

[fanofthegreats]

Thunder are massively overrated. Jokic is a GOAT level player in his prime, people thinking oKC is a clear favorite don’t know what they are talking about.

[sp6r=underrated]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

The posters who see this as a close series value head-to-head, dismiss RS records and ignore MOV. I really disagree with this approach. OKC is the clear favorite.

[Whopper_Sr]

Went Nuggets in 7 vs Clippers so Nuggets in 7 again.

[Patches Perry]

I will say that with the opening line for game 1 being 9.5, the sports books are going to pay me a lot of money if OKC loses lol.

[falcolombardi]

Potentially a Hakeem vs. David Robinson situation? Lot of parallels.

David Robinson won MVP after leading his team to 62 wins and #1 seed. Hakeem was still widely thought to be the best player in the league and Rockets had already won 1 championship, and Hakeem led the 47 win 6th seed to a 4-2 series win, and eventually the championship.

Denver has championship DNA and I'd be shocked if they lost this series in less than 6 games. OKC is still very young and hasn't been in these moments. This is likely a 7 game series and Nuggets have the experience to steal game 7 on the road.

The spurs struggled in huge part because robinson and spurs got locked down/exposed by hakeem + rockets help D

Do you see murray, westbrook or braun locking down shai? Or okc struggling to capitalize on help om shai thst badly? (best offense in the nba since january 1)


Okc is also far away of where spurs were by point differential, like i am baffled by the comparision

The posters who see this as a close series value head-to-head, dismiss RS records and ignore MOV. I really disagree with this approach. OKC is the clear favorite.

But if h2h is so important wouldnt you have okc as favorite against boston ?

Which i dont think any of the people picking denver would do

[MrPainfulTruth]

Everyone almost certain Nuggets have no chance. Thats good, its nice to play without any pressure.

Ultimately it will come down to officiating. Will it be the same on both ends? Then either SGA wont get the calls he is used to with his flopping (kind of like Harden in the Clippers series) or if they call contact, the lauded OKC defense - that mostly consists of grabbing and hand checking - will come down to earth.