Memphis wasn't all there mentally before that losing their starting center. Golden State was inconsistent and spent after beating Sac in a seven game series. We had a puncher's chance against Denver who was/is firing on all cylinders. Injured star...rookie coach...odd lineups...great going as far as we could but in the end too much to overcome. Lose in five or six at the most, yes. Swept, no.
I thought we matched up pretty well against Denver. The problem I saw and was correct about was Murray vs. Dlo. Murray is coming off missing two years of playoffs because of injury. I could see that he wasn't screwing around this year. He was all business. I didn't have the same feeling at all about Dlo - too inconsistent and not serious enough yet. He doesn't have that drive yet that's do or die. You need to have some of that and I haven't seen it thus far. He had some good games in the playoffs but not enough. I thought AD and Joker would basically cancel each other out for the most part. I knew KCP had championship pedigree of course and that MPJ was healthy and Gordon was fitting in there better this year. But I liked our chances and I thought we battled well. We came up a little short but there's no shame in that. The Nuggets are going to win a championship and I felt like we played them better than Miami has thus far even though they squeaked out one win.
Denver coasted for almost the last month of the regular season knowing they'll finish 1st in the West . 53 wins aren't very representative of their level imo
I doubt he’s even pudgy(?) Just has a not “ripped” looking physique. He’s in great shape and they play at altitude contributing to that. No belly or fat face.
The difference in their defense is Gordon who is slowing down (not stopping) the opponent's main scorers while chipping in at least 10 points a game. Then you have reserves like Braun and Brown who would show up with great games once in a while. The also play solid defense. It remains to be seen if they can be a dynasty like Golden State, San Antonio and us. Let's see them operate with targets on their backs. You can only whine about being ignored for so long.
I thought it was a skit at first and the fall was for effect. I don't usually condone violence against anyone unless it's Mikey Malone.
I thought we were going to beat Denver because we'd be getting whatever we wanted at the rim. I forget where I heard this, but on some podcast they said we lost the 4 games by a total of 24 points, which is the 4th-closest sweep in playoff history. Based on the teams' respective shot profiles in the series, the Nuggets outshot their expected points by 29 points and we undershot ours by 9 points. In other words, we were right there and it really did come down to them making some shots and us missing some. I'm seeing a lot of Nuggets fans saying we were the best team they faced in the playoffs and we have them the toughest test despite being the only ones to get swept. I firmly believe that we and the C Bags were the 2nd and 3rd best teams in the league this year in some order even despite injuries to other teams (Giannis, Grizzlies losing Adams/Clarke, CP3, etc.). I thought the Bucks were pretty overrated all year, they had the best record but their expected win/loss was significantly worse and Giannis's freethrow and midrange shooting really regressed this year.
It's going to get really hard to compare teams from different seasons given how little teams care about the regular season. The 2002 team still won 58 games coming off back-to-back titles, same with the 2011 team winning 57 games after their two titles. Now teams like this year's Nuggets or the Clippers the last few years are coasting through the regular season despite never having won it all or even making the Finals. And it worked for the Nuggets. The Nuggets have looked really good in these playoffs but I have no idea how to compare them to other historical teams given how mediocre their regular season was. Their playoff net rating is really good but that's too opponent specific.
I have a strange feeling that this thing is going to game 7. Kevin Love may be the only player whose teams bounced back 2 times from a score of 1:3 in the finals
i think denver ends it tonight. refs tried to give miami the game in the 4th the other night, and they couldn't take it. to me, that was ballgame. but we'll see!
yeah, i'm once again asking where this denver team was two weeks ago. we'd be having a parade right now, for real. those shots are WIDE OPEN. even for jokic and murray.
Nice intensity in this game. Should be interesting to see if either is too gassed in the 4th to keep this pace up.
