May 9, 2024 • 23 mins
Unlock the gritty details behind the Denver Nuggets' playoff predicaments as we scrutinize their recent hard-knock lessons at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves. We're going beyond the scoreboards to dissect how a blend of strategy clash, physicality, and psychological warfare has the Nuggets searching for answers. From Rudy Gobert's mind-bending no-show to the parallels with a past 76er's showdown, we're putting everything on the table. Bear witness to Minnesota's ferocious rise, and hear our take on why Denver's usual spark seems to be dimming, with referees' leniency towards the Wolves' aggressive play only fanning the flames of the Nuggets' discomfort.
As the conversation heats up, the spotlight turns to individual player struggles and the underlying conflicts that might be plaguing the team's synergy. Jamal Murray's conditioning, Aaron Gordon's tactical mismatches, and the team's bench suffering from stage fright—it's all part of the intricate dance of playoff basketball. We don't shy away from the elephant in the room, Nikola Jokic's puzzling passivity, and we're spinning theories that could be affecting the Serbian sensation's game – is it a coaching gambit gone awry, or internal team dynamics at play? Plus, enjoy a whimsical detour into the realm of Jokic's mythical minions, bringing a dash of humor to the otherwise serious analysis of the Nuggets' challenging playoff journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, everyone, welcome back to Fandom From Afar
Nuggets fans.
We are in a tough spot.
The first two games against theTimberwolves have been ugly and
demoralizing, and I'm glad Idid not.
(00:24):
My original plan was to do thispod right after game two and
obviously if you watched it itwas just a beat down.
You could not get beat anyworse by another team, both
physically, mentally, on thescoreboard.
Any way you want to put it, thewolves destroyed us and
(00:49):
obviously I was not happy thatnight, and so I'm glad I did not
do the pod right away, becauseit would have just been the
saddest thing that you've everheard, and while today won't
necessarily be happy, it's goingto be, I think, a little bit
better than it would have beenwith the immediate reaction.
So I'm glad I gave myself sometime and I want to start first
(01:11):
by giving the Wolves credit.
They are a great basketballteam.
They remind me so much of theNuggets last year where they had
kind of been building towardssomething and it's kind of
clicked for them to be like oh,we're great and we can show you
(01:32):
how great we are and we're gonnago ahead and possibly win this
championship.
And it's fun to see them,because obviously you've you've
heard me talk about the wolvesall year how they were the
toughest matchup for the Nuggetslast year, and they're built to
stop the Nuggets.
But it's obviously not fun towatch them destroy the Nuggets
like they have been, and we'llgo into details on that.
(01:54):
But I do want to give credit tothe Wolves.
I do not think it's just theNuggets playing badly or the
Nuggets not putting in anyeffort.
I think that was the case inthe Lakers series and the
Nuggets just happened to bebetter than the Lakers.
But this series Minnesota isdoing everything well and Denver
(02:17):
is not handling it.
So credit to the Wolves.
They are playing absolutelyincredible right now, and I
guess I'm going to mainly focuson game two.
Game one, I think, was verysimilar to the Lakers series,
where it seemed like the Nuggetswere just not playing like
themselves.
The Wolves are playing greatand the Nuggets figured that
(02:39):
they could just come back andwin, like they normally do, and
the Wolves just were not havingit and then they ended up
pulling it out in the end.
So I think game two is reallydifferent than the other games
we've seen in the playoffs sofar, and so I want to focus on
that one today.
The Nuggets, obviously, afterlosing in game one, probably had
(03:02):
some adjustments ready to goand things to focus on.
And I think a big part of someadjustments ready to go and, um,
things to focus on and I thinka big part of that was how to
attack Rudy Gobert, who's thedefensive player of the year,
and then it came out before thegame that he's actually going to
miss the games, uh, due to thebirth of his first child.
So you think that'd be good if,uh, you get to go against a
team missing their best defender.
(03:23):
But there's something weirdabout this Nuggets team that if
they're focused on something andready for a big game and then
something changes, like thiswhere it gives them an advantage
, they seem to come out veryflat and almost think like they
(03:44):
have the game in hand and theydon't have to try.
A very similar thing happenedin the regular season when all
the talk was how Joel Embiid wasgoing to play in that game and
it was going to be a greatmatchup and the Nuggets were
going to get their revenge fromEmbiid destroying them in
Philadelphia and then, at thevery last second, from Embiid
(04:05):
destroying them in Philadelphia.
And then, at the very lastsecond, embiid did not play in
the game.
And then in that game theNuggets came out very, very flat
and almost lost to all the76ers bench guys, basically.
And so it was similar in thisWolves game, where you thought
the Nuggets were just going tocome out and show, oh, we're the
defending champions, you guysgot one from us in game one, but
(04:25):
we're going to show you what wereally are.
And that just did not happen.
The referees were letting theplayers play really physical
with each other, which I love.
I hate all the ticky-tack.
Fouls get called sometimesduring the regular season.
So it was awesome, they wereletting the guys play season.
(04:47):
So it was awesome.
Um, they were, they wereletting the guys play.
And Minnesota noticed it andsaid, oh, this is, this is great
, let's go.
And Denver noticed it and said,oh, let me think of 17
different ways that I can cry tothe referees after every play
and and let's uh, let's not likethis physical, physical play
and let's just get dominated.
So, not great.
But the Wolves kind of got toshow off who they are with the
(05:11):
way the game was being called.
They were just surroundingevery Nuggets player with the
ball as we were trying to passaround.
The biggest compliment I cangive the Wolves is it feels like
there's six guys out therearound.
The biggest compliment I cangive the wolves is it feels like
there's six guys out there.
They're constantly doubleteaming either Jamal Murray or
(05:32):
Jokic with the ball and normallywe'll swing it and get a wide
open shot out of that, becausethose guys are used to just you
want to double team us, we'regoing to make you pay.
Yet against Minnesota they'restruggling to pass to the open
guy or even if they do, there'sa guy right there rotating over
and making it a tough shot.
So it just feels like there'ssix of them out there because
(05:53):
they're so athletic, they're solong and really it's just their
mentality they're playing sohard right now that I think it's
kind of just stunned Denver alittle bit.
And it all starts with AnthonyEdwards.
He is a legit superstar.
He's only 22 years old, sohe'll probably keep getting
better and just the way he playslike.
(06:15):
He's had a few quotes after thegames recently where he's like
oh, I really like that guy, butI'm trying to tear his heart out
.
Or he's like he's like oh, Ireally like that guy but I'm
trying to tear his heart out.
Or he's like it's nothingpersonal, it's just I'm going to
destroy you.
Like he is just.
He has the mentality thatyou're looking for and we'll get
into that a little bit with oneof our players who does not
(06:35):
have that mentality right now.
But Anthony Edwards has been sofun to watch.
Even though he's destroying theNuggets, you can tell that he is
the leader on that team.
He's the best player and allthe guys just love kind of
following his lead.
He's obviously super confident,um, and he can back it up, but
(06:57):
the guys kind of feed off of hisenergy.
He's always talking.
He's always kind of flexingafter a great play.
He's talking to the crowd andthe other guys love it and they
are there to help him, uh,accomplish his dominance of him
taking over the game and it'slooking like taking over the
league.
So the wolves look great andtruthfully I would not be
(07:20):
surprised if they finish off thenuggets and go on to win the
championship.
They look that good and soobviously my hope is that the
Nuggets can come out strong ingame three and change that.
But with the way the Wolves areplaying now, they're just a
scary, scary team.
So let's flip that and talkabout the Nuggets.
(07:42):
I mentioned how they did nothandle it.
The physicality seemed to getto them and once they started
complaining to the referees thenit just didn't stop and it took
them out of their game.
They were trying to get callsinstead of just playing
basketball.
You could tell it was just intheir heads so much.
(08:04):
And even Michael Malone, Ithink, kind of freaked out
because he could tell that itwas happening to the team, and
you just don't see that out ofthe Nuggets very often.
Like normally, I feel like theyhandle physicality very well,
but for some reason this justgot to them and it snowballed
and got out of control and itwas awful.
(08:25):
And so I kind of want to gothrough some of the key guys and
things I noticed about how theyhandled it.
Most of it in a very poorfashion, but the team as a whole
just has to do better,otherwise it's going to be a
sweep and the Nuggets are goingto have to think about some big
changes, because if the seriescontinues this way, it's not
(08:49):
even close.
If the series continues thisway, it's not even close.
There's no way that we can justbring back the same team and be
like, oh well, we were just oneshot away or one player away.
It's been a beatdown so far.
So I think let's start withJamal Murray.
If you watch the game, youprobably saw him basically
(09:11):
having a breakdown.
He was being swarmed by theWolves.
They have great defenders tomatch up with him.
Even when Jamal's healthy hehas a hard time with some of
these defenders We've mentionedit in many podcasts this season
but they just match up reallywell with what Jamal is not good
at, which is athleticism andlength.
(09:32):
Now, when he's healthy, he cannormally have a little bit of a
burst and be able to dribble outof some trouble.
But in game two he was gettingtrapped and just could not do
anything.
He couldn't find the open guy.
He could barely get across halfcourt.
He just really struggled.
(09:55):
I've never seen him strugglebefore and the Wolves knew it
and I think that kind of fedtheir energy and then had a hard
time even getting the ball to ateammate once he did get past
half court, and so we weren'teven thinking about starting an
(10:23):
offense until there was like 10seconds left in the shot clock
because there was just nothingthat Jamal could do and I know
the injury is a big part of it,but like he's got to do
something different because thatwas just.
There was no way we were goingto get good looks at the basket
If, if he's struggling to evenget the ball to a player before
(10:45):
the shot, clock's running outand he did not handle it well
physically like he he lookedlike he was hurt and I I
appreciate him playing throughthe pain and through the injury,
but if if that's all he's got,then then maybe coach Malone has
to give him some time to restor even just time to think about
(11:07):
something different because itwas not not pretty.
Think about something differentbecause it was not not pretty.
Now, not handling it physicallyis one thing, but mentally,
like I said, it looked like hewas kind of having a breakdown
and that was capped off by himthrowing two different objects
onto the court at a referee.
Um, I know he was unhappy withthe calls, but you never see an
(11:32):
NBA player throw stuff onto thecourt just because they're upset
.
I'm shocked that he did not getsuspended.
He got a big fine, but it justseems like he was out of it and
I don't know if he was trying toget kicked out or I really just
don't know what he was out ofit and I don't know if he was
trying to get kicked out or I.
(11:53):
I really just I don't know whathe was doing.
Um, it's going to beinteresting how he handles game
three and if if he's more of adecoy or if he figures something
out that he can do to help theteam.
But I think a really good pointwas brought up by Adam Mara's on
the DNVR show is that, jamal,he comes into the season not in
(12:20):
peak physical condition and healways tries to kind of get
himself in shape throughout theseason.
The bad part of that plan isthat he also gets hurt.
Often it's always his legs.
There's always something wrongwith his legs.
This year it was shin splints,the calf muscle.
It's always something with hislegs, and so this year the
(12:42):
injuries were bad enough wherehe didn't get a chance to work
himself into shape.
And so now not only is he hurt,but he just doesn't look like
he's in the greatest shape, andso he's just he's getting eaten
up out there.
And I love Jamal.
I will never forget what he didfor us last year.
He was just an absolute star inthe playoffs, but it's.
(13:07):
It's tough.
He is.
He's hurting us right now.
Uh, aaron Gordon he started offgreat.
We probably would have lost by40 if he didn't have such a good
start, and so I love the start,but it's just not a great
matchup for him.
When we traded for Aaron Gordon, we were thinking, oh, we need
to shut down Luka, we need toshut down Kawhi like the big
(13:30):
wings, and Anthony Edwards isjust too quick for him.
Carl Anthony Towns is too bigfor him, and so it's just not a
great matchup to use his.
He is an elite defender, butit's just not a good matchup for
him.
So, ag, he's doing what he can,but I just don't feel like this
is the series for him.
(13:57):
Mpj and KCP they both lookedlike they were blown away by the
physicality as well.
Kcp is an amazing defender.
He's doing his best againstAnthony Edwards, but Anthony
Edwards is just too big andstrong for him and he's pretty
much doing whatever he wantsagainst him.
It kind of reminds me of if I'mplaying in the driveway against
my kids I can do what I need todo and I'm really not bothered
(14:21):
by any defense.
So hopefully KCP can figuresomething out, and NPJ just
needs to stop getting the ballstripped from him so easily, get
some rebounds and hopefullymake some shots.
And then the bench wascompletely non-existent.
I don't know what's going onwith Christian Brown and Peyton
Watson, and Reggie Jacksonrolled his ankle again, so
(14:43):
that's not looking good.
So we need something from thebench.
And then there's Jokic.
You know me, I love Jokic.
I feel so lucky that he wasluckily drafted to our team and
he's become what he's become.
But this playoff has been very,very strange.
(15:06):
He's been putting up some goodnumbers, but he seems just
passive and uninterested.
And at the end of the podcastI'm going to share some
conspiracy theories of why maybethat's happening.
But uh, jokic is our bestplayer.
He has to be our leader.
He has to either lead byexample Um, he's not a big vocal
(15:28):
leader, but I've seen him dothat in the past as well.
He needs to do something to getthese guys going, and I think
he needs to be more aggressivewhen the Wolves are double
teaming him.
And just what he's doing is notworking.
Even though it may betechnically the right basketball
play, it's not working.
It was tough in the Lakersseries.
(15:50):
But, like I said, we justhappen to have a better team
than them.
But we need to try somethingelse and it pretty much has to
be Jokic, with Jamal being hurtand non-effective.
But just him being uninterestedand non-aggressive is just not
like him.
When Jamal Murray and MichaelPorter Jr were hurt a couple
(16:12):
years ago, that's part of thereason why Jokic gained so much
respect is because he took itupon his shoulders, and two
years ago, when we were playingGolden State in the playoffs and
we pretty much had all benchunit and Jokic and he still put
up a fight.
It was what we wanted to seeout of our best player, out of
(16:33):
our leader, and he's not doingthat right now and I just don't
know why.
Carl Anthony Towns and Nas Reedthey've flat out been better
than him this series and there'sjust no way that they are even
close to as good a player as him.
And so something mentally orphysically is going on and I
(16:56):
don't know if it'll ever comeout.
But he has to do somethingdifferent.
He's passing to try and get histeammates involved because he's
getting double teamed and theteammates obviously are not
making the Timberwolves pay andI don't know.
As you can probably tell in myvoice there's really a
(17:19):
hopelessness to what we've seenso far, and I would not be
surprised if the Nuggets gotswept.
But at the same time, I've seenthe Nuggets fight back.
Just a couple years ago theycame back from three to one,
down two times in the sameplayoff.
They're constantly fightingback from these 20-point
deficits and so I would neversay that the Nuggets have no
(17:42):
chance, but it's not lookinggood.
Jokic is probably going toreceive his third MVP award
tonight and I think I'llprobably do a separate episode
just talking about how amazingthat is.
Especially, I don't want to mixin this sad sack episode with
with uh talking about how greathe is and what a great season he
(18:04):
had.
So I'll probably do a separateepisode on that.
But uh, it is kind of funny.
Just he's won three out of thefour last MVPs and, uh, the one
year he didn't win it wasprobably his favorite year where
he didn't didn't have to dealwith all that mvp stuff and then
got to win the championship.
So um, episode coming on thatbecause it really is special
(18:26):
what we're watching.
There's not many players thathave won three mvps, let alone
three out of the last four years.
So um can't lose focus on the,on the big picture.
It is absolutely amazing thatthe nuggets have one of the best
players of all time.
Now let's talk about theseconspiracy theories.
These are wild theories thatare probably not true, but got
(18:53):
to throw them out there anyway,so some of them are more likely
than others.
I will let you choose whichones fall into which categories,
um but but let me show you someconspiracy theories with you.
So first one is that yokich isjust dead tired.
We have run him into the ground, like I mentioned, those those
(19:15):
years where everyone was hurtand he had to carry everything
on his back.
Um, that that takes a lot ofenergy.
And then this year we went forthe number one seed where last
year, when we won thechampionship, we rested a lot of
our guys um really taking iteasy the last month of the
season and we looked fresh inthe playoffs.
(19:35):
This year was not the case.
We we were playing everybodypretty heavy minutes trying to
get one of those top seeds.
We did tie for the best recordin the Western Conference and
tied the Nuggets record for mostwins in a season, but
everyone's looking pretty tiredright now.
So I'm wondering if it wasworth it and maybe the wrong way
(19:56):
to go.
Conspiracy theory number twomaybe Jokic is hurt and it just
hasn't come out.
Um, maybe it'll come out in theoff season, maybe not, but,
like, like I said, he is nothimself right now and I know he
always puts on that big heatingpad during timeouts, so maybe
(20:19):
his back is bothering him.
Maybe there's something else,but I don't know.
That's just a theory.
Maybe he's hurt and we justdon't realize it.
Very passive, aggressive attimes.
(20:42):
Um, throughout his years you'veseen him have games where he
only shoots like two or threetimes and it's just always
overpassing to his teammates andwho knows what causes that.
Or if it's just him acting outof frustration for for no reason
.
But what if he's doing that now?
What if I would?
I would say there's two, twooptions.
(21:03):
What if coach Malone tried tomotivate him sometime during the
Lakers series and, like, triedto call him out in some way and
Jokic just did not like that?
And now he's just being superpassive, aggressive and not
being Jokic like he normally is?
Um, it's possible he's.
(21:23):
He's had coach Malone for eightyears.
Um, they obviously have a verygood relationship, but uh, it's
not uncommon that coaches kindof wear out their, their
effectiveness.
With players Like the, the voicekind of starts to get drowned
out and and, uh, they just kindof lose the team.
And so that's definitelypossible.
(21:44):
Something happened.
And then the other one is whatif he's passive, aggressively,
kind of acting out against Jamal?
Um, jamal and him have beenteammates for seven years and
there's there's more and morestories coming out about how I
guess uh, prickly Jamal isbehind the scenes Like he's.
(22:08):
He definitely uh acts out andis kind of a jerk to people,
whether it's staff coaches,players.
He just kind of has thatpersonality.
And what if Jokic has justfinally had enough?
What if he's tired of Jamalbeing hurt in the playoffs or
during the regular season and itall falls on him?
(22:29):
I don't know, this one isdefinitely the darkest of all my
conspiracy theories.
It would definitely be a bummerif something happened behind
the scenes and then this core ofJokic Murray and Coach Malone
have to break up for some reason.
But I would say it's nottotally impossible.
(22:53):
Last conspiracy theory thatmight be the most likely is
perhaps Jokic sent the minionsout on a secret mission and they
failed to get that giant laserbeam that he needed to take over
the world and he's just mad andkind of sad about that.
Think about it.
(23:15):
Thanks everyone.
All right, everyone, welcome back to Fandom From Afar
Nuggets fans.
We are in a tough spot.
The first two games against theTimberwolves have been ugly and
demoralizing, and I'm glad Idid not.
(00:24):
My original plan was to do thispod right after game two and
obviously if you watched it itwas just a beat down.
You could not get beat anyworse by another team, both
physically, mentally, on thescoreboard.
Any way you want to put it, thewolves destroyed us and
(00:49):
obviously I was not happy thatnight, and so I'm glad I did not
do the pod right away, becauseit would have just been the
saddest thing that you've everheard, and while today won't
necessarily be happy, it's goingto be, I think, a little bit
better than it would have beenwith the immediate reaction.
So I'm glad I gave myself sometime and I want to start first
(01:11):
by giving the Wolves credit.
They are a great basketballteam.
They remind me so much of theNuggets last year where they had
kind of been building towardssomething and it's kind of
clicked for them to be like oh,we're great and we can show you
(01:32):
how great we are and we're gonnago ahead and possibly win this
championship.
And it's fun to see them,because obviously you've you've
heard me talk about the wolvesall year how they were the
toughest matchup for the Nuggetslast year, and they're built to
stop the Nuggets.
But it's obviously not fun towatch them destroy the Nuggets
like they have been, and we'llgo into details on that.
(01:54):
But I do want to give credit tothe Wolves.
I do not think it's just theNuggets playing badly or the
Nuggets not putting in anyeffort.
I think that was the case inthe Lakers series and the
Nuggets just happened to bebetter than the Lakers.
But this series Minnesota isdoing everything well and Denver
(02:17):
is not handling it.
So credit to the Wolves.
They are playing absolutelyincredible right now, and I
guess I'm going to mainly focuson game two.
Game one, I think, was verysimilar to the Lakers series,
where it seemed like the Nuggetswere just not playing like
themselves.
The Wolves are playing greatand the Nuggets figured that
(02:39):
they could just come back andwin, like they normally do, and
the Wolves just were not havingit and then they ended up
pulling it out in the end.
So I think game two is reallydifferent than the other games
we've seen in the playoffs sofar, and so I want to focus on
that one today.
The Nuggets, obviously, afterlosing in game one, probably had
(03:02):
some adjustments ready to goand things to focus on.
And I think a big part of someadjustments ready to go and, um,
things to focus on and I thinka big part of that was how to
attack Rudy Gobert, who's thedefensive player of the year,
and then it came out before thegame that he's actually going to
miss the games, uh, due to thebirth of his first child.
So you think that'd be good if,uh, you get to go against a
team missing their best defender.
(03:23):
But there's something weirdabout this Nuggets team that if
they're focused on something andready for a big game and then
something changes, like thiswhere it gives them an advantage
, they seem to come out veryflat and almost think like they
(03:44):
have the game in hand and theydon't have to try.
A very similar thing happenedin the regular season when all
the talk was how Joel Embiid wasgoing to play in that game and
it was going to be a greatmatchup and the Nuggets were
going to get their revenge fromEmbiid destroying them in
Philadelphia and then, at thevery last second, from Embiid
(04:05):
destroying them in Philadelphia.
And then, at the very lastsecond, embiid did not play in
the game.
And then in that game theNuggets came out very, very flat
and almost lost to all the76ers bench guys, basically.
And so it was similar in thisWolves game, where you thought
the Nuggets were just going tocome out and show, oh, we're the
defending champions, you guysgot one from us in game one, but
(04:25):
we're going to show you what wereally are.
And that just did not happen.
The referees were letting theplayers play really physical
with each other, which I love.
I hate all the ticky-tack.
Fouls get called sometimesduring the regular season.
So it was awesome, they wereletting the guys play season.
(04:47):
So it was awesome.
Um, they were, they wereletting the guys play.
And Minnesota noticed it andsaid, oh, this is, this is great
, let's go.
And Denver noticed it and said,oh, let me think of 17
different ways that I can cry tothe referees after every play
and and let's uh, let's not likethis physical, physical play
and let's just get dominated.
So, not great.
But the Wolves kind of got toshow off who they are with the
(05:11):
way the game was being called.
They were just surroundingevery Nuggets player with the
ball as we were trying to passaround.
The biggest compliment I cangive the Wolves is it feels like
there's six guys out therearound.
The biggest compliment I cangive the wolves is it feels like
there's six guys out there.
They're constantly doubleteaming either Jamal Murray or
(05:32):
Jokic with the ball and normallywe'll swing it and get a wide
open shot out of that, becausethose guys are used to just you
want to double team us, we'regoing to make you pay.
Yet against Minnesota they'restruggling to pass to the open
guy or even if they do, there'sa guy right there rotating over
and making it a tough shot.
So it just feels like there'ssix of them out there because
(05:53):
they're so athletic, they're solong and really it's just their
mentality they're playing sohard right now that I think it's
kind of just stunned Denver alittle bit.
And it all starts with AnthonyEdwards.
He is a legit superstar.
He's only 22 years old, sohe'll probably keep getting
better and just the way he playslike.
(06:15):
He's had a few quotes after thegames recently where he's like
oh, I really like that guy, butI'm trying to tear his heart out
.
Or he's like he's like oh, Ireally like that guy but I'm
trying to tear his heart out.
Or he's like it's nothingpersonal, it's just I'm going to
destroy you.
Like he is just.
He has the mentality thatyou're looking for and we'll get
into that a little bit with oneof our players who does not
(06:35):
have that mentality right now.
But Anthony Edwards has been sofun to watch.
Even though he's destroying theNuggets, you can tell that he is
the leader on that team.
He's the best player and allthe guys just love kind of
following his lead.
He's obviously super confident,um, and he can back it up, but
(06:57):
the guys kind of feed off of hisenergy.
He's always talking.
He's always kind of flexingafter a great play.
He's talking to the crowd andthe other guys love it and they
are there to help him, uh,accomplish his dominance of him
taking over the game and it'slooking like taking over the
league.
So the wolves look great andtruthfully I would not be
(07:20):
surprised if they finish off thenuggets and go on to win the
championship.
They look that good and soobviously my hope is that the
Nuggets can come out strong ingame three and change that.
But with the way the Wolves areplaying now, they're just a
scary, scary team.
So let's flip that and talkabout the Nuggets.
(07:42):
I mentioned how they did nothandle it.
The physicality seemed to getto them and once they started
complaining to the referees thenit just didn't stop and it took
them out of their game.
They were trying to get callsinstead of just playing
basketball.
You could tell it was just intheir heads so much.
(08:04):
And even Michael Malone, Ithink, kind of freaked out
because he could tell that itwas happening to the team, and
you just don't see that out ofthe Nuggets very often.
Like normally, I feel like theyhandle physicality very well,
but for some reason this justgot to them and it snowballed
and got out of control and itwas awful.
(08:25):
And so I kind of want to gothrough some of the key guys and
things I noticed about how theyhandled it.
Most of it in a very poorfashion, but the team as a whole
just has to do better,otherwise it's going to be a
sweep and the Nuggets are goingto have to think about some big
changes, because if the seriescontinues this way, it's not
(08:49):
even close.
If the series continues thisway, it's not even close.
There's no way that we can justbring back the same team and be
like, oh well, we were just oneshot away or one player away.
It's been a beatdown so far.
So I think let's start withJamal Murray.
If you watch the game, youprobably saw him basically
(09:11):
having a breakdown.
He was being swarmed by theWolves.
They have great defenders tomatch up with him.
Even when Jamal's healthy hehas a hard time with some of
these defenders We've mentionedit in many podcasts this season
but they just match up reallywell with what Jamal is not good
at, which is athleticism andlength.
(09:32):
Now, when he's healthy, he cannormally have a little bit of a
burst and be able to dribble outof some trouble.
But in game two he was gettingtrapped and just could not do
anything.
He couldn't find the open guy.
He could barely get across halfcourt.
He just really struggled.
(09:55):
I've never seen him strugglebefore and the Wolves knew it
and I think that kind of fedtheir energy and then had a hard
time even getting the ball to ateammate once he did get past
half court, and so we weren'teven thinking about starting an
(10:23):
offense until there was like 10seconds left in the shot clock
because there was just nothingthat Jamal could do and I know
the injury is a big part of it,but like he's got to do
something different because thatwas just.
There was no way we were goingto get good looks at the basket
If, if he's struggling to evenget the ball to a player before
(10:45):
the shot, clock's running outand he did not handle it well
physically like he he lookedlike he was hurt and I I
appreciate him playing throughthe pain and through the injury,
but if if that's all he's got,then then maybe coach Malone has
to give him some time to restor even just time to think about
(11:07):
something different because itwas not not pretty.
Think about something differentbecause it was not not pretty.
Now, not handling it physicallyis one thing, but mentally,
like I said, it looked like hewas kind of having a breakdown
and that was capped off by himthrowing two different objects
onto the court at a referee.
Um, I know he was unhappy withthe calls, but you never see an
(11:32):
NBA player throw stuff onto thecourt just because they're upset
.
I'm shocked that he did not getsuspended.
He got a big fine, but it justseems like he was out of it and
I don't know if he was trying toget kicked out or I really just
don't know what he was out ofit and I don't know if he was
trying to get kicked out or I.
(11:53):
I really just I don't know whathe was doing.
Um, it's going to beinteresting how he handles game
three and if if he's more of adecoy or if he figures something
out that he can do to help theteam.
But I think a really good pointwas brought up by Adam Mara's on
the DNVR show is that, jamal,he comes into the season not in
(12:20):
peak physical condition and healways tries to kind of get
himself in shape throughout theseason.
The bad part of that plan isthat he also gets hurt.
Often it's always his legs.
There's always something wrongwith his legs.
This year it was shin splints,the calf muscle.
It's always something with hislegs, and so this year the
(12:42):
injuries were bad enough wherehe didn't get a chance to work
himself into shape.
And so now not only is he hurt,but he just doesn't look like
he's in the greatest shape, andso he's just he's getting eaten
up out there.
And I love Jamal.
I will never forget what he didfor us last year.
He was just an absolute star inthe playoffs, but it's.
(13:07):
It's tough.
He is.
He's hurting us right now.
Uh, aaron Gordon he started offgreat.
We probably would have lost by40 if he didn't have such a good
start, and so I love the start,but it's just not a great
matchup for him.
When we traded for Aaron Gordon, we were thinking, oh, we need
to shut down Luka, we need toshut down Kawhi like the big
(13:30):
wings, and Anthony Edwards isjust too quick for him.
Carl Anthony Towns is too bigfor him, and so it's just not a
great matchup to use his.
He is an elite defender, butit's just not a good matchup for
him.
So, ag, he's doing what he can,but I just don't feel like this
is the series for him.
(13:57):
Mpj and KCP they both lookedlike they were blown away by the
physicality as well.
Kcp is an amazing defender.
He's doing his best againstAnthony Edwards, but Anthony
Edwards is just too big andstrong for him and he's pretty
much doing whatever he wantsagainst him.
It kind of reminds me of if I'mplaying in the driveway against
my kids I can do what I need todo and I'm really not bothered
(14:21):
by any defense.
So hopefully KCP can figuresomething out, and NPJ just
needs to stop getting the ballstripped from him so easily, get
some rebounds and hopefullymake some shots.
And then the bench wascompletely non-existent.
I don't know what's going onwith Christian Brown and Peyton
Watson, and Reggie Jacksonrolled his ankle again, so
(14:43):
that's not looking good.
So we need something from thebench.
And then there's Jokic.
You know me, I love Jokic.
I feel so lucky that he wasluckily drafted to our team and
he's become what he's become.
But this playoff has been very,very strange.
(15:06):
He's been putting up some goodnumbers, but he seems just
passive and uninterested.
And at the end of the podcastI'm going to share some
conspiracy theories of why maybethat's happening.
But uh, jokic is our bestplayer.
He has to be our leader.
He has to either lead byexample Um, he's not a big vocal
(15:28):
leader, but I've seen him dothat in the past as well.
He needs to do something to getthese guys going, and I think
he needs to be more aggressivewhen the Wolves are double
teaming him.
And just what he's doing is notworking.
Even though it may betechnically the right basketball
play, it's not working.
It was tough in the Lakersseries.
(15:50):
But, like I said, we justhappen to have a better team
than them.
But we need to try somethingelse and it pretty much has to
be Jokic, with Jamal being hurtand non-effective.
But just him being uninterestedand non-aggressive is just not
like him.
When Jamal Murray and MichaelPorter Jr were hurt a couple
(16:12):
years ago, that's part of thereason why Jokic gained so much
respect is because he took itupon his shoulders, and two
years ago, when we were playingGolden State in the playoffs and
we pretty much had all benchunit and Jokic and he still put
up a fight.
It was what we wanted to seeout of our best player, out of
(16:33):
our leader, and he's not doingthat right now and I just don't
know why.
Carl Anthony Towns and Nas Reedthey've flat out been better
than him this series and there'sjust no way that they are even
close to as good a player as him.
And so something mentally orphysically is going on and I
(16:56):
don't know if it'll ever comeout.
But he has to do somethingdifferent.
He's passing to try and get histeammates involved because he's
getting double teamed and theteammates obviously are not
making the Timberwolves pay andI don't know.
As you can probably tell in myvoice there's really a
(17:19):
hopelessness to what we've seenso far, and I would not be
surprised if the Nuggets gotswept.
But at the same time, I've seenthe Nuggets fight back.
Just a couple years ago theycame back from three to one,
down two times in the sameplayoff.
They're constantly fightingback from these 20-point
deficits and so I would neversay that the Nuggets have no
(17:42):
chance, but it's not lookinggood.
Jokic is probably going toreceive his third MVP award
tonight and I think I'llprobably do a separate episode
just talking about how amazingthat is.
Especially, I don't want to mixin this sad sack episode with
with uh talking about how greathe is and what a great season he
(18:04):
had.
So I'll probably do a separateepisode on that.
But uh, it is kind of funny.
Just he's won three out of thefour last MVPs and, uh, the one
year he didn't win it wasprobably his favorite year where
he didn't didn't have to dealwith all that mvp stuff and then
got to win the championship.
So um, episode coming on thatbecause it really is special
(18:26):
what we're watching.
There's not many players thathave won three mvps, let alone
three out of the last four years.
So um can't lose focus on the,on the big picture.
It is absolutely amazing thatthe nuggets have one of the best
players of all time.
Now let's talk about theseconspiracy theories.
These are wild theories thatare probably not true, but got
(18:53):
to throw them out there anyway,so some of them are more likely
than others.
I will let you choose whichones fall into which categories,
um but but let me show you someconspiracy theories with you.
So first one is that yokich isjust dead tired.
We have run him into the ground, like I mentioned, those those
(19:15):
years where everyone was hurtand he had to carry everything
on his back.
Um, that that takes a lot ofenergy.
And then this year we went forthe number one seed where last
year, when we won thechampionship, we rested a lot of
our guys um really taking iteasy the last month of the
season and we looked fresh inthe playoffs.
(19:35):
This year was not the case.
We we were playing everybodypretty heavy minutes trying to
get one of those top seeds.
We did tie for the best recordin the Western Conference and
tied the Nuggets record for mostwins in a season, but
everyone's looking pretty tiredright now.
So I'm wondering if it wasworth it and maybe the wrong way
(19:56):
to go.
Conspiracy theory number twomaybe Jokic is hurt and it just
hasn't come out.
Um, maybe it'll come out in theoff season, maybe not, but,
like, like I said, he is nothimself right now and I know he
always puts on that big heatingpad during timeouts, so maybe
(20:19):
his back is bothering him.
Maybe there's something else,but I don't know.
That's just a theory.
Maybe he's hurt and we justdon't realize it.
Very passive, aggressive attimes.
(20:42):
Um, throughout his years you'veseen him have games where he
only shoots like two or threetimes and it's just always
overpassing to his teammates andwho knows what causes that.
Or if it's just him acting outof frustration for for no reason
.
But what if he's doing that now?
What if I would?
I would say there's two, twooptions.
(21:03):
What if coach Malone tried tomotivate him sometime during the
Lakers series and, like, triedto call him out in some way and
Jokic just did not like that?
And now he's just being superpassive, aggressive and not
being Jokic like he normally is?
Um, it's possible he's.
(21:23):
He's had coach Malone for eightyears.
Um, they obviously have a verygood relationship, but uh, it's
not uncommon that coaches kindof wear out their, their
effectiveness.
With players Like the, the voicekind of starts to get drowned
out and and, uh, they just kindof lose the team.
And so that's definitelypossible.
(21:44):
Something happened.
And then the other one is whatif he's passive, aggressively,
kind of acting out against Jamal?
Um, jamal and him have beenteammates for seven years and
there's there's more and morestories coming out about how I
guess uh, prickly Jamal isbehind the scenes Like he's.
(22:08):
He definitely uh acts out andis kind of a jerk to people,
whether it's staff coaches,players.
He just kind of has thatpersonality.
And what if Jokic has justfinally had enough?
What if he's tired of Jamalbeing hurt in the playoffs or
during the regular season and itall falls on him?
(22:29):
I don't know, this one isdefinitely the darkest of all my
conspiracy theories.
It would definitely be a bummerif something happened behind
the scenes and then this core ofJokic Murray and Coach Malone
have to break up for some reason.
But I would say it's nottotally impossible.
(22:53):
Last conspiracy theory thatmight be the most likely is
perhaps Jokic sent the minionsout on a secret mission and they
failed to get that giant laserbeam that he needed to take over
the world and he's just mad andkind of sad about that.
Think about it.
(23:15):
Thanks everyone.
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