If any other all-time center was getting guarded by a guard in a game 7......

[DetroitEWarren]

That's how they defended us shai found a way

The pink bytch has yet to realize that the best skill in the playoffs is slashing. No matter what defense a team is running, if you are unstoppable at getting from the perimeter to the basket, there is nothing a team can do to stop it.

No slasher in NBA history has struggled to score in the playoffs (prime years) but all the dudes this pink bytch dikk sucks because they shoot a lot has fallen short multiple times.

nikka is a white boy fakkit that wants us American nikkas to love his Euro relatives. fukk that hoe ass nikka.

 

[threattonature]

So we're just going to act the Nuggets and particularly Jokic weren't a) Exhausted b) The team was hobbled.

I think Jokic deserved more blame last year and it was warranted. This year not nearly as much.

Very few people had the Nuggets winning this series against a team that many consider to be contenders despite being among the youngest players in the league.

The Nuggets have peaked in their current form and they also made a mistake in firing Mike Malone.

Yeah overall it was impressive for the Nuggets to even take this series to 7. We've seen all greats get confused by a defense and have a subpar game up to their standards. It seemed clear the Nuggets were caught off guard with the heavy dosing of Caruso so didn't have a counter gameplanned. That's a case where having all the offense running through Jokic hurt the team. That's where the lack of a true playmaking PG hurts and Gordon's injury too. I would've liked to see them run the action through a Murray/Gordon pick and roll (useless with Gordon hurt) and use the defensive rotations to give Jokic more room to bully his way to the basket off ball.

I know it's been beat to death but it really is reminiscent of the Mavs against Heat in the Finals or against the Spurs in his matchups with them. If you can confuse a Jokic or Lebron they become more hesitant as they try to break the code and can stagnate the entire offense.

 

[threattonature]

@seraphx

This picture tells us a 1000 words of what happened in Game 7.

On a play like this I'd like to see the Nuggets swing it once or twice while Jokic rolls to the other side of the paint sealing his man under the basket. The Nuggets got lazy with it and kept Jokic in one spot where Caruso was making the entry pass difficult by constantly flipping his position from fronting to playing behind Jokic and letting the Thunder load up on that side of the floor. Nuggets should've used more movement from Jokic to secure better post position.

Or run a pick and roll not involving Jokic to get the defense to slide and use that diversion to allow Jokic to slide in and secure better position.

 

[threattonature]

Here's Jokic sealing off Caruso inside the paint (notice how Caruso has his arm wrapped around him, which should've been a foul) -

Now look at where Westbrook ends up passing the ball to -

That's what the problem was.

Whenever Jokic had him 1v1, his teammates couldn't even make basic entry passes.

Nah that ain't fair on Westbrook. As you see in the first picture the ball is already out of Westbrook's hands as Jokic was still establishing position. Caruso's defense was effective because his constant movement kept Jokic from establishing one position for too long before Caruso would spin around him. On top of that if Russ tried to hit him in the pocket Shai was right there for the deflection. I'd call that anything but a basic entry pass.

The real problem was bad offensive design as Watson should've had that area cleared out.

 

[DonRe]

Everyone is not playing through injuries like a Grade 2 hamstring strain or a Grade 2 AC joint injury.

Niggles and natural wear and tear during a season is something completely different.

But can you address HIS performance.

You are considered the best of the best. Best offensive player since mj on many metrics.
But you shot 9 times in a game 7.

With those injuries in mind, where was your urgency?

He was cookin ‘stein in the post. What happened today ?

 

[CHICAGO]

Of course, he does, he's the best big in the league at sealing off his man.

He was doing it all series with success (and yes, against Caruso too).

It all comes back to the fact of how many help defenders are in the vicinity, along with the refs just letting the smaller player to be as physical as they can. Caruso got whistled for two fouls on Jokic for that shyt in the 2nd quarter and then after they just swallowed their whistles. Are we supposed to believe that Caruso was only fouling Jokic on those two possessions and then after that didn't foul him again? Or did the refs just choose to ignore him fouling Jokic, not being consistent with what they called him for earlier in the game?

There's also this which I posted on the previous page -

But Westbrook ends up throwing the ball too far out of his reach.

Braun did the same thing throwing a bad pass when Jokic had Caruso posted up. There were quite a few instances where all Jokic needed was a better pass but the support cast couldn't even manage that. Nobody on the team besides Murray can get him the ball cleanly on these entry passes. That should be a priority in the summer for Denver's front office, to get players who know how and when to get him the ball, because they're borderline non-existent on this team.

And that all comes back to the Nuggets organization taking him for granted where they just put any sort of role player around him because he can do everything on offense, not realizing just like every other big man, he needs ball-handlers to give him the ball in proper position and he needs shooters to help space the floor.

Any big man worth their weight in salt needs those two things.

LMAO

JOKIC HAS CARUSO
IN AN ARM BAR
YOU FOREIGN fakkit



​

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Nah that ain't fair on Westbrook. As you see in the first picture the ball is already out of Westbrook's hands as Jokic was still establishing position. Caruso's defense was effective because his constant movement kept Jokic from establishing one position for too long before Caruso would spin around him. On top of that if Russ tried to hit him in the pocket Shai was right there for the deflection. I'd call that anything but a basic entry pass.

The real problem was bad offensive design as Watson should've had that area cleared out.

Here's another screenshot where Jokic has dominant position and Westbrook hasn't even begun to break into a passing motion -

The only play here is for Westbrook to throw it upwards, towards the rim, allowing Jokic to maneuver himself to drop it off the glass, but not only does he throw the ball away from the rim, he throws it completely out of Jokic’s catch radius. If he made the right pass, it would've resulted in an easy 2 or a shooting foul. Caruso can't spin away from that position before Jokic gets to the ball first, as he's already caught under Jokic and he's only got one foot planted, so he can't even jump to contest (let alone get anywhere near the ball against a player who's considerably taller and has a bigger wingspan).

The main reason why Westbrook threw the ball so far in the other direction was because Shai was there (as you've pointed out), but that could've easily been negated by lobbing the ball to Jokic. He just didn't think it through in the moment, which was one of many bad decisions he made all throughout that game.

And here's the thing - Jokic isn't your typical big, where you need to make sure the ball is right in his catching pocket, you can literally just throw the ball in his direction, in any manner and he'll make it work. He's not Deandre Ayton. Which makes it even worse that Westbrook fukked that up.

But he wasn't alone in that.

The whole damn team failed to give him the ball when he established good position.

But that's on Denver at the end of the day for 1. not signing/drafting the right players and 2. not having a proper system. They went into the postseason with an interim coach who's really only gameplan was 'let Jokic figure it out', failing to realize that required everyone else to be on the same wavelength as him, in real time.

 

[Deafheaven]

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

But can you address HIS performance.

You are considered the best of the best. Best offensive player since mj on many metrics.
But you shot 9 times in a game 7.

With those injuries in mind, where was your urgency?

He was cookin ‘stein in the post. What happened today ?

There are many folds to this.

This game was Denver's 14th high intensity playoff game in 28 days, and Jokic has a bigger workload than anyone in the league, so just expecting him to play 40 minutes every game and keep up the same urgency and play is unrealistic, especially for a big man his size in today's game. No other center is playing the same minutes he does, and one of the main reasons for that is because they don't have a motor to do it.

You then take into account they run a short rotation, where other players are exhausted too, dealing with multiple injuries, some as the result of playing too much with not enough rest (AG alluded to this in the Game 7 post-game), so then that puts even more strain on Jokic to pick up that slack and deal with more defensive attention that those teammates of his would otherwise occupy.

He shot more than 9 times because he went to the FT line 11 times on shooting fouls.

But the actual number is inconsequential here and it's more about him not having the same looks as he did in the earlier games because once OKC figured out they didn't need to defend Westbrook, Peyton, Braun and AG once he was injured, then they left them open, and just defended him. That's not to say he couldn't have been more aggressive, but if that's what you're focusing on, then you're not seeing the forest for the trees.

He didn't have a good game, but that was almost entirely because the team didn't have anything left to give. Even Murray didn't show up. They did all that they could to extend this to seven games, but Game 6 was the last real effort they had in them.

 

[Bar Razor]

Didn’t Joker shoot sub 40% 3 games this series before Game 7?

 

[Torrential]

why are we over complicating this conversation lmfaoo....Jokic got clamped by a player 100 pounds lighter and half a foot shorter . No alltime great Center would ever allow this to happen. Kareem averaging 40 on Caurso. Shaq averaging 40 as well. Both of them are winning the game as well


This website has let delusion run wild

 

[Conan]

Never had bad things to say about Jokic.

But his ‘supporters’ here are on some z1onist shyt, like it’s a crime to even criticize him. wtf? The facts are he had an average series for someone who is supposedly the best in the game. He kept them in certain games, but he never won them a game. The whole playoffs essentially. His supporting cast may be up and down, but he had the luxury of them winning his team games multiple times in these playoffs.

Far too often he loses control unless he gets every call go his way. It gets to him and he starts focusing on antics like wrestling and flopping as if to prove a point. He acts like it’s a crime for opponents to make things difficult for him, as if it’s his divine right to succeed. The worst part is, after such a lazy effort, he talked about looking forward to lots of drinking with media encouragement - ANY other superstar would be destroyed if they acted or spoke like that after that type of loss.

The question is why do fans feel the need to destroy superstars? It's retarded behavior across the board. For the most part, the bail that @Gil Scott-Heroin is shooting Jokic should be extended to LeBron, KD, Giannis, etc.

 

[Torrential]

talk to me . This is NEVER happening to Shaq.

According to Genius IQ, Jokic averaged 103.8 touches per 100 possessions in Game 7, the fewest in any playoff game in his career. He accounted for only 0.78 points per possession when he touched the ball and Caruso was on him.

OKC conquers nerves to roll Nuggets, reach WCF

The Oklahoma City Thunder rolled into the Western Conference finals after beating the Nuggets 125-93 in Game 7 on Sunday.

www.espn.com

 

[nieman]

Here's another screenshot where Jokic has dominant position and Westbrook hasn't even begun to break into a passing motion -

The only play here is for Westbrook to throw it upwards, towards the rim, allowing Jokic to maneuver himself to drop it off the glass, but not only does he throw the ball away from the rim, he throws it completely out of Jokic’s catch radius. If he made the right pass, it would've resulted in an easy 2 or a shooting foul. Caruso can't spin away from that position before Jokic gets to the ball first, as he's already caught under Jokic and he's only got one foot planted, so he can't even jump to contest (let alone get anywhere near the ball against a player who's considerably taller and has a bigger wingspan).

The main reason why Westbrook threw the ball so far in the other direction was because Shai was there (as you've pointed out), but that could've easily been negated by lobbing the ball to Jokic. He just didn't think it through in the moment, which was one of many bad decisions he made all throughout that game.

And here's the thing - Jokic isn't your typical big, where you need to make sure the ball is right in his catching pocket, you can literally just throw the ball in his direction, in any manner and he'll make it work. He's not Deandre Ayton. Which makes it even worse that Westbrook fukked that up.

But he wasn't alone in that.

The whole damn team failed to give him the ball when he established good position.

But that's on Denver at the end of the day for 1. not signing/drafting the right players and 2. not having a proper system. They went into the postseason with an interim coach who's really only gameplan was 'let Jokic figure it out', failing to realize that required everyone else to be on the same wavelength as him, in real time.

You can't blame Westbrook for this. They weren't getting him the ball when Russy wasn't in. Westbrook shouldn't even have to make that pass...its a bad angle. The CORRECT play would've been for Watson to completely get out of the way - either running to opposite baseline or coming out...taking Shai away from the ball, if only for a split second, giving Jokic an easy layup. But Jokic is already in a bad spot. The same reason you're saying it was a tough pass to make, was the same regardless of where he put the ball. Watson is the one that messes this up.

Jokic played scared. Carusso frustrated him, and he didn't know how to respond. The fact that OKC felt so comfortable with Carusso guarding him for many stretches solo, was already a red flag for Denver.

 

[Snake316]

Jokic’s has the best PR team I’ve ever seen. The way he escapes criticism and is glazed for doing basic stuff is insane.

9 shots in a game 7 as the alleged best player in the league is just pathetic.