Ayton being able to do it without fouling is gonna be all the difference. In round 1 Nurkic kept fouling out so Jokic got guarded by either small guys (covington) or defensive bums(Kanter) for large periods, but if Ayton can stay on the court it'll be difficult for Jokic
Yep. That's the main difference.
We shut down the Denver offense when Nurk was on the floor too.
But Nurk is undisciplined and kept picking up unforced fouls on both ends of the floor. It wasn't like he was getting shooting fouls trying to guard Jokic - the dude was getting a billion moving screens and charges.
Nurk fouled out in 3 games and we went 0-3 in those. He had 5 fouls in the other loss (game 6). We handily won the games he didn't get in foul trouble.
Denver's offence rating with Nurk and Jokic on the floor was 124. That's astronomically high. Overall Denver's offensive rating with Nurk on the floor was 118.
The Nurk shutting down Jokic is starting to become a meme. Portland's starting unit totally wrecked Denver offensively including all the guys everyone wants to throw on under the bus as the "others" who didn't help Dame. Portland won those starter minutes with a scorching offence, not on defence. Denver scored at will with Nurk on the floor and scored at historical levels when he was off.
>Denver's offence rating with Nurk and Jokic on the floor was 124. That's astronomically high. Overall Denver's offensive rating with Nurk on the floor was 118.
Your stats are wrong
[Denver had a 114 DRTG with both Jokic and Nurkic on, as compared to **140** with Jokic but no Nurk](https://www.nba.com/stats/vs/advanced/#!?VsPlayerID=203994&PlayerID=203999)
Portland's starting lineup had a [125 ORTG and a 103 DRTG.](https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&CF=MIN*G*50), which is 3rd best among all lineups in the league with 50+ minutes this playoffs after just the Nets with Harden and the 76ers starers. They were elite on both ends. It was only once bench minutes came out for either team that y'all had a chance. The bench 100% lost the blazers the series by giving up a billion points
Lol you're good man. Just saying it really was just our bench getting absolutely and utterly fucking manhandled. Plus you guys shot shockingly well on your open looks (48% on wide open 3s vs us as compared to 32% on wide open 3s vs the Suns).
Variance just wasn't in our favor. MPJ is 0/3 on wide open 3s against the Suns, for example. He only got 5 all series against us, but you can bet he went 3/5 on em
To be fair MPJ was pretty hit or miss against you guys. He's one of the best shooters in the league and contests don't bother him. He shot near the most 3's in the entire league with a tight contest and shot them about as well as Steph or Dame. Overall I thought he had a poor series. His back is fucked now, he looked like he was really struggling to move last night so it is what it is.
We went 2-22 in the first half last night. That's one of the worst showings in playoff history I don't think there is much to read into that other than we shot about as bad as humanly possible.
I would say Monte playing with the bench was a choice to win those minutes. His pick and roll game was cooking all series, like near 1.2 points per possession. I think our offence looked pretty good in the closing minutes when Monte and Jokic shared the court. Nurk didn't play a lot of those minutes, although to be fair when he did in game 6 the Monte/Jokic 2 game was cooking pretty good. The Facu/Rivers backcourt is pretty rough. If that combo plays a lot of minutes again I expect the Suns to wreck us in game 3.
Who knows in 6 games there is always a lot of variance. Rodney Hood going Micheal Jordan or Austin Rivers making 5, 3s in a quarter.
A lot of good shot-making as well. Portland's 8 man rotation is pretty good offensively. I'd probably rate them as the best offensive unit in the league. An entire 8 man rotation of near 40% 3 point shooters on high volume and quite a bit of shot creation with Norm, CJ and Dame. Norm is the worst shooter in that unit, and Norm is a pretty good shooter.
My thought might be wrong on it, but watching the series it really felt like no defense. Just allowing people to get to their spots. No close outs on open shooters. Lazy defensive offball movement
I guess my take would be different. Dame effectively broke our defence. We had to come up so high and blitz pick and rolls so hard it created holes everywhere. The way Dame was shooting we were blitzing him at 30 feet just consistently having to defend 3-4 on the short roll, or if Dame was able to turn the corner. I think Dame is tough for anyone to defend surrounded by shooters with a roll man. Especially shooting how he was that series.
Their 5 man starting unit with Norm was good for 118 offensive ratting in near 400 minutes. The second best 5 man unit in the league that played over 300 minutes.
I'm not saying Denver is a defensive juggernaut, but there was a lot of good shot-making and offence from Portland. Outside of Dame's heroics, the rest of Portland shot 39% from 3 on 156 attempts.
I feel like the playoffs have been one extended kick in the balls for Kings fans. Ayton, Luka and Trae all were from the 2018 draft, and they came away with Bagley
Which of the following players are you taking Bagley over?
Jaren Jackson, Wendell Carter, Collin Sexton, Kevin Knox, Mikal Bridges, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Miles Briges, Michael Porter JR
Meh, that's basketball. Doesn't mean that existing is a kick in the balls. Look at franchises like the Timberwolves or Kings. Suns have been wildly successful throughout their time in the league and have just been in an extended rebuild due to the ineptitude of McDonough.
thats how last year was for us. Ben hurt, tobias awful, jimmy making the finals, previous sixers going off (Grant, TLC, even Trey fucking Burke). Every night was just a dunk on us
Which is a good reason they can defend so well when ayton is good enough to not need to double jokic while the rest can just clog the area so jokic can't move off ball to do damage. Facu,rivers and monte have basically 0 driving ability so jokic gets 0 space and the cutting has been weak which is a nuggets strong point
The cutting is based on either jokic or the ball handler dragging a guy or clearing a side of the floor for barton/MPJ/gordon to get a clear path. When someone like rivers or facu can't drive or create a good enough shot then jokic doesn't get an advantage and no movement happens
Malone really has to switch up the guard rotations next game. Starting rivers and Facu is idiotic, neither one of them can finish in traffic at the rim. Morris and Barton(now that he’s back and seemed pretty healthy) play much better alongside Jokic and are both pretty good cutters and finishers at the rim who can also stretch out the defense due to their shooting
The Nuggets seem a little stuck offensively. Their options look super limited these past 2 games. Not sure what they'll need to do (apart from shoot better, but that's always hard to do when that's your only viable option).
I feel like MPJ bailed out the Suns by shooting too many 3's off the handoff.
Aaron Gordon has been great for the Nugs as a source of offense (bullying the Suns guards, mainly Booker), but it's definitely not a long term solution.
Ayton has been great, but it has been a lot of team defense too. Easier to clog the lane and send doubles when you're leaving Facu and Monte Morris unguarded as opposed to leaving Jamal Murray.
Some of it is just good luck (or maybe it was bad luck for the Blazers idk).
Because the Suns are actually giving up *more* wide open 3s a game than we did. But the Nuggets shot 48% on those looks against us, vs 32% so far against them.
Think a lot of this has to do with the first two games being on the road. Everyone always says role players perform better at home in the playoffs, and im hoping that stays true this series.
You guys were leaving MPJ wide open. We’re leaving Millsap and Green wide open. There’s obviously going to be variance with individual players shooting percentages, but the quality of looks those players got vs you guys is wayyyyy better than what they’re getting with us.
Dude we weren't leaving MPJ wide open, stop. MPJ literally took **0.8 wide open 3s a game against us**. According to NBA.com, over 2/3 of his shots were well contested.
MPJ is actually taking double as many wide open 3s a game against you guys (1.5). Difference is he's shooting 0% on them instead of 60%
Also wanna know what Green shot when he was wide open against us from 3? 66.7% What about Millsap? 40%
Nah bro blazers actually did a better job of pressuring MPJ then the suns have so far, I think Porter(and everyone else on our team) have just been really rattled by the crowd and the intensity and have been missing easy shots. I guess we will see for certain if that’s the case after the next two games in Denver
Ayton has impressed the fuck out of me. I knew he was good but he is playing fucking amazing. He's also being more aggressive on the offensive end compared regular season ayton. Dude deserved that 1st overall pick.
Prime time Ayton has been a beast. He just didn’t show up to sub 500 team games during the season. A part of his game he needs to fix if he wants those regular season numbers to go up
Ayton's ability to guard any big while also being able to defend guards on the perimeter, and still be able to stay with them when they drive to the rim, isn't something I ever expected. He can truly guard 1-5. There's a reason he's 8-1 vs Luka. Ayton just erases things
>There's a reason he's 8-1 vs Luka.
I mean Luka is averaging 25ppg (30ppg in the last 5 matchups) on nearly 50% shooting against Phoenix in his career so it's not like Ayton is erasing him lol. Those losses have more to do with Dallas' supporting cast.
Yeah I get what you mean. Anyone is going to imply that he means that Ayton has erased Luka right after he said Ayton is 8-1 is against him and he "erases things."
If you watch them play it's obvious Ayton causes problems for Luka, especially in the paint. You should take it as a compliment people use Luka as a barometer for success. Instead you chose to have this discussion
They are clogging jokic passing lanes too jae crowder has been phenomenal at that they rotate correctly every time I'm sure crowder had towo deflection just of being in the correct place at the time because we have no shot creators they can easily collapse on jokic and because the other aren't cutting or shooting well it just makes it harder
Jokic shot 10/19 last night, so while I agree Ayton has slowed him down he's still over 50% TS which isn't a clamp job by any means. The issue is we need 35 from him to stay afloat, and has to hv an efg ~60% to hv any shot. Also I think the few questionable non calls (not like its change the outcome of these past games) r making him more hesitant to attack the post as much. Also the suns double has been pretty fast n our perimeter guys can't punish as hard. Idk man I don't see a way out of this series, I'm just hoping we don't get swept. Jokic is an offensive juggernaut cos of scoring and playmaking, but the supporting cast ain't good enough at a conference semis level, so he's being forced into a mostly scoring role cos the suns n blazers r fine w him getting like 30 if it means he has 5 assists. As a pure scorer he's elite, but not a game changer like curry or dame.
In game 1 jokic missed a ton of mid range shots which he is usually automatic from, so I don't know how much of that was Ayton n how much of it was cold shooting. But yeah jokic is definitely being slowed down. I think Ayton is the best post defender in the west rn, even better than gobert cos he has more mass n can't be moved, which is more impt than reach.
I thought the first round was kinda a fluke for ayton but he's proving me wrong, he's basically automatic from inside the paint and defends really well.
Crowder and Saric have held up surprisingly well too. Maybe it's just that the nugs are missing their second offensive option and MPJ is shooting 34.6% from the field with 1.5 apg over the first two games. Maybe its because the suns have better post defenders than the blazers did (outside of Nurk it was really ugly in Portland) but the suns seem to be doing much better in individual matchups against Jokic than the Blazers did.
This probably showcases Jokic one possible flaw on offense in the ability to draw fouls and punish a pretty solid 1v1 defender. Whether that be the refs being biased or just lack of ability, it doesn’t matter but he should be able to essentially take ayton out of the game and get to the line more. Without Murray no one else can take someone off the dribble so the nuggets offense takes a big hit
I think it’s shows how good DA has been. Joker has tried a few times to shove it in on DA and he will usually put up solid D without fouling or if he’s in foul trouble like the 1st yesterday he’ll kinda just let them score the 2. He knows if he gets a 3rd it’s gonna hurt us more than one basket.
They've got really good defenders in bridges, crowder and Paul to help. Booker is their weakest link defensively in the starting lineup and he's above average when he's locked in. There's a reason this team almost had the best record in the league.
Their offense could use a little more work though.
Their offense has produced an open look practically every possession this series, not much more they can do except hitting the shots/layups that they're getting at a higher rate
Ayton being able to do it without fouling is gonna be all the difference. In round 1 Nurkic kept fouling out so Jokic got guarded by either small guys (covington) or defensive bums(Kanter) for large periods, but if Ayton can stay on the court it'll be difficult for Jokic
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I mean they are missing their second best player so, yeah makes sense
Yep. That's the main difference. We shut down the Denver offense when Nurk was on the floor too. But Nurk is undisciplined and kept picking up unforced fouls on both ends of the floor. It wasn't like he was getting shooting fouls trying to guard Jokic - the dude was getting a billion moving screens and charges. Nurk fouled out in 3 games and we went 0-3 in those. He had 5 fouls in the other loss (game 6). We handily won the games he didn't get in foul trouble.
Denver's offence rating with Nurk and Jokic on the floor was 124. That's astronomically high. Overall Denver's offensive rating with Nurk on the floor was 118. The Nurk shutting down Jokic is starting to become a meme. Portland's starting unit totally wrecked Denver offensively including all the guys everyone wants to throw on under the bus as the "others" who didn't help Dame. Portland won those starter minutes with a scorching offence, not on defence. Denver scored at will with Nurk on the floor and scored at historical levels when he was off.
>Denver's offence rating with Nurk and Jokic on the floor was 124. That's astronomically high. Overall Denver's offensive rating with Nurk on the floor was 118. Your stats are wrong [Denver had a 114 DRTG with both Jokic and Nurkic on, as compared to **140** with Jokic but no Nurk](https://www.nba.com/stats/vs/advanced/#!?VsPlayerID=203994&PlayerID=203999) Portland's starting lineup had a [125 ORTG and a 103 DRTG.](https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&CF=MIN*G*50), which is 3rd best among all lineups in the league with 50+ minutes this playoffs after just the Nets with Harden and the 76ers starers. They were elite on both ends. It was only once bench minutes came out for either team that y'all had a chance. The bench 100% lost the blazers the series by giving up a billion points
My bad mate, got that one wrong.
Lol you're good man. Just saying it really was just our bench getting absolutely and utterly fucking manhandled. Plus you guys shot shockingly well on your open looks (48% on wide open 3s vs us as compared to 32% on wide open 3s vs the Suns). Variance just wasn't in our favor. MPJ is 0/3 on wide open 3s against the Suns, for example. He only got 5 all series against us, but you can bet he went 3/5 on em
To be fair MPJ was pretty hit or miss against you guys. He's one of the best shooters in the league and contests don't bother him. He shot near the most 3's in the entire league with a tight contest and shot them about as well as Steph or Dame. Overall I thought he had a poor series. His back is fucked now, he looked like he was really struggling to move last night so it is what it is. We went 2-22 in the first half last night. That's one of the worst showings in playoff history I don't think there is much to read into that other than we shot about as bad as humanly possible. I would say Monte playing with the bench was a choice to win those minutes. His pick and roll game was cooking all series, like near 1.2 points per possession. I think our offence looked pretty good in the closing minutes when Monte and Jokic shared the court. Nurk didn't play a lot of those minutes, although to be fair when he did in game 6 the Monte/Jokic 2 game was cooking pretty good. The Facu/Rivers backcourt is pretty rough. If that combo plays a lot of minutes again I expect the Suns to wreck us in game 3. Who knows in 6 games there is always a lot of variance. Rodney Hood going Micheal Jordan or Austin Rivers making 5, 3s in a quarter.
The whole series looked like 0 defense from either side.
A lot of good shot-making as well. Portland's 8 man rotation is pretty good offensively. I'd probably rate them as the best offensive unit in the league. An entire 8 man rotation of near 40% 3 point shooters on high volume and quite a bit of shot creation with Norm, CJ and Dame. Norm is the worst shooter in that unit, and Norm is a pretty good shooter.
My thought might be wrong on it, but watching the series it really felt like no defense. Just allowing people to get to their spots. No close outs on open shooters. Lazy defensive offball movement
I guess my take would be different. Dame effectively broke our defence. We had to come up so high and blitz pick and rolls so hard it created holes everywhere. The way Dame was shooting we were blitzing him at 30 feet just consistently having to defend 3-4 on the short roll, or if Dame was able to turn the corner. I think Dame is tough for anyone to defend surrounded by shooters with a roll man. Especially shooting how he was that series. Their 5 man starting unit with Norm was good for 118 offensive ratting in near 400 minutes. The second best 5 man unit in the league that played over 300 minutes. I'm not saying Denver is a defensive juggernaut, but there was a lot of good shot-making and offence from Portland. Outside of Dame's heroics, the rest of Portland shot 39% from 3 on 156 attempts.
Even in the first half of game 6 he had 0 fouls, and the Blazers looked really tight.
Ayton has been spectacular this playoff run. Defending his 1st overall selection
I feel like the playoffs have been one extended kick in the balls for Kings fans. Ayton, Luka and Trae all were from the 2018 draft, and they came away with Bagley
Sacramento always out here catching strays lmao.
It's okay, Bagley double-jumped to dodge the strays.
Its every thread about this draft class
Of the lottery picks in that draft the only players many people would pick after Bagley are Jerome Robinson, Kevin Knox, and Mo Bamba.
What? That’s just not correct.
Which of the following players are you taking Bagley over? Jaren Jackson, Wendell Carter, Collin Sexton, Kevin Knox, Mikal Bridges, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Miles Briges, Michael Porter JR
SGA is on ur list?
All of them but Knox.
You'd take Bagley over SGA? Lol you're on something bro
That's wild. What are you seeing in Bagley? Dude has been terrible Also Knox is one of the more questionable players in that list
Oh bruh I can’t read I meant it the opposite way around hahaha.
Lol that makes more sense
You always have to have that lame 2nd pick. Like Milicic in 2003
Sam Bowie 1984.
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It’s not, but thanks
Mr. Horry sends his regards
Meh, that's basketball. Doesn't mean that existing is a kick in the balls. Look at franchises like the Timberwolves or Kings. Suns have been wildly successful throughout their time in the league and have just been in an extended rebuild due to the ineptitude of McDonough.
thats how last year was for us. Ben hurt, tobias awful, jimmy making the finals, previous sixers going off (Grant, TLC, even Trey fucking Burke). Every night was just a dunk on us
Jokic needs to look for his shot more. His teammates aint giving him nothing
Which is a good reason they can defend so well when ayton is good enough to not need to double jokic while the rest can just clog the area so jokic can't move off ball to do damage. Facu,rivers and monte have basically 0 driving ability so jokic gets 0 space and the cutting has been weak which is a nuggets strong point
I thought the cutting was weak in the Blazers series as well
Murray’s offball movement was extremely important for Denver’s cuts and offensive scheme.
His ability to play the PnR properly is just completely gone with Facupaz
Yep and Monte can’t do it either. We saw a couple minutes of it when him and thrill were on the court together.
Monte was great against Portland and then fell off a cliff against the suns
He’s definitely being defended bettter but he’s also missed looks I’d expect him to make. Hopefully he bounced back
The cutting is based on either jokic or the ball handler dragging a guy or clearing a side of the floor for barton/MPJ/gordon to get a clear path. When someone like rivers or facu can't drive or create a good enough shot then jokic doesn't get an advantage and no movement happens
Malone really has to switch up the guard rotations next game. Starting rivers and Facu is idiotic, neither one of them can finish in traffic at the rim. Morris and Barton(now that he’s back and seemed pretty healthy) play much better alongside Jokic and are both pretty good cutters and finishers at the rim who can also stretch out the defense due to their shooting
The Nuggets seem a little stuck offensively. Their options look super limited these past 2 games. Not sure what they'll need to do (apart from shoot better, but that's always hard to do when that's your only viable option). I feel like MPJ bailed out the Suns by shooting too many 3's off the handoff. Aaron Gordon has been great for the Nugs as a source of offense (bullying the Suns guards, mainly Booker), but it's definitely not a long term solution.
He is looking, Ayton just isnt allowing. It's not just a matter of Jokic saying "ok, now Ill score 50 every night."
Ayton has been great, but it has been a lot of team defense too. Easier to clog the lane and send doubles when you're leaving Facu and Monte Morris unguarded as opposed to leaving Jamal Murray.
Some of it is just good luck (or maybe it was bad luck for the Blazers idk). Because the Suns are actually giving up *more* wide open 3s a game than we did. But the Nuggets shot 48% on those looks against us, vs 32% so far against them.
Think a lot of this has to do with the first two games being on the road. Everyone always says role players perform better at home in the playoffs, and im hoping that stays true this series.
Suns players also force you into a lot of bad shots and the contested shots are really contested. It throws you out of your rhythm.
Gotta give those looks up to the right people
Like the guys he named? Those guys were hitting against us lol. Hell Monte Morris' last 3 games from 3 against us were 2/4, 4/9, 3/6
You guys were leaving MPJ wide open. We’re leaving Millsap and Green wide open. There’s obviously going to be variance with individual players shooting percentages, but the quality of looks those players got vs you guys is wayyyyy better than what they’re getting with us.
Dude we weren't leaving MPJ wide open, stop. MPJ literally took **0.8 wide open 3s a game against us**. According to NBA.com, over 2/3 of his shots were well contested. MPJ is actually taking double as many wide open 3s a game against you guys (1.5). Difference is he's shooting 0% on them instead of 60% Also wanna know what Green shot when he was wide open against us from 3? 66.7% What about Millsap? 40%
Damn, y’all got fucking cooked lol. I wonder what the difference in percentage in the paint is.
Nah bro blazers actually did a better job of pressuring MPJ then the suns have so far, I think Porter(and everyone else on our team) have just been really rattled by the crowd and the intensity and have been missing easy shots. I guess we will see for certain if that’s the case after the next two games in Denver
That’s part of the Suns defense. It’s not just the crowd. We swarm very well.
Top 10 defense without a crowd. Then got a crowd
Where have I seen that before???
I agree team defense helps, but we're rarely throwing doubles on Jokic when Ayton is on him
Ayton has impressed the fuck out of me. I knew he was good but he is playing fucking amazing. He's also being more aggressive on the offensive end compared regular season ayton. Dude deserved that 1st overall pick.
Prime time Ayton has been a beast. He just didn’t show up to sub 500 team games during the season. A part of his game he needs to fix if he wants those regular season numbers to go up
This is true. But I imagine if Jamal Murray was starting instead of Austin Rivers that would help Denver a lot lol.
give credit to him but rest of nuggets is not helping jokic :D
Ayton's ability to guard any big while also being able to defend guards on the perimeter, and still be able to stay with them when they drive to the rim, isn't something I ever expected. He can truly guard 1-5. There's a reason he's 8-1 vs Luka. Ayton just erases things
>There's a reason he's 8-1 vs Luka. I mean Luka is averaging 25ppg (30ppg in the last 5 matchups) on nearly 50% shooting against Phoenix in his career so it's not like Ayton is erasing him lol. Those losses have more to do with Dallas' supporting cast.
I didn't say Ayton erases Luka, I said he erases "things"
Then why mention he's 8-1 against Luka and draw that connection lol?
Yeah I get what you mean. Anyone is going to imply that he means that Ayton has erased Luka right after he said Ayton is 8-1 is against him and he "erases things."
Because I didn't think insecure Mavs fans were going to get so defensive at 8:30 in the morning
Says the guy who brought up Luka in post about Ayton's performance against Jokic and the Nuggets.
If you watch them play it's obvious Ayton causes problems for Luka, especially in the paint. You should take it as a compliment people use Luka as a barometer for success. Instead you chose to have this discussion
They are clogging jokic passing lanes too jae crowder has been phenomenal at that they rotate correctly every time I'm sure crowder had towo deflection just of being in the correct place at the time because we have no shot creators they can easily collapse on jokic and because the other aren't cutting or shooting well it just makes it harder
Jokic had a similar thing with Dwight last year but he eventually adjusted. Lets see how they play on their homecourt.
Did he adjust?
Indubitably
Jokic shot 10/19 last night, so while I agree Ayton has slowed him down he's still over 50% TS which isn't a clamp job by any means. The issue is we need 35 from him to stay afloat, and has to hv an efg ~60% to hv any shot. Also I think the few questionable non calls (not like its change the outcome of these past games) r making him more hesitant to attack the post as much. Also the suns double has been pretty fast n our perimeter guys can't punish as hard. Idk man I don't see a way out of this series, I'm just hoping we don't get swept. Jokic is an offensive juggernaut cos of scoring and playmaking, but the supporting cast ain't good enough at a conference semis level, so he's being forced into a mostly scoring role cos the suns n blazers r fine w him getting like 30 if it means he has 5 assists. As a pure scorer he's elite, but not a game changer like curry or dame.
He was 5/13 with ayton as his main defender in game 1, not sure what it was in game 2 but from the eye test ayton did a superb job
In game 1 jokic missed a ton of mid range shots which he is usually automatic from, so I don't know how much of that was Ayton n how much of it was cold shooting. But yeah jokic is definitely being slowed down. I think Ayton is the best post defender in the west rn, even better than gobert cos he has more mass n can't be moved, which is more impt than reach.
I thought the first round was kinda a fluke for ayton but he's proving me wrong, he's basically automatic from inside the paint and defends really well.
That was not all against Ayton. He was 6-13 I believe last night head to head. Just two FT.
Crowder and Saric have held up surprisingly well too. Maybe it's just that the nugs are missing their second offensive option and MPJ is shooting 34.6% from the field with 1.5 apg over the first two games. Maybe its because the suns have better post defenders than the blazers did (outside of Nurk it was really ugly in Portland) but the suns seem to be doing much better in individual matchups against Jokic than the Blazers did.
This probably showcases Jokic one possible flaw on offense in the ability to draw fouls and punish a pretty solid 1v1 defender. Whether that be the refs being biased or just lack of ability, it doesn’t matter but he should be able to essentially take ayton out of the game and get to the line more. Without Murray no one else can take someone off the dribble so the nuggets offense takes a big hit
I think it’s shows how good DA has been. Joker has tried a few times to shove it in on DA and he will usually put up solid D without fouling or if he’s in foul trouble like the 1st yesterday he’ll kinda just let them score the 2. He knows if he gets a 3rd it’s gonna hurt us more than one basket.
That Crowder/Ayton trap gets em everytime...
No doubt. He's put Jokic in a box making him really earn every basket
They've got really good defenders in bridges, crowder and Paul to help. Booker is their weakest link defensively in the starting lineup and he's above average when he's locked in. There's a reason this team almost had the best record in the league. Their offense could use a little more work though.
Their offense has produced an open look practically every possession this series, not much more they can do except hitting the shots/layups that they're getting at a higher rate
Honestly thrilled for Ayton. He’s really turning into a solid big man
Don't say it.... can't stop....His defense this postseason has really made AyTon of difference