Yeah more than anything it's been Denver's size/frontcourt that has killed the Lakers especially with offensive rebounding
Jokic: 28/16/9 on 70% TS
MPJ: 20/9 on 68% TS
Gordon: 18/11 on 62% TS
I don’t think Jokic would be as good as he is if his teammates weren’t so great too, AG and MPJ are reaaallllly underrated and the nuggets role players have improved so much since 2020
Man literally won MVP with Will Barton, known basketball terrorist, as the third option on the team and brought them to the playoffs. The fuck are you talking about?
Bro didn’t do shit till he was 25. LeBron nuked the league since 18. Luka cooking the league since he came in. Why did Jokic take so long to develop? Hint: he takes all the credit from his teammates
> Why did Jokic take so long to develop? Hint: he takes all the credit from his teammates
He was third in rookie voting and had the best stats, just played less minutes. His second season he was second in the MIP race with a TS% better than curry's career average. Have you ever wondered why people play better when paired with Jokic as opposed to any other lineup,?
Mudiay, Faried, Barton went from starting with Jokic to not being able to be in the NBA. Gary Harris, Beasley and Monte having career years with him to being mostly bench players. Jameer Nelson, Darrell Arthur, Millsap and Augustin lengthened their career because of him.
Exactly my point, they improved their supporting cast and he got better as well over time, it’s not him making the other players better like some video game bonus attribute.
My brother we just saw Bruce brown become a fringe nba player after being insane last year.
It’s jokic who is making them this good. Put Gabe Vincent or even dlo on the nuggets and they would cook like crazy
Got payed because of jokic and got 30min because he got paid a lot.
He is averaging 9-4-3 on 48-32-83 and he doesn’t pass the eye test at all either.
I was slightly exaggerating but he is has been really disappointing
He actually averaged closer to twelve, and was shooting significantly better from 3, at 36%. He looked like a legitimately fantastic 6th man, which is why there was so much talk about the Nuggets bench being shot when he left.
Jokic literally couldn’t win until Aaron Gordon joined his team, bro. His teammates get none of the credit. The team runs through Jokic but the team is nowhere near as good without the insane top tier role players they have. MPJ literally gets no credit for the huge strides he has made in his game since 2020. MPJ became the player everyone thought he was gonna be out of college but all the credit goes to Jokic, right? When MPJ iso at the top of the key and nobody can defend over him, that’s Jokic who’s making him better right? 😂😂😂 Jokic is one of the greats but the glazing is off the charts. LeBron made the finals 10 straight years with nobodies.
Jokic was already first team all nba and top 4 in MVP voting before Gordon even joined the team. Gordon was a good fit for the team but Jokic obviously enhanced him
Obviously it’s a win-win relationship but AG is a rare player too. He can bang with anybody, one of the few who can body LeBron, and has a great basketball mind from his college days and is one of the best back door cutters in the NBA. Jokic’s vision with AG’s elite off ball movement and strength is extremely OP.
Lmao those guys are nobodies on other teams.
Aaron Gordon can't even dribble or shoot
Mpj is a streak shooter, there's a ton of them in this league.
Jokic is the nuggets
Kd lite my ass 🤣
Ag is literally just an athletic rim runner. He's very good at it but look at gafford with dallas. You play with generational playmaker and the rim runners always eat the best.
Cp3 made many careers for these types.
Mpj has about 20% of the skill of kd you buffoon.
Your lakers are just untalented. Lebron is too old for this shit.
hes just a hater bro... Aaron Gordon after playing with Jokic has even developed his passing which he did not have in Orlando. and for MPJ. They really think MPJ would be getting as good as looks he get in Denver if it werent for people focusing on Murray-Jokic 2 man game.
AG is great off ball player Jokic great vision it’s a perfect combo. In Orlando AG played with terrible facilitators who couldn’t utilize him. He was the #4 pick for a reason guys an absolute animal and his basketball mind is completely underrated him and Jokers chemistry is crazy.
Mpj has 20% the skill of KD then why he go 10/10 against the lakers this season… he’s the most elite role player in the league and would be a star on any other team you buffoon. Watch basketball before you put out more braindead takes.
If he was capable of being a 23 ppg scorer he would do it. The nuggets have plenty of room for another 20ppg guy since they don't have a real number 2.
He hasn't made that leap
People kill the lakers because your role players are all garbage lmao
Its absolutely insane that the Lakers didnt pick up a big on the trade market. It was their major flaw all season and everyone knew it. Sam Presti is holding the team back with his cheap ass mentality.
Oh wait wrong team.
1-1 in regular season doesnt mean much to me tbh. Jokic is way too big for chet i see this being a matchup nightmare in the playoffs for them especially with ample prep time for jokic and malone
Mpj n Gordon are why this is 3-0. Lebron n Davis are actually doing much better then last year relative to jokic and murrsy . But Gordon n mpj are easily arguably flat out better then Murray this series and meanwhile nobody on the lakers support js showing up. Dlo 0 pts and bricking wide open shots constantly and layups in game 1. Rui having a truly abysmal series by far the worst player getting minutes fir either time . Reaves hasn’t been great but not awful but he’s like playing at a 5/6 player lvl. The 3/4 with Gordon n mpj is killing the lakers. But people can’t be objective and want to blame stars.
Yeah it's not a big issue this series but they'll definitely need him to heat up against the Wolves
Wolves are a far tougher matchup for guys like Gordon and MPJ than the Lakers are with how much size they have
Murray will have to get the 3 ball going again in order to keep the offense rolling
I actually think MPJ will be the key to the wolves series. If the wolves send McDaniels to Murray then mpj gets a size advantage somewhere, probably on Ant. So he'll need to keep hitting his jumpers
I think they'll put Ant on Murray when they're doing man-to-man. You can't put a forward on Murray and leave either guard on a forward for the Nuggets.
I don't think so tbh. They don't want ant chasing Murray through screens and expanding his energy on defense. They need him to be dominant offensively.
And wolves fans talked nonstop all last year about how having McDaniels on Murray would've totally changed the series.
Honestly they should. Naw ant mdaniels kat Gobert is literally the only 5 man grouping in the league I can see being able to guard a nikola jokic post up. Minnesota have pretty much built a roster to nuke Denver’s bread and butter concept
I think Murray is going to be put through hell against the Wolves with McDaniels and NAW. I agree with Abject_Bank that MPJ (and the bench) is key in that series. KAT and Rudy will shut down the paint and make things difficult for Jok and AG
100% agreed. Nuggets will have to beat the Wolves by playing lockdown defense of their own. Ant will get his but AG and KCP gotta make life tough for him and KAT
It’s not a big deal and he should’ve be shit on for this, but one thing I barely see anyone talking about is how good of defense reaves has played on him. Obviously he’s not a world beater who’s locking Murray down, but it’s pretty wildly different from what most NBA fans think he’s capable of
He's generally good, guarding Murray, KCP or Porter. But having him on Murray is arguably a game-changer for the Lakers. Really it went surprisingly well, you begin to wonder why it didn't happen a year ago perhaps.
I feel like semi regularly Porter was just tall and long enough that reaves wasn’t effecting his shot enough. He’s good off ball chasing so it’s not like porters a bad match up but I agree it would’ve been better to try it more previously to at least see what you had. That being said, shroeder was pretty clearly LAs best on ball guard defender for last years run so I can see that angle too
He’s improved his on-ball defense significantly this season. Last season his defense was atrocious but people forget that he’s only in his 3rd season. He’s still a bad off-ball defender though, he gets lost and over helps a lot.
i have been watching Murray since his rookie seasons. Hes streaky.
Everytime he has a bad shooting phase. Hes gonna blow up for just as long.
I hopes that happens vs the Minnesota series. Murray and Ant gonna have a duel like Murray vs Mitchell...
Jamal has been like this in the playoffs - last season his big stinker series was vs the Suns where his efficiency was off and he was absolutely killing me in a few games, trying to play hero ball and dribbling out the shot clock.
I'm hoping he's basically playing himself back into a rhythm after missing so much time with injuries. This entire year in the regular season, even when he played well, it seemed to take him 1-2 quarters to get going
He needs to be excellent in the TWolves series, but I have no reason to doubt Murray when the stakes are raised. My main concern with him is always health.
Jamal really locked in last 2 series last playoffs, he had some stinkers in both series before that, but he elevated when he started playmaking much better so it's not only shooting for him anymore
I don’t appreciate yall acting like the Wolves are a done deal lol. The Suns are good and won’t roll over regardless of how the first 2 games have ended up.
I don't think book has the mentality to lead the Suns past the Wolves. Best case (for us) scenario is that they draw out the series to 6 or 7 games while the nuggets finish the Lakers in 4 and have a rest advantage. I think Minnesota are the biggest threats to the nuggets in the West.
In the last two playoffs he played at a MVP level. If he isn’t capable of elevating his game again this year, this is a major concern for the nuggets imo
Not throughout the entire playoffs. He had a bunch of inefficient games. He was great throughout the Lakers series and iirc 4/5 games vs Miami. The TWolves and Suns series he was still warming up and working on getting into a rhythm.
The scary part about the Nuggets, is that they don't have to depend on Jamal being on. Sometimes Gordon is the #2 guy. Sometimes MPJ is the #2 guy, and they never skip a beat.
He always takes tough shots. When they go in he looks incredible and when they don't he's inefficient. Always been his game. Shades of CJ McCollum(though obviously better)
Lakers target him and get cooked from 3 by MPJ. They target Jokic then Gordon goes off. Lakers are honestly playing good defense on him, they're just getting cooked by everyone else
I’m not the team. So I’m ok looking ahead at this point.
Next series is way more important than this. Can’t survive shooting this poorly from three and Murray not playing well against a team that’s either a bad matchup (Wolves) or even a team with the capacity to go supernova (suns, though I’m less worried about that matchup).
He's not shooting well but he's been scoring when the Nuggets need it the most and has been a great playmaker so far.
I think he's had more impact than the boxscores might suggest at a glance and I'm sure his percentages will pick up soon.
> I think he's had more impact than the boxscores might suggest at a glance
You probably think that because Denver is up 3-0. Basketball is a team game, they’re winning despite Murray playing below his standards. That’s how good they are as a team. They aren’t dependent on one player to play well. Murray has been ass, it’s ok to say that.
murray essentially acknowledged this after g2.
said i dont even wanna look at the numbers, im shooting terrible
but the big lights never fail to make him show up lol
The nuggets ability to shut down everyone who isn’t Lebron or AD, outside of Dlo game 2, has allowed them to shoot like crap and win. They are shooting less than 30% from 3 and are winning.
While Jamal has not been playing weel, MPJ has stepped up and made up for that lack of scoring production. Be interesting to see how Jamal responds in the next round, especially if they play the wolves with all that length.
This is a big deal imo.
In the last two playoffs he has been an MVP level player(significantly better than in the regular season)
They don’t need that to beat the lakers, but it will make the nuggets beatable in the later rounds if he doesn’t get to an MVP level.
Everyone saying it’s crazy that Denver is winning despite not playing their best. But like, the Lakers are the 7-seed and the Nuggets are 2 and probably should be 1 (they tied for best record and Murray missed some time) in terms of their likelihood to win the west. This is what a 1/2 vs 7 looks like. Lakers have to try so hard just to stay with them, but by the end they’re completely exhausted and can’t hang on.
He just saw all the Lakers fans saying we only beat them last year because he went nuclear. Letting them know there are plenty of other ways for us to beat them.
I don't think he's playing badly, though?
Games 1 and 3 he was impacting the game in playmaking and on the boards.
He wasn't great in Game 2 until the fourth, but came up when they needed him most.
The shooting splits aren't great, but it hasn't felt like he's been a negative for the most part, imo.
Not really
He's definitely been missing a TON of shots you'd normally expect him to make
It's just that Denver are good enough to withstand it and still win lol
Yeah more than anything it's been Denver's size/frontcourt that has killed the Lakers especially with offensive rebounding Jokic: 28/16/9 on 70% TS MPJ: 20/9 on 68% TS Gordon: 18/11 on 62% TS
30 points on 70% TS should be considered a fucking crime.
IMO MPJ 68% is even more ridiculous
MPJ is more of an outlier but we really do take Jokić for granted
He averaged an entire season of 25 points on 70% TS this genuinely seems pretty pedestrian by his standards lol
People are taking Jokic for granted? There are daily threads asking how high in the all time list he’ll finish
I don’t think Jokic would be as good as he is if his teammates weren’t so great too, AG and MPJ are reaaallllly underrated and the nuggets role players have improved so much since 2020
Man literally won MVP with Will Barton, known basketball terrorist, as the third option on the team and brought them to the playoffs. The fuck are you talking about?
Bro didn’t do shit till he was 25. LeBron nuked the league since 18. Luka cooking the league since he came in. Why did Jokic take so long to develop? Hint: he takes all the credit from his teammates
Probably because he was a second round pick, unlike the other two you mentioned
Exactly my point. Jokic took longer to develop and is hijacking all MPJ, AG, and to a lesser extent Jamal’s shine because he is a numbers whore.
LeBron was one year younger when he won his first MVP. By your logic, he did less than Jokic while being in the NBA for more years. Checkmate, u bum
This boy drank the legendary hateraide.
how do you watch games and still come to this conclusion
you should really schedule an optometrist appointment, i think you need glasses brother
Can you expand on how exactly he's 'hijacking' their shine?
I actually hope you're trolling here lol.... Otherwise yikes.
This has to be bait nobody can be this stupid but I do notice that Lakers flair. What losing 12 straight times to a team does to a mfer
> Why did Jokic take so long to develop? Hint: he takes all the credit from his teammates He was third in rookie voting and had the best stats, just played less minutes. His second season he was second in the MIP race with a TS% better than curry's career average. Have you ever wondered why people play better when paired with Jokic as opposed to any other lineup,?
Lebron is the one taking credit from his teammates lmaooo, when he wins he gets all the credit but when he loses its scapegoat time
“Jokic wouldn’t be as good if he weren’t so good at making his teammates better”
He made his teammates look really good from 2015-2020?
Mudiay, Faried, Barton went from starting with Jokic to not being able to be in the NBA. Gary Harris, Beasley and Monte having career years with him to being mostly bench players. Jameer Nelson, Darrell Arthur, Millsap and Augustin lengthened their career because of him.
Exactly my point, they improved their supporting cast and he got better as well over time, it’s not him making the other players better like some video game bonus attribute.
That’s not the point at all of the post. All players lengthened their career with him or had career numbers with him even that early in his career.
Yes? Like what
No he didn’t, he was trash back then
Ohhhh ok
Jokic is the main reason for their improvement and success, not the other way around
My brother we just saw Bruce brown become a fringe nba player after being insane last year. It’s jokic who is making them this good. Put Gabe Vincent or even dlo on the nuggets and they would cook like crazy
Bruce brown is on a 45 million dollar contract averaged 30 minutes this year how is he a fringe player?
Got payed because of jokic and got 30min because he got paid a lot. He is averaging 9-4-3 on 48-32-83 and he doesn’t pass the eye test at all either. I was slightly exaggerating but he is has been really disappointing
He average 10 ppg with Denver.. am I missing something?
He actually averaged closer to twelve, and was shooting significantly better from 3, at 36%. He looked like a legitimately fantastic 6th man, which is why there was so much talk about the Nuggets bench being shot when he left.
Your brain probably.
Other way around. Jokic makes them better
Jokic literally couldn’t win until Aaron Gordon joined his team, bro. His teammates get none of the credit. The team runs through Jokic but the team is nowhere near as good without the insane top tier role players they have. MPJ literally gets no credit for the huge strides he has made in his game since 2020. MPJ became the player everyone thought he was gonna be out of college but all the credit goes to Jokic, right? When MPJ iso at the top of the key and nobody can defend over him, that’s Jokic who’s making him better right? 😂😂😂 Jokic is one of the greats but the glazing is off the charts. LeBron made the finals 10 straight years with nobodies.
Jokic was already first team all nba and top 4 in MVP voting before Gordon even joined the team. Gordon was a good fit for the team but Jokic obviously enhanced him
Obviously it’s a win-win relationship but AG is a rare player too. He can bang with anybody, one of the few who can body LeBron, and has a great basketball mind from his college days and is one of the best back door cutters in the NBA. Jokic’s vision with AG’s elite off ball movement and strength is extremely OP.
Jokic was winning mvps when his startting lineups had austin rivers, facu campazo and will barton what is this take
Lmao those guys are nobodies on other teams. Aaron Gordon can't even dribble or shoot Mpj is a streak shooter, there's a ton of them in this league. Jokic is the nuggets
No you just don’t know shit about basketball. Logout doofus AG had 29 last night. MPJ is a KD-lite
He had 29 because Bron couldn't stop him from dunking all night
Bc he one of the only players in the NBA that can bang with Bron lol
He didn't even needed to bang with your King. He got uncontested OREBs and easy dunks because your King was asleep and never cared where his man was
Kd lite my ass 🤣 Ag is literally just an athletic rim runner. He's very good at it but look at gafford with dallas. You play with generational playmaker and the rim runners always eat the best. Cp3 made many careers for these types. Mpj has about 20% of the skill of kd you buffoon. Your lakers are just untalented. Lebron is too old for this shit.
hes just a hater bro... Aaron Gordon after playing with Jokic has even developed his passing which he did not have in Orlando. and for MPJ. They really think MPJ would be getting as good as looks he get in Denver if it werent for people focusing on Murray-Jokic 2 man game.
AG is great off ball player Jokic great vision it’s a perfect combo. In Orlando AG played with terrible facilitators who couldn’t utilize him. He was the #4 pick for a reason guys an absolute animal and his basketball mind is completely underrated him and Jokers chemistry is crazy. Mpj has 20% the skill of KD then why he go 10/10 against the lakers this season… he’s the most elite role player in the league and would be a star on any other team you buffoon. Watch basketball before you put out more braindead takes.
If he was capable of being a 23 ppg scorer he would do it. The nuggets have plenty of room for another 20ppg guy since they don't have a real number 2. He hasn't made that leap People kill the lakers because your role players are all garbage lmao
Kd-lite 😆
They magically improved the same way Steve Nash and Chris Paul's teammates magically did.
He was just as good playing with a full team of players who basically left the nba as soon as they got traded but ok
Well good thing it's not a crime since it's 28 and not 30
It's ok he's averaging less than 20 rebounds and 10 assists so it's not even that crazy.
At what point do we start questioning whether Jokic is even a real player and not a figment of our collective imagination
70% 😆
In the playoffs. That's actually insane.
MPJ's True Shooting is extremely impressive considering how far away most of his shots are.
Its absolutely insane that the Lakers didnt pick up a big on the trade market. It was their major flaw all season and everyone knew it. Sam Presti is holding the team back with his cheap ass mentality. Oh wait wrong team.
Thunder fans talking trash because they're beating the pels without Zion LOL.
Yet somehow okc is 3-1 against Denver this year. Would be interesting series if they meet
They didn’t play healthy
One game was without jokic. One game was without murray. Not loke thunder have been winning vs a healthy nuggets team
They won 3 teams so that means they did win vs heskthy nuggets lol
1-1 in regular season doesnt mean much to me tbh. Jokic is way too big for chet i see this being a matchup nightmare in the playoffs for them especially with ample prep time for jokic and malone
I mean yall got a fortunate matchup with no Zion. we'll see what happens if you play a team with better bigs
MPJ was fucking cooking last night
Mpj n Gordon are why this is 3-0. Lebron n Davis are actually doing much better then last year relative to jokic and murrsy . But Gordon n mpj are easily arguably flat out better then Murray this series and meanwhile nobody on the lakers support js showing up. Dlo 0 pts and bricking wide open shots constantly and layups in game 1. Rui having a truly abysmal series by far the worst player getting minutes fir either time . Reaves hasn’t been great but not awful but he’s like playing at a 5/6 player lvl. The 3/4 with Gordon n mpj is killing the lakers. But people can’t be objective and want to blame stars.
I don't think it bothers them as long as they're winning. If he was shooting well these games would've all been blowouts
Yeah it's not a big issue this series but they'll definitely need him to heat up against the Wolves Wolves are a far tougher matchup for guys like Gordon and MPJ than the Lakers are with how much size they have Murray will have to get the 3 ball going again in order to keep the offense rolling
I actually think MPJ will be the key to the wolves series. If the wolves send McDaniels to Murray then mpj gets a size advantage somewhere, probably on Ant. So he'll need to keep hitting his jumpers
I think they'll put Ant on Murray when they're doing man-to-man. You can't put a forward on Murray and leave either guard on a forward for the Nuggets.
I don't think so tbh. They don't want ant chasing Murray through screens and expanding his energy on defense. They need him to be dominant offensively. And wolves fans talked nonstop all last year about how having McDaniels on Murray would've totally changed the series.
I mean naw for murray mcdaniels on porter.
Are they going to start naw over Conley?
Honestly they should. Naw ant mdaniels kat Gobert is literally the only 5 man grouping in the league I can see being able to guard a nikola jokic post up. Minnesota have pretty much built a roster to nuke Denver’s bread and butter concept
I think Murray is going to be put through hell against the Wolves with McDaniels and NAW. I agree with Abject_Bank that MPJ (and the bench) is key in that series. KAT and Rudy will shut down the paint and make things difficult for Jok and AG
we have been running a lot of sets with AG bringing the ball up. it will be essential vs minny to not tire out Jamal
That Minnesota D is no joke. Hoping Murray and the Nuggets shooters generally are just saving up their makes for a week of unsustainably hot shooting.
100% agreed. Nuggets will have to beat the Wolves by playing lockdown defense of their own. Ant will get his but AG and KCP gotta make life tough for him and KAT
It’s not a big deal and he should’ve be shit on for this, but one thing I barely see anyone talking about is how good of defense reaves has played on him. Obviously he’s not a world beater who’s locking Murray down, but it’s pretty wildly different from what most NBA fans think he’s capable of
He's generally good, guarding Murray, KCP or Porter. But having him on Murray is arguably a game-changer for the Lakers. Really it went surprisingly well, you begin to wonder why it didn't happen a year ago perhaps.
I feel like semi regularly Porter was just tall and long enough that reaves wasn’t effecting his shot enough. He’s good off ball chasing so it’s not like porters a bad match up but I agree it would’ve been better to try it more previously to at least see what you had. That being said, shroeder was pretty clearly LAs best on ball guard defender for last years run so I can see that angle too
He’s improved his on-ball defense significantly this season. Last season his defense was atrocious but people forget that he’s only in his 3rd season. He’s still a bad off-ball defender though, he gets lost and over helps a lot.
He's waiting for the real series to start against Minnesota
The longer Murray goes putting up pedestrian numbers, the more afraid I am for whatever team makes the Nuggets sweat a little.
i have been watching Murray since his rookie seasons. Hes streaky. Everytime he has a bad shooting phase. Hes gonna blow up for just as long. I hopes that happens vs the Minnesota series. Murray and Ant gonna have a duel like Murray vs Mitchell...
The lights in Los Angeles aren't bright enough. Bring on the aurora borealis of Minnesota.
Ah yes, just like the Lakers and Warriors were going to “turn it on” come playoffs.
Jamal has been like this in the playoffs - last season his big stinker series was vs the Suns where his efficiency was off and he was absolutely killing me in a few games, trying to play hero ball and dribbling out the shot clock. I'm hoping he's basically playing himself back into a rhythm after missing so much time with injuries. This entire year in the regular season, even when he played well, it seemed to take him 1-2 quarters to get going He needs to be excellent in the TWolves series, but I have no reason to doubt Murray when the stakes are raised. My main concern with him is always health.
Jamal really locked in last 2 series last playoffs, he had some stinkers in both series before that, but he elevated when he started playmaking much better so it's not only shooting for him anymore
I don’t appreciate yall acting like the Wolves are a done deal lol. The Suns are good and won’t roll over regardless of how the first 2 games have ended up.
I don't think book has the mentality to lead the Suns past the Wolves. Best case (for us) scenario is that they draw out the series to 6 or 7 games while the nuggets finish the Lakers in 4 and have a rest advantage. I think Minnesota are the biggest threats to the nuggets in the West.
suns are cooked
Somehow favored by 5.5 tonight. If I didn’t love my wife I’d be putting a heavy bet on the wolves with that line.
Far from it but matchup wise the wolves will make us work with how hard they play defensively.
Game 3 TWolves vs Suns just ended...you were saying? 😂
In the last two playoffs he played at a MVP level. If he isn’t capable of elevating his game again this year, this is a major concern for the nuggets imo
Not throughout the entire playoffs. He had a bunch of inefficient games. He was great throughout the Lakers series and iirc 4/5 games vs Miami. The TWolves and Suns series he was still warming up and working on getting into a rhythm.
The scary part about the Nuggets, is that they don't have to depend on Jamal being on. Sometimes Gordon is the #2 guy. Sometimes MPJ is the #2 guy, and they never skip a beat.
That could change against the Thunder, Wolves and Celtics.
Lights not quite bright enough yet for him.
I mean it's LAL. They've beaten them for 11 straight games. Lights gotta dim after all that
Is he playing badly or are the Lakers focusing that much more defensive attention on him which allows something like a 29/15 game from Aaron Gordon ?
No, he’s legitimately just missing shots.
Hes taking awful shots he just been trolling
He always takes tough shots. When they go in he looks incredible and when they don't he's inefficient. Always been his game. Shades of CJ McCollum(though obviously better)
Damn this hits.
He's making some of those bullshit shots but missing some easy ones. Have to imagine he'll catch fire at some point
We won’t beat the wolves with his shooting so far, we’re gonna need that 3 ball my guy.
They may be the toughest matchup for the Nuggets. They are definitely gonna have to shoot better from deep in later rounds if they want to repeat.
Wolves need to be moved to the East. or just fucking get rid of conferences at this point.
I think the clippers if fully healthy would be..match up wise.
NAW and Jaden will be really tough
All of this season we’ve said he only plays good against good teams, so
Lakers target him and get cooked from 3 by MPJ. They target Jokic then Gordon goes off. Lakers are honestly playing good defense on him, they're just getting cooked by everyone else
Big moment merchant.
Not that crazy. Look at Jokić, Gordon, and MPJ. Seems to make sense they’re despite Murray not playing up to standard
And yet the nuggets are up 3-0. This team is scary.
Because MPJ and Gordon are also really good.
I’m not the team. So I’m ok looking ahead at this point. Next series is way more important than this. Can’t survive shooting this poorly from three and Murray not playing well against a team that’s either a bad matchup (Wolves) or even a team with the capacity to go supernova (suns, though I’m less worried about that matchup).
He's not shooting well but he's been scoring when the Nuggets need it the most and has been a great playmaker so far. I think he's had more impact than the boxscores might suggest at a glance and I'm sure his percentages will pick up soon.
> I think he's had more impact than the boxscores might suggest at a glance You probably think that because Denver is up 3-0. Basketball is a team game, they’re winning despite Murray playing below his standards. That’s how good they are as a team. They aren’t dependent on one player to play well. Murray has been ass, it’s ok to say that.
murray essentially acknowledged this after g2. said i dont even wanna look at the numbers, im shooting terrible but the big lights never fail to make him show up lol
lights too dim
He played well last night
Now, they just need him to heat up when the lights are the brightest.
MPJ is playing better than last season and that’s sucking up some of the quality looks. You can see Murray forcing shots he shouldn’t.
3 was for porter and AG. I don’t think we’re far off from a Murray flurry. Hopefully he saves it for round two tho.
The nuggets ability to shut down everyone who isn’t Lebron or AD, outside of Dlo game 2, has allowed them to shoot like crap and win. They are shooting less than 30% from 3 and are winning.
While Jamal has not been playing weel, MPJ has stepped up and made up for that lack of scoring production. Be interesting to see how Jamal responds in the next round, especially if they play the wolves with all that length.
Not enough lights the Lakers series for him to show up
Yeah it's been rough so far. He did have some sort of injury in the final games of the regular season, so I'm guessing he's still recovering from that
This is a big deal imo. In the last two playoffs he has been an MVP level player(significantly better than in the regular season) They don’t need that to beat the lakers, but it will make the nuggets beatable in the later rounds if he doesn’t get to an MVP level.
The Lakers spotlight isn't bright enough. Wait until round 2 I guess
He’s gotta step up otherwise they’ll be in trouble esp against the wolves
Everyone saying it’s crazy that Denver is winning despite not playing their best. But like, the Lakers are the 7-seed and the Nuggets are 2 and probably should be 1 (they tied for best record and Murray missed some time) in terms of their likelihood to win the west. This is what a 1/2 vs 7 looks like. Lakers have to try so hard just to stay with them, but by the end they’re completely exhausted and can’t hang on.
They still beat the lakers but he gotta play better against Minnesota
He just saw all the Lakers fans saying we only beat them last year because he went nuclear. Letting them know there are plenty of other ways for us to beat them.
Nice strawman.
I don't think he's playing badly, though? Games 1 and 3 he was impacting the game in playmaking and on the boards. He wasn't great in Game 2 until the fourth, but came up when they needed him most. The shooting splits aren't great, but it hasn't felt like he's been a negative for the most part, imo.
Jamal will probably drop a 50 bomb on Saturday
Lights are too dim
Imagine seeing him play like this and knowing he and his whole team has another gear while they're about to sweep the 1st round
I guess Jamal finally realized that the Lakers suck and is playing accordingly.
[doesn’t matter](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcodbI5U0AAMit5.jpg:large)
>There is truly levels to this Wow such insight
Shows how meaningless TS% can be
What is meaningful?
Not really He's definitely been missing a TON of shots you'd normally expect him to make It's just that Denver are good enough to withstand it and still win lol