big honey and the nuggets

I love christian braun

Nuggets 3-guard lineups off the bench this season:

Jamal Murray, Bones Hyland, Bruce Brown: -57 in 179 minutes (109.3 ORtg, 124.8 DRtg, -15.5 NetRtg)

Jamal Murray, Reggie Jackson, Bruce Brown: -39 in 69 minutes (95.8 ORtg, 126.4 DRtg, -30.6 NetRtg)

It's still not working.

— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) March 13, 2023

is there some reason they need to be playing these lineups

malone is clueless man

he’s a “culture guy” and you can’t discount how important he’s been to the development of the team in the jokic era. but as an in-game maneuverer and rotation guy he’s average at best. if they don’t make the finals this year I really think it’s time for a change

i didn’t get the sense watching them vs toronto tonight that they’re falling apart or anything. something similar happened to the heat last year and then they stomped their first two opponents in the playoffs

both teams were fully healthy tonight so it was interesting to see how the raptors attacked denver’s defense. they tried to put murray on the ball repeatedly especially against siakam in the mid post. i thought they also tested denver’s communication and that’s where you saw some exasperated looks from jokic in the direction of MPJ and murray. i assume they’ll play a hefty amount of crunch time minutes with brown in over MPJ. lastly we saw some steph kinda stuff from FVV taking advantage of the space you get from jokic in high pick and roll. 8-12 from three tonight & a lot of them were deep but clean looks.

i think these playoffs will give us a final read on malone. sorta feels like a few years ago with coach bud. to me they’re gonna have be both very schematically sound on defense & a bit creative in how they cover up some of their weaker spots i.e. can they get murray off of disadvantageous switches without scrambling their defense and blowing rotations? one of the things i’m most eager to see in the playoffs is denver in a high level series where they need to rise to the occasion defensively. will be fascinating stuff

murray is pretty banged up, and somehow played 40 minutes? (I missed most of the game.)

my concern level is starting to rise, mostly because the weaknesses of the team (the bench) haven’t improved at all, and in some ways may have gotten even worse. there’s a team-wide funk right now and I think they’ve taken their foot off the gas a bit since that grizzlies win, but jamal has looked extremely concerningly slow for about 10 games now, and there’s just no way they hit their ceiling if he’s not right

I trust your eye on porter’s defense, he’s not a full-time plus defender for sure and malone can get on him about his focus from time to time (including a second half benching two games ago, which was extremely unpopular among the nuggets beat writers and fans), BUT he has definitely leveled up defensively overall this year which has been a huge bright spot and is definitely crucial to their success. I don’t think going away from him in big stretches is going to be tenable. he’s also been fantastic on offense lately and has seemed to be most of the way back athletically, couple of poster dunks the last couple of games, just generally taking it to the rim more, etc. I’m also just pretty low on bruce brown overall tbh — he plays well with jokic (everyone does) but doesn’t really give much otherwise

last night from what i saw murray was really being targeted in one on one defense where the MPJ issues were more about him being in the right places as a help defender. even tho he is stiff athletically i do buy that MPJ can move his feet well enough that w/ his size he can be a decent one on one defender

i could be wrong about him vs bruce brown & perhaps he just plays well enough to stay on the floor but i feel like in the crunchiest of playoff crunch time coaches tend to cling to guys they can trust to do the right things mentally on both ends but primarily on defense. he just strikes me as the kinda dirty work heady role player type that a coach will think he can trust. but his game has all kinda warts and if you look at how he was used in the 2021 nets-bucks series he averaged 25 mpg but he had games of 5 min and 13 min but also games of 38 and 52 mins

tough loss to the knicks today at the garden, definitely seemed like a game the nuggets should have won, KCP 0-5 from 3, all of which were wide open looks. aside from his individual offense jokic was bad by his standards, 6 turnovers several of which were pretty ugly, missed an open MPJ at least 3 times, got dominated on the glass, sigh

Michael Porter Jr. has a career three-point percentage of 49.7% in the month of March.

That is the highest career three-point percentage in any month by any player in NBA history (min. 150 3PA). pic.twitter.com/la2IrXvDhl

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) March 24, 2023

had to read this a few times to understand it, but that’s cool I guess. MPJ has been so good this year, playing within the rhythm on offense, effort level much better on defense, super promising

nice win 4 the nugs i fell asleep but might screen the second half today

the second half was really good if you like watching the nuggets win

sure why not

peyton watson has been a revelation the past couple of games. he's still really raw, but pretty much exactly the kind of player the nuggets need off the bench: long, athletic wing with a motor who can make big plays on defense and finish on offense. he's still a work in progress but I'm extremely optimistic about his future with this team and his potential to play a few minutes in the playoffs, hopefully he can take a few of jeff green's minutes

MPJ's last 25 games: 19 points on .504/.415/.849 shooting (7.4 3PA/game) and improving defense, he's had such a great year

the nuggets playoff rotation seems to have taken form (asterisks denoting limited minutes):

guards: jamal, KCP, bruce, reggie jackson***
wings: MPJ, christian braun, watson***
bigs: jokic, gordon, jeff green*, zeke nnaji** thomas bryant**

watson was insane last night, dude was everywhere

Michael Malone says eight players are locked into his playoff rotation: The starters, and Bruce Brown, Christian Braun and Jeff Green. Who else he plays will be based on matchups, and Malone lists Zeke Nnaji, Peyton Watson or Reggie Jackson as possibilities in that scenario.

— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) April 9, 2023

I should know better, but of course jeff green is going to get a lot of playoff minutes

kind of an amazing career hes been disappointing for so long

25% of the 50% of me that expects the nuggets to go out in humiliating fashion is secretly rooting for it so we can fire malone tbh

cmon kevin what sort of attitude is that

it’s been very depressing watching them recently

well they havent had anything to play for

I know that’s what I’m trying to tell myself

obviously youd rather them be rolling and there so much parity in the west this year so anything can happen but i still like the nuggs chances i wanna see joker rip shit up

the thing about jokic is that if there are no stakes he simply cannot be bothered to try. he took a total of 8 shots this preseason and we’ve all seen how he treats the all star game. it’s fine for him because he’s a killer when the time comes and he’s been fantastic in the playoffs, I just worry that the team hasn’t been able to find a rhythm the last couple of months with him checked out.

one of the nuggets podcast guys compared jokic to a college student who tries to see how low of a score they can get on the final and still pass the class and it was just so otm. like after the nuggets beat the grizz right after the all star break and took an 8 game lead or whatever jokic was probably thinking, awesome, now I don’t have to try for the next 2 months

my beautiful boy

HE BACKhttps://t.co/3XdtUIKkbf pic.twitter.com/LRNjAkVjHd

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 17, 2023

my thoughts on the Minnesota Timberwolves season, through the lens of a Ross Gay poem pic.twitter.com/aQLSNnqcWC

— Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad) April 24, 2023

Nuggets Twitter when Joker goes 2/9 vs when Jamal goes 1/6 pic.twitter.com/soaLkupCSS

— Ryan Blackburn (@NBABlackburn) May 10, 2023

https://t.co/Wg37MAD83Y pic.twitter.com/KPfu63Kh6o

— Gonzalo Vázquez (@GVazquezNY) May 10, 2023

the entry pass from KCP I was talking about…

Gorgeous pass by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in transition. He threads it with four Suns defenders around. pic.twitter.com/VAoVmRcEwL

— Positive Residual (@presidual) May 10, 2023

The TNT crew can't get enough of Nikola Jokic...

They tell him he passed Wilt Chamberlain in all-time playoff triple-doubles for centers, he says:

"Where is Shaq? Is Shaq in that list?"

Shaq: "No, cause I never passed, Big Honey."

--
"Is he the best?"

"He's the best." pic.twitter.com/b4DJo80LlT

— Joel Rush (@JoelRushNBA) May 10, 2023

talking point agenda update for those who celebrate:
- jokic western conference finals appearances: 2
- jokic first round exits: 1

With the NBA awards wrapped up, Nikola Jokic remains the only MVP ever to have zero teammates on All-NBA, All-Defense or All-Star in his first 8 seasons in the league.

Big Honey is four wins away from reaching his first NBA Finals. pic.twitter.com/bEk1Kz9BK5

— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 12, 2023

the lebron parallels continue…

just fyi im mentally prepared to fully jump on the nuggets wagon, could be buying a train ticket tonight

We kept receipts. #MileHighBasketball @DNVR_Nuggets @Adam_Mares @DLineCo pic.twitter.com/MZEYSFxlPe

— Elias Martinez Ⓜ️ (@mtzcreative) May 12, 2023

the DNVR podcast guys were in their bag last night lmao

I'm rooting for the Nuggets. really had a blast getting to see a Wolves game there a little over a year ago.

just can't beat "Ball Arena"

That ESPN prediction was something like 13-4 for the Suns, just nuts. Nuggets must have been the pre-series betting favorites, right?

suns were a slight favorite

ah well lol

Suns had so much trouble with a Clippers team that was missing its stars, nuggets looked so much better in the first round

there was just no evidence to be found that the suns were good

perk is a goddamned terrorist

“We have a new sheriff in town. And that means the Best Player in the world…and that is Jokic.”

We are witnessing an all-time heel turn from the NBA Big Media. pic.twitter.com/AoeIe1Trkj

— Swipa (@SwipaCam) May 12, 2023

its very funny that so many of these guys have been dismissing obviously one of the best offensive players ever and now he beats two bad teams in the offs and theyre over reacting, classic sportsman brain

friendship ended with kd now joker is by best friend

Joker dishin' out dimes left and right at Ball Arena 🪙 pic.twitter.com/BqNRnCsgn8

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) May 17, 2023

reader I screamed

Mike Malone goes off on the narratives surrounding the Lakers and Nikola Jokic

“The national narrative [after Game 1] was that the Lakers were fine. No one talked about Nikola having a historic performance. The narrative wasn’t about the Nuggets.”
pic.twitter.com/3beMDQfb4f

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) May 19, 2023

malone has really leaned into this persona recently and I love it

"no one believes in us" is evergreen. play the hits coach

(let's just keep that narrative in the western conference pls)

from the author of “take that L on the way out”

What people say "best two-way player" what they most often mean is "best defender among guys who are good at offense." It's why you had people saying Klay was the best two-way SG when Harden was obviously a better player. "Best two-way player" is just... best player.

— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) May 21, 2023

“two way player” is a casual term that should be retired