“Nikola Jokic is best player in WORLD” – ESPN react to Nuggets beat Pelicans 125-118 to improve 11-3

“Nikola Jokic is best player in WORLD” – ESPN react to Nuggets beat Pelicans 125-118 to improve 11-3

[Music] The Denver Nuggets find a way to get the job done in the Big Easy. Big performances from Payton Watson, Nicole Joic. The bench played better. Ultimately, they did play with their food a little bit in New Orleans, but found a way to finish the job, get back in the win column. 125 to 118, the final. Welcome to Nuggets Postgame Live presented by your Front Range Toyota dealers, Katy Win, Bill Hansick, and Chris Dempsey, getting into the details of this Denver Nuggets win. Kind of a back and forth battle in this game. Ultimately, the Denver Nuggets able to come away with it. What do you feel like was the key factor in that being the case? Wow. Well, De mentioned Payton. Obviously, that jumps up big. You know, it just seems like the Nuggets are that good where they can play the light switch game. They go, “All right, we’re down. What if they get down 13?” And Joker just goes, “All right, I’m going to hit this three.” Boom. Then by the end of the quarter, they’re down two or four. And at half, they have a four-point lead. Then they blow it up in the third. Unfortunately, at the end of game was a little tight because they were just dinking around. Yeah. just right that middle of the fourth quarter. Uh New Orleans was not going to stop playing and they have a lot of young hungry players. Um and so they made a game out of it. But um yeah, you know, like it’s it’s these games, you know, you’re missing some personnel if you’re the Nuggets. Um you you get off to a start that um you know, New Orleans made a lot of shots at the beginning of this game, so you couldn’t really get into transition, get a lot of the easy stuff on some of the mismatch stuff that you normally get. And so it became a little bit of a slog. But um I I just think the good teams see their way through these kinds of uh situations and the Nuggets did. Let’s talk about the Magic Eightball. Payton Watson, what he was able to do in this game. It’s the first time in his career he led the Nuggets in either scoring or rebounding and he did it in the same game tonight. 32 and 12. His first career double double, made five three-pointers. All of those were career highs. Yeah. Career high three made threes, right? All of those the highlighted career highs. That’s good. Pretty good. Oh, you need a little where it says career highs, we got to put black. That’s why they’re highlighted PW. It was It’s amazing. Hans, it’s amazing. I, you know, look look uh and and and quite honestly, as you know, as a basketball player, you know, New Orleans was leaving him open for these threes early in the game. And there’s no bigger satisfaction than to say, “Oh, oh, you’re going to leave me open for this.” and then just to knock them down in their faces the entire game. Um, and then all of a sudden, obviously, he got into the opening court, did the Pton Watson things, and we love Look at all this memes. Look at all the memes. This is amazing. What a He hadn’t done this since high school. And here’s the thing. Payton Watson is such a character that there’s so much here. There’s so many reactions that so good. No, no. Like, you have the the video clips. You have all of the the sh the chain, the squat chain, even the ring. I mean it it truly is. And the his career high, Dempse, to your point, at UCLA was only 19 points. Yeah, it was only 19. Yeah. I figured this is the last time he had his career high was at last time he did this was in high school. Yeah. Did he do 32 in high school? I don’t I have no Well, he told Vic that he absolutely did do this in high school. That was the last time. We’re facteing. We’re factecking. We’re going to let We’re gonna put you on the case. Yes. Let’s do that. Let’s do that. He’s our you’re you’re our crack research staff. It’s Oh, PW was beautiful. Just great game. And you know, again, Nicole is like looking over and after the corner three, Peyton. He knew Peyton was the hot man and he got some nice passes to him. Well, Nicole Joic had 12 assists in this game. Let’s talk about the night for the Joker. Another triple double against the New Orleans Pelicans. 14 of them for Nicole Joic in his career. How was Nola able to dissect this defense? They don’t have a center. That’s my thought. Okay, it’s a good thought. You know, it’s it’s funny because you look at that number um 14 triple doubles against this team and I can remember him playing against Boogie Cousins and Anthony Davis and Yonis Valenunis. And it really doesn’t matter if they have a center or not. And it really doesn’t matter if that center’s 10t tall or 6’8 or 12 feet tall, he gets a triple double because that’s what he does against this basketball team. and and Hans uh you know I they they they really did need it. I mean they needed it. I mean he had to play a few more minutes than he than he wanted to but yeah I I laugh because I’m watching the video and it’s it’s the what is Queen I think he’s like 19. Yeah. Yeah. He was freshman and he carved him up for turkey dinner. He did a bunch of those. Queen also had a good night. Queen had a nice offensive game but they battled. Let’s put it that way. They battled. All right, you talked about the pass, Bill Hans. Look, let’s get to our ball assist of the game presented by Ball Corporation. They remind you to choose aluminum. Really, it’s behind the back. It’s name this pass, hands, name it. The no looker. The fact that Nicole Yokic delivered this where he did the way in which he I mean, it is so beautiful. Yeah. And that should have been a foul, too. We’ll let it go. Payton Watson really paid this one off, too. Yeah, it’s a he just took my man. My man Queen was on him again. What did he just do there? What did he do? Uh Peyton Watson, what a you know, I couldn’t be happier for him, you know, and and um you know, Vic did ask the question, well, how do you know when to do those kinds of things? Now, that particular cut that is just like big eyes, right? And then, you know, exactly. Yeah. Right. And you there’s no no words that need to be explained. It’s just your eyes get really big. Exactly. And what do they say? Cheeseburgers. Paul Mil used to say, dishing out cheeseburgers. Yep. Yep. Cheeseburgers. Remember that? Yeah. Munching. Yum. Yum. All right, we’re going to take our first break here on Nuggets Postgame Live. When we come back, we’ll head back out to New Orleans here from Yeah, we did. But the last four minutes was kind of like uh we had 20 turnovers total. Uh you know, and we just have to take care of the ball better than that. They had good activity. They’re flying around. Uh but we just we can’t get up 24 points uh off mistakes. And then at the end, I thought when we did break the press correctly, uh, we have to understand that we don’t have to score once you break it. You know, you can get the ball back out, uh, and bleed clock. So, it’ll be a good film to watch tomorrow with the guys. Um, but a lot of positives. A lot of people stepped up tonight. U, you know, with Pate having a career night offensively. Uh, Zeke subbing in and doing a good job with Zion, which is a really tough matchup. Um, you know, and a guy that hasn’t played throughout the season, it was cool to see him be ready to go. Uh so there’s there’s positives and like you said there’s negatives and they’re the some of the glaring things that we saw in the Portland game. Uh you know we saw that late in this game. So we have to keep watching tape when we get a chance to practice you know go through those things. Uh the situational basketball and you know obviously I challenge to try to keep the call in the game. Uh so we you know just have to finish games better. That’s the bottom line. Coach, sometimes it’s a little things. You’re down 13 early. Spencer Jones enters the game. He doesn’t fill up a box score, but he does things that don’t show up in a box score. How much did he help change the tone of the game? Yeah, I thought Spencer and Bruce I thought both guys uh really got into the ball. Uh they forked turnovers and got us run outs uh cut into that lead right away. I thought uh Valenunis’ energy was great as well and we needed it to your point. You know, it was a weird energy in the gym and we kind of I don’t know, we mimicked it. You know, we were not all there getting up and down. uh once we got back in the game, I liked our energy to Scott’s point uh up until the last few minutes, but nice to have energy changing players like Spencer and Bruce that can come in and really change the game and the way the game feels, especially on the road, uh where it doesn’t matter what the other team’s record is, it’s always hard to win the NBA on the road. Uh David, the going with Zeke there in the starting lineup. Uh early on, you guys gave up 18 pretty quick points in the paint. Some of that was off the turnovers and transition, but felt like you guys settled in defensively throughout the night. Um, especially against Zion. Just what did you kind of see as far as the way you guys got through that game without Aaron, who’s obviously such a perfect matchup for him. Yeah, I think a lot of it was uh turnovers to your point and then also some of the game plan stuff I didn’t think we were clean enough with early and as the game went on, we did a much better job of shrinking behind the initial defender. Uh, the guy is such a load inside when he gets in the paint. Uh but you know holding into 14 points on 13 shots is a good number and then talked about before the game only four free throws means we were walling up uh physically without fouling and you know look it’s the NBA is hard. I I winning is it’s a premium and to find a way to do it uh and you’re right with the team defense behind it and Zeke stepping in after not playing hardly at all this year uh was really cool to see just him the maturity of Zeke to know it’s my night to play and he’s ready to go. I’d like to follow up on that. How what went into the seat? Did this decision the decision to start Zeke tonight? I think some people were surprised. Yeah, I he’s had success in the past as far as at least physically, uh, you know, guarding Zion. He hasn’t stopped him. No one really does one-on-one. Uh, so he’s had, you know, experience doing it. Uh, and I trusted that. You know, I’ve been here. I’ve seen him do it. I remember the past. So, uh, we trust Zeke to do it. You know, on nights like this. It was the right matchup. I’ve made that point before. It’s not going to be uh most popular player. It’s going to start. It’s going to be who makes sense to win the game. Uh you know, we have Cam and Jamal and Nicole out there. Uh you get a great night from Payton offensively. Uh that particular player was very important because it had to be with no Christian Brown and no Aaron Gordon. Obviously some

“Nikola Jokic is best player in the WORLD!” – ESPN reacts to Nuggets beat Pelicans 125-118 to improve 11-3