Nuggets & Rockets are best title contenders vs. OKC Thunder

Nuggets & Rockets are best title contenders vs. OKC Thunder

So, some follow-up thoughts on Denver Houston. First of all, uh again, we did this one on playback. We do two playback streams every single week where we watch a game um live, like actually during the game rather than after the game. The two games that we’re doing this week are Clippers Lakers on Tuesday night and then Mavs Lakers on Friday night. The two inseason tournament nationally televised games. Again, with those two, like it’s uh like with the Denver Houston one, for example, when I’m done, I’m sticking around for like 15 minutes to do kind of an instant reaction. So, those are kind of like bonus examples of our normal show that you’ll find throughout the week. So, like even if you can’t watch along with us, come hang out after the game and we’ll be breaking it down uh for about 15 minutes after the tail end. So again, that next one will be on Tuesday for Clippers Lakers, which will be a more interesting matchup now that Kawhi Leonard is back, although they got smacked down in Cleveland yesterday. Uh but yeah, we covered this game on Friday. Uh the Nuggets ended up turning around and losing to Sacramento at home on Saturday, more or less of a schedule loss. I had heard that they landed back in Denver at like 2:30 a.m. and that they weren’t back in their beds till like 3:30 a.m. So that’s just a brutal backto-back. And like you go, “Oh, but they don’t have to do anything until the next night.” It’s less about that and more about just completely throwing off your sleep routine. Any of you guys who have ever dealt with that type of work before know that like sometimes you get back in bed at 3:30 and you can’t fall asleep for a little while or you go to bed, but then you wake up at 7 and then like you try to take a nap, but maybe you’re bad at napping and it just kind of throws off your equilibrium. And again, like especially off of a a nationally televised showdown between two top tier contenders like the game against Houston, that’s really tough. And then they’re down a couple of starters, too. Uh, we got some bad news about the Aaron Gordon injury. He took a very awkward step in the lane right at the very beginning of the Houston game where his leg kind of his foot like kind of slipped out from underneath him and he suffered a pretty significant hamstring strain. So, he’s going to be out for four to six weeks. So, in other words, Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon, we’re not going to see them again until sometime next year. So, this is going to be a real test for Denver’s depth. But, for you Nuggets fans, I would not get too worked up about the Kings loss if I were you guys. this. But I went back and watched the game on Friday because we just don’t get too many games like that each year where our legit top tier contenders face off against each other, not in like some weird environment like opening night where nobody even knows what Houston’s going to play like. This was our first kind of like real look at like established top tier contenders playing against each other. And so after re-watching most of it, I have some additional takeaways for you guys. Again, first of all, I was really impressed with Denver’s defense. They executed their game plan extremely well. It was very clear that they wanted to just keep the ball in front and force Houston to make jump shots. And Houston’s actually been a sneaky good jump shooting team this year. They were about a week ago, they were actually the best jump shooting team in the NBA by points per shot. And now they’re fifth. U but they don’t actually like to take jumpers. They like to get into the lane. They’re actually just 19th in jump shot volume. They only take about 46 of them per game. But they like to take a lot of shots on cuts and then a lot of stuff in like the mid-range and in the short range from their one-on-one guys from Shangun uh from KD and I’d even throw a man Thompson in there. They take a lot of shots that are like closer to the basket, right? The Nuggets did a great job all game of swarming those ISOs so they weren’t able to get into those comfortable shots in the mid-range that they like to take. aggressive coverages, so like at the level against KD to get the ball out of his hands and ball screens and then aggressive help on all of Shangon and KD’s one-on- ones, but also getting back to the rim. And there’s a downside to that, right? Like they gave up a lot of good looks at corner threes. The majority of offensive rebounds that Houston got actually came from their perimeter players, guys like Jabari Smith and Amen Thompson crashing the offensive glass. That’s going to happen when you’re helping off of the corners to keep the ball in front. But they forced Houston into a lot of jump shots. They forced them into their third highest jump shooting total of the season. Synergy logged them at 57 jump shot attempts in that game. They also scored just seven points on cuts in that game. That’s well below their season average where they typically get about 13 points per game on cuts. And Joic to me was the guy that screamed off of film when I was watching this. He was consistently all game long getting up to the level, getting back into the lane, getting up to the level, getting back into the lane, which is not an easy job. And especially when it’s not just about protecting the rim, but it’s also about securing defensive rebounds. And it’s just a casual reminder for this Denver team. Like Denver’s playing some really good defense this year. And it’s because it’s that combination of savvy vets that know what they’re doing, the Jamal Murray, Nicole Joic crowd where they’re just typically in the right spot and then also having the athleticism, having the guys like Payton Watson that can come in and make a huge block at the end of the game to clean up a mistake or something like that. We talked about Joic being excellent getting back up to the level and back into the lane and up to the level and into the lane. He had a big key strip on Kevin Durant late in the game where KD got to the mid-range and he got his hand up in the pocket and stripped him clean. Jamal Murray had a bunch of defensive plays down the stretch. He blocked a Kevin Durant jump shot along the right baseline where he just kind of went along his side and reached around from behind and ended up blocking his jump shot. He had that big steal on the Shangun short roll pass. So he like flashed up like he was going to guard Shangon in the short roll which tricked Shangon into passing. But then at the last second he stepped back, got into the passing lane and got a hand up and deflected that pass to Amen Thompson. He had a big contest on a late floater where he forced to miss. But again, you have like the high IQ dudes and then you have the athletes. You got to have someone that can make a big play. There was that key role late where Shangon tried to spin into the lane to go to the right-handed scoop shot at the basket. Pton Watson came flying in for that block off the glass. And these are some interesting stats. Denver has now played five games against teams that are in the top 10 in offensive rating according to Cleaning the Glass. And they’re holding their opponents to just 110.8 points per 100 possessions in those games. Those five games against top 10 offenses. They’re 5-0 in those games. And that 110.8 defensive rating in those matchups ranks second in the entire NBA according to Cleaning the Glass. And the team above them, OKC, has only played one top 10 offense in the entire season so far. So, just a really strong indicator, for this particular Denver team that they’re meeting what they need to meet in order to compete for a championship this year. They needed to be really good on defense to have any shot to beat OKC and they’re meeting those markers here early in the season. Really good engagement from their vets, the additional depth helping them uh play hard throughout games. a lot of really uh impressive stuff from Denver in that game. They’re meeting all the markers. Like we’re gonna talk about this like when we get to our our contender rankings. Uh just spoiler alert, I’m going to be moving Oklahoma City up above Denver, but it doesn’t have anything to do with anything Denver’s doing. Denver has looked every bit as impressive as I’ve expected them to look this season. All the things that I thought would happen, like I thought their vets would just be super locked in because they would know they have a great shot. Joic is playing the best basketball of his career. This is the best Jamal Murray has looked this early in the season. Obviously, Aaron Gordon’s dealing with an injury, but he’s looked great this year. The vets are all locked in. The depth pieces have all accentuated the team in all the different ways. The only real downside is like Cam Johnson got off to a little bit of a rough start, but I think he’s been way better over the last week and a half. Ended up hitting arguably the biggest shot of the night against Houston. that little three off the left wing off of the double team of Joic starting to get more aggressive and put up some real scoring volume as well. And he had a he had a key play late in the game too where he made like a really nice defensive rotation on a cut from Amen Thompson where he ended up leaving Jabari Smith open. But this is an ex this is exactly the game plan. He did not allow the Amend Thompson cut in front of the lane. He got in there and did a threequarter front on Shangun’s uh uh roll so that the pass to Amen Thompson was not open which forced the skip to Jabari Smith. They throw a close out. Jabari Smith misses it. That’s that like little bit of like additional defensive um upside that Cam Johnson have that I think that has that I think is a really nice addition to uh to this team. I know that Denver fans have been struggling a little bit as they’ve watched Michael Porter Jr. go and just put up big numbers for a bad team out in Brooklyn. But I mean, we all knew that was going to happen. Ultimately with Cam, he brings a speed and a little bit more defensive versatility element that I think is is an underrated addition to this team. And as long as the offense keeps coming along like it has been, they’re going to be fine. The reason why I’m moving OKC up above them has nothing to do with Denver. It has everything to do with Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City just had to experience a certain amount of internal improvement and they’ve just clearly demonstrated that uh to start the season. We will get more into that when we get into our contender rankings. And to be clear, Denver fans, I still view you guys as the by far the best upset threat. It’s just I used to feel like it was like 5347 that Denver would win a series against OKC and now it’s more like 4753 leaning back slightly towards OKC. Um, overall though, Houston, I want to kind of move to Houston for a minute here. I also left the rewatch feeling really bullish about the Rockets as a legit top tier contender. I thought their defense was pretty solid down the stretch. Denver just has two of the greatest like late game shot makers in the league. Like, there were a couple of mistakes. There was a bad gamble from Reed Shepard, which led to him getting switched on to Jokic, which led to a drive and kick sequence where Jamal Murray pump faked on KD and got into the lane and hit like a little mid-range jump shot. That’s a silly mistake from Reed Shepard that got their defense in rotation and gave up a clean look. There was also a breakdown in pick and roll. A little stack action that they ran where Shangon ended up staying glued to Joic on the roll which left nobody to protect the rim. So Jamal Murray got an easy little was actually pretty tough because of the rotation at the end, but a little left-handed layup off the glass. But other than those two breakdowns, everything else was pretty tough. Like Stephen Adams forced Joic into a pretty tough face up jumper out of the post. Jamal Murray, the couple jump shots he hit were broke rhythm jump shots where he was kind of awkwardly timed and like had awkward footwork. That one on the left lane line where he’s like stepping through and leaning forward. That’s a really tough shot and sometimes you just have to tip the cap. Like these are really good players. Like I know I’m higher on Jamal Murray than most, so that can get annoying sometimes, but I still think he’s massively underrated as just a do everything big game player. He had 26 points and 10 assists in that game on Friday night and hit some of the biggest shots of the game and made some of the biggest defensive plays of the game. Like I I just remain super super high on Jamal Murray. So you got to tip the cap to them. But overall, I thought Houston defended Denver’s vaunted late game offense pretty well. they forced them into some of the tougher shots in that profile. And then on the other end of the floor, they got good shots. Like they pretty consistently generated some quality looks against Denver’s defense. Again, Shangon had a couple of mistakes. He had that one turnover against Jamal Murray where it’s like at that point Jamal’s kind of stunting and recovering back to the cutter. So, he almost just has to take that little floater in the lane, which is a good look for him. And then on the one where he spun into the lane, kind of telegraphed it. It was just clear that after what happened on the Jamal Murray turnover, he really wanted to make sure that he looked to score the next time and then he just telegraphed it with this super long spin move which gave Pton Watson plenty of time to really load up and go get it. But outside of that, like there the reads were there and he made them several times. He had a a couple of really nice short roll skips to Jabari Smith Jr. for wide openen corner threes. He just missed them both. Jabari’s been a good shooter this year. They make one of those. It’s a very different game, right? like he had a really nice play where the the Rockets ran like kind of this like Iverson style screen like a little screen that got uh Shangon towards the left elbow extended and Joic chased over the top of the screen which gave Shangoon a baked in rip through to the left. He just ripped through to the left on the baseline, cleanly beat Joic off the dribble. There’s a step up easy drop off to a men Thompson right in the lane uh for an easy one right in front of the rim. like they got really good looks off of offensive rebounds. Like KD and Reed Shepard both had wide open threes in the final sequences of the game off of offensive rebounds. And so there’s a version of that game where they hit some of those shots and they complete one or two more of those sequences and we have a different results than a different result than what we had on Friday, right? And again, I think their stars could have played better. And like ultimately in a game like that, what I’m looking for is just if you can cause a team problems. And yes, Denver won. Yes, I think Denver is the better team. Yes, I have Denver higher on the top tier contender list. But Houston did cause some issues for them. And that is ultimately what makes them an interesting playoff opponent. And I I know we’d all be down for seven games of Rockets Nuggets.

Jason reacts to Friday’s showdown between the Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets and breaks down Nikola Jokic and Kevin Durant’s squads are both high level NBA title contenders even against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

All lines provided by @hardrockbet

Follow Jason Timpf on social:
Tweets by _JasonLT
https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/

Follow us on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/hoopstonight/
https://x.com/hoopstonite
https://www.facebook.com/hoopstonight/

@hoopstonightjasontimpf

Learn more about the Volume:
https://www.thevolume.com

#nba #nbaplayoffs #nbafinals #nbahighlights #nbabasketball #basketball #sports #reaction #nuggets #denvernuggets #rockets #houstonrockets #nikolajokic #kevindurant #alperensengun