Fandom from Afar
Join me as I discuss my journey as a Colorado sports fan living in Florida and my interviews with sports fans that are forced to enjoy their favorite teams from a distance.
Fandom from Afar
Denver Nuggets Week 1 Review
Pull up a chair and settle in, folks. We're taking you on a thrilling journey through the Denver Nuggets' week, detailing the electrifying games and unforgettable moments. You'll get the lowdown on the championship ring night and banner unveiling against the Lakers and the gritty, intense Grizzlies game. We'll also give you a peek into the Nuggets' encounter with the Thunder's promising young talent—unmissable insights for every basketball fan.
What was my favorite "Jokism" this week and how confident am I that the Nuggets are going to repeat?
But we're not stopping there. Curious about the NBA's tournament-style group play format and the tantalizing monetary prize? We've got you covered. We're also diving into the aftermath of the James Harden trade and its ripple effects on the Clippers and its potential impact on the 76ers' future. So, buckle up for an exciting analysis of this week in NBA, packed with insights, opinions, and a whole lot of fun.
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Hey everyone. This is Brian doing something a little bit different this week. Doing a solo pod is going to be kind of like a Nuggets Week in Review. If you've listened to any of our past episodes you know the Nuggets are my favorite. I like to talk about the Nuggets quite a bit, so I thought I'd do a shorter pod but kind of review what's happened this past week. I figure this will be beneficial for a couple different reasons. If you're like my family and friends in Denver, then obviously it's a little difficult to actually watch the games nowadays, and also if you're like me and you just can't get enough of the Nuggets, then hopefully this will be another good way to just see what I think is interesting about the team going on right now. So with that, let's get started To review the games that happened.
Speaker 1:We had four of them. First one was opening night ring night. It was the Lakers in town and we had been waiting 47 years for this night. Nuggets got their rings, raised the championship banner and it seemed like the crowd was super hyped for everything going on. And it lived up to the hype. The rings were pretty cool they're they're giant, of course, and they look good. And then they had kind of like a ring inside of a ring with a little mini banner. I thought they were pretty cool. Just championship rings in general are just ridiculous, but you could tell when the players saw them. They were pretty blown away too. So I thought that was a great start. And then when the banner was being raised, it was just I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. It was something that I never thought would happen. Yet here are the players with their beautiful championship rings on, kind of touching the banner before it goes up. I thought that was kind of a cool touch. They just they all wanted to touch it, just to say they did, before it hangs in the rafters forever. So it was such a fun night. I felt so great for, obviously, yokic being being our leader, but Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr just for what they've had to battle through with the injuries. Jamal came out when he was introduced and did his blue arrow celebration for the first time in a while, so that that was probably my favorite moment. And then guys like Aaron Gordon, kcp just I love this team and it was just so fun to watch the watch the game and I definitely got a little emotional at times and it was just a great night. I enjoyed it all around. So what a way to kick off the season and then hopefully we'll be doing it again next year.
Speaker 1:So once the game actually started, it it was. It felt like a playoff game. The Lakers were really. They were playing hard. They were wanting to prove that last year's sweep maybe was closer than a sweep indicates, and so they were playing hard. They were playing pretty well.
Speaker 1:It's pretty well known now AD with his media day interview saying that he and LeBron had had some conversations and they were going to show them what's up on opening night and stuff like that. And yeah, that didn't. That didn't work, but it was. It was great because the nuggets came out intense as well, and so it really felt like a playoff game in game one and the nuggets handled their business. They, they did really well. And something exciting for me happened is I actually tied Anthony Davis for the same number of points in the second half of that game. So I'm pretty proud of myself. I don't know if AD is as proud of that accomplishment as I am, but it was pretty cool to watch, and so nuggets ended up winning 1 19, 107 and truthfully I don't even know if the game was. Was that close? The nuggets, they, they, they were not going to lose that night. So one and oh.
Speaker 1:Next game was the Grizzlies on the road, and this was interesting because obviously there's maybe a rivalry between the Lakers and the nuggets and it was ring night and so the the nuggets came out and wanted to kind of show everybody who the champions were, and so there was a little less hype, obviously, for game two in Memphis when they're when they're missing some of their players. As ugly as the game was and as super physical as the game was, the nuggets were still able to win and it's just encouraging to see they don't have to play the beautiful brand of basketball that they're kind of known for. The Grizzlies were really trying to maybe frustrate the nuggets and just be a little extra physical with them, figuring the refs weren't going to call a foul on every single play and it worked. Like it was a low scoring game, it was close, but the nuggets Really showed a toughness. I think more mentally maybe so than physically, because it was obvious on the court. The nuggets are just a huge team, starting with Yokic, but also just every other position were pretty big, and so when teams do try and get physical, we can give it right back. So that was encouraging.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things from that game was Zeke Najee had the best Zero rebound game in NBA history, and what I mean by that is he was all over the place and the Grizzlies couldn't box him out like he was. He was a monster, and so they probably fouled him oh I don't know four or five times when Zeke was trying to get a rebound, and obviously he doesn't get credit for the rebound Because he was fouled, but it was just so impressive to see his his nickname is tenacious Zeke and he was definitely showing it that night, and so I just I think it's hilarious. He got zero rebounds, but if you, if you watch the game he was, he was the main rebounder for for the bench unit, so it was pretty great. The third game, it was the thunder. Now we talked about the thunder and the NBA preview.
Speaker 1:I did with Mason, and they are a great young, up-and-coming team. They have a lot of talent. Shay Gildes, alexander is a superstar. Oh, my goodness, the nuggets Dominated. This game was on the road. It was an early start. It's a young team the nuggets are supposed to be. It's like all the traps of the game where maybe the nuggets in in past years would have maybe taken it easy or not played their best. But this was one of the most Complete beat downs I've seen in a long time. Just every Everything you can imagine the nuggets dominated in. They. They played so well offensively starters and bench. They were playing great defensively and it was just so fun to watch like, if they can play that way at all times, man we're, we're not losing, but it was really fun just because it was a quality opponent on the road. We're two and oh, on the road now and that was one of our big Concerns last year is kind of how we played on the road, but it just looks like the nuggets are focused.
Speaker 1:This year. They held Shay Gildes Alexander to one of his career low games and part of that is because of the bench. They're looking legit and I just love the way they're structured with Christian Brown and Peyton Watson. They're just super athletes that just fly all over the place and they're long and so it just seems like the benches that we're playing so far have really struggled to do anything with them. Zeke's a big part of that. I mentioned him during the Memphis game and Reggie Jackson's playing really well, kind of running the show for them. So Peyton Watson ended up having a career high 17 points. But I'm just so impressed with how the bench is playing Together. It was such a huge weakness for us last year and it's getting really exciting with kind of how well they're playing so far. And they're young guys everybody except for Reggie and Jamal they're. They're still got tons of potential that maybe they haven't reached in with this playing time and kind of playing together when they all fit, then who knows they could, they could keep improving throughout the year, which would be scary for the rest of the NBA.
Speaker 1:So three and oh, heading into another home game with the jazz and it was the second night of a back-to-back. So those are always rough With traveling between. And they didn't shoot well. You could kind of tell that it was a back-to-back. Everything they were shooting was kind of hitting the front of the rim. Just they weren't getting the jump that they normally do on their shots. So it was. It was a little rough to watch they just they weren't playing well in Everything that they had done well in Oklahoma. They were kind of struggling a little bit in Denver against Utah, but Utah was playing hard. It was a close game. But again, it just kind of goes to show you the nuggets are just a professional basketball team that just does just enough, even on off nights, to to pull it out. And it was close. But it's really sticking out that the nuggets can win in so many different ways. They're not going to have to outscore you. They can play a grind, grind it out defensive night. They can play super physical. They can run up and down the court with you like any way you want to play, we can play and we will probably play it better. So it's just so exciting for an O to start the season. Obviously you can't get any better than that, but just the way they're doing it too, it's, it's. It's getting pretty exciting and we'll we'll get more into that in a section here later on.
Speaker 1:I didn't mention Yokic too much in the review. I think most fans will agree that Yokic is, is our, is our engine. Everything kind of revolves around him. So I don't want to make it all about Yokic, but I do want to have at least one section where we just talk about how amazing Yokic is. I got to do it. So the way this section will work is I will give a couple nominations of Amazing, awesome things that Yokic did this week, but I will declare one the winner. That will be our favorite Yokicism of the week.
Speaker 1:Nomination number one he dominated Anthony Davis, jaren Jackson Jr, chet Holmgren and Walker Kessler. Those are probably four of the better defensive centers in the league and he started out with them all in a row first four games and he was not bothered at all. He he did so well in every game and it just looks like he's kind of on a mission this year. So that is nomination number one. Nomination number two he tied Jason Kidd and LeBron James with 107 triple doubles. Now this is all time. So he's tied two of the greats and he did it in far less games. He's still got a long way to go. He's gonna keep working his way up the list, but it's just really fun to see his names along some of the the greats that have ever played.
Speaker 1:Now those nominations are good, but our winner for our favorite Yokeism of the week the three-quarter alley-oop pass from out of bounds to Aaron Gordon in Memphis. Now if you haven't seen this play. Please look it up it's. It's ridiculous. It almost looks edited as if it was One of those commercials they used to do where the guys were making all sorts of crazy trick shots and stuff, because the ball kind of Leaves the frame of the camera and then Gordon dunks it just because the cameraman wasn't expecting it. Because why would you? No one ever Would even think to do that. But but Yoke itch does. That pass was one of the best passes I've ever seen. So it's our, it's our winner for our first favorite Yokeism of the week.
Speaker 1:Second category is going to be our repeat confidence, meaning. How confident am I in the nuggets this week that we are going to repeat and go back to back as champions? Well, when you go 4 and 0 and pretty much when In every way possible and look good doing it, I'm gonna say the confidence it's out of 10. To borrow a line from DNVR, the vibes are immaculate. Right now we are feeling good. We are starting to really think about can we become one of the All-time great teams? It looks like if the nuggets want to focus and play the way they are each week, I don't know who's going to beat us. We're deep, talented and looks like we're motivated. So, yeah, repeat, confidence is at a 10 right now. I don't. I don't know what they could have done to impress me more this week, next section, what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 1:So right now we're in the middle of five games and seven nights, so it's a kind of an early test for the guys that could wear them out. I think one thing that's been a little noticeable is not all the guys are in peak condition right now. You can see they get a little, a little tired early on, but it'll be good for them. They they've already played a few of the games. Now they they play again I'm recording this on Wednesday. So they'll play Minnesota tonight and then they have a back to back on Friday and Saturday. So a lot of games in a short period of time. It's going to be a good test. They're going up against good teams and so far so good. But Minnesota was our toughest opponent in the playoffs last year. And then Luca and the Mavs are playing pretty well. Well, luca, specifically he he's carrying the Mavs, but it's going to be a great, great week. Hopefully they can kind of finish us out, and this is really, I think, the only time this season that we have five games and seven nights. So we passed this first test and it's a little bit easier from here on out.
Speaker 1:Next thing we're looking forward to is more Julian Strother minutes. So if, if y'all don't know, julian Strother was our first round pick this year, he did played really, really well in the preseason. He's a great shooter. He's kind of surprising people with his defense and how well he's fitting into the team. But Coach Malone has gotten Strother in for maybe about five or six minutes last couple of games and he's looking good and I think it's really going to build momentum for him to kind of get his confidence going. And if, if he can play as well as he did in the preseason and we have like another score to bring off the bench and he doesn't really bring us down defensively, then it just gives us so much more flexibility. If there's an injury or if a guy needs a night off, then we can plug him in and the bench won't miss a beat. And obviously it's just great to have more talent and more young guys to to play out there. So I'm looking forward to seeing what Julian can do this week and hopefully he'll get more playing time. And the last thing I'm looking forward to this week is we have our first game of the midseason tournament.
Speaker 1:This is something new the NBA is trying out is to make some of these regular season games a little bit more interesting. So every or the whole NBA was divided up into groups and you will play, and you will play each team in your group one time, and then the teams with the best group records will advance to kind of like the tournament side of this bracket, and there's also two wildcards that advance as well. But it'll be fun, just see, see what happens. It can't hurt. Like the winner gets some extra money, so I think that'll mean a lot to the young guys who aren't making as much. But I think the winner of the tournament gets $500,000 per player. So that's that's that's worth trying for. But our first game is against Luca and Dallas on Friday. They're pulling out like a special court for it and NBA is trying to hype it up. So I'm all for it. I think it'll be fun, like, why not? The games are going to be played anyway. Why not have something to keep track of or a little bit extra significance to it? And if, if the teams don't want to do it, then then whatever, but nuggets are going to get that win.
Speaker 1:Now I want this podcast to kind of be inclusive and help other fans be better fans. So I want to do a recommendation each week in this section, and it could be a cool article that I read, or a podcast, or someone to follow on social media. It could be anything. I just I want to recommend something that I think, if you're listening to this podcast, that you'll probably enjoy as well. So my recommendation this week is a new basketball podcast called six trophies. It's hosted by two of my favorite basketball personalities, shay Serrano and Jason Concepcion, and it's it's more on the silly side, like if you're looking for hardcore analytic stats and everything, then it's probably not for you, but these guys know basketball and I think they're hilarious. If you're looking for another podcast to listen to, then I would recommend six trophies. And last, my last section is I wanted to admit that if, if you talk to me or listen to podcast, I talked about the nuggets quite a bit. Like I said, I love them, but I do have to admit that there are other teams in the NBA. So this section is called oh, there's other teams, where I'll talk about other teams.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to talk about the James Harden trade. It just happened and obviously it could be big or it could be a whole lot of nothing, but the Clippers acquired Harden from the 76ers after Harden cried his way out of town. I guess I'm Luke Warm on the trade for both sides. Harden, obviously, is getting up there in age. He's not quite as good as he used to be. He's still very talented, but I don't know how much of a team player he is. And so when you're adding him on to a Clipper team that already has a bunch of superstars, then I don't know how that's gonna fit. And then those superstars are often hurt, and so their plan of having all these guys we might not even get to see it Just the chances are of all those guys who are a little bit up there in age being healthy for the playoffs is very slim. So I don't see it.
Speaker 1:I think it's. I guess it's worth a shot. They didn't really give up anything, so we'll get to that on the 76er side, but it, I don't know. It's kind of a we'll see for me because I just don't see how it's gonna fit. On the court there's only one ball. It's almost like the Suns, except now the Clippers have four guys that want the ball all the time. So I don't know. It almost reminds me maybe more of like the Rockets back in the nineties when they had Elijah on Drexler, pippin, barkley, like all those guys together. But we'll see, maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:But for the 76ers they were trying so hard to get a superstar for Harden but the league collectively kind of went nah, we're good, you go ahead and keep him. Except for the Clippers, they threw a few picks and some players at them, but nothing that I think really improves the team. I am here in some other podcasts say that they think the picks are valuable and that they might be able to trade for a superstar with these picks. So I guess it's a to be determined on their side of it. But I don't know, like I mentioned in the NBA preview, with Mason, our superstars going to want to go to Philadelphia and be in bead sidekick, cause I think right now that's their whole plan is to have a bunch of cap space to either trade for a superstar or someone will come next year and if it ends up that they're waiting till next year, it's going to be devastating to them if they can't get a free agent to sign there, that's almost going to guarantee that in bead asks out. So it's going to be really interesting.
Speaker 1:I think it was addition by subtraction, for the 76ers Might as well, get rid of a guy that doesn't want to be there, and hopefully they can kind of just play without him. So yeah, that's the section of. Oh, there's other teams. All right, y'all. That's all I got for you today. Hopefully you enjoyed this little shorter episode just talking about the nuggets, and we will be back next week with another round of the nuggets review. I promise it won't end here.
