The Magic of Jokić's Half-Court Heroics: That's why I stay up late!

Have you ever witnessed a moment so electrifying that it sends shivers down your spine? That's precisely what unfolded when Nikola Jokić launched that half-court prayer to seal a breathtaking Denver Nuggets victory against the Golden State Warriors. Clutch your seats as I recount the emotional rollercoaster, from Jokić's jaw-dropping first quarter to the Warriors' third-quarter rally and Denver's final victorious surge. I'll spotlight the heroic efforts of Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray, whose performances could very well be the harbingers of a deep playoff run reminiscent of last season's magic. You'll get an insider's look at what this triumph means for the Nuggets' narrative, perhaps marking a defining turnaround that echoes the glory of their previous campaigns.

Now, let's shift our gaze to the horizon where the Orlando Magic and Oklahoma City Thunder loom, teams teetering on the brink of their own remarkable tales of ascent. With the heart of a storyteller, I share insights on the promising paths of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, as well as the strategic crossroads at which the Thunder find themselves with their cache of draft picks and youthful dynamism. No crystal ball is required to see the potential ahead for these squads, but I'll lay out the strategies and pitfalls that may shape their futures. As the Nuggets brace for their next encounter with the Magic, I'll dissect the subtle influences of scheduling and rest that might tip the scales, framing a narrative of what's to come in a league where every game is a chapter in a larger, captivating story.

Chapters

• 0:03 Excitement Over Nuggets' Game-Winning Shot
• 8:36 Next Steps for Orlando and Oklahoma

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

All right, everyone, welcome back to Fandom from afar. I have to say I wasn't planning on recording today, but I am fresh off of an amazing Nuggets win against the Warriors last night and I'm still excited Like it was just so much fun to stay up and watch it. And games like that are just the reason why I stay up and sacrifice a little bit of sleep, because those are the moments that just make it so much fun to be a sports fan. Everyone in my house was asleep, obviously, when Yoko chit that half court game winning shot, but I silently celebrated and was just so pumped up and then obviously couldn't fall asleep for a long, long time after that. But it was worth it and that is why I stay up late. It's just so fun to have those moments, and just who would have thought like a random game in the beginning of January could provide so much joy? So it was great. What a weird game.

Speaker 1: 1:11

The first quarter, yoko chit looked awesome. The Warriors were trying to single cover him and they don't have any big guys, so even when they do have Dremond, yoko chit can score pretty much whenever he wants, and so I think he had like 15 points in the first quarter and so I was relaxed. I was like, okay, cool, we're going to cruise to a victory tonight. But the second quarter Yoko chit kind of deferred to Murray who was pretty much on fire. It was a Murray flurry, if you will, and Yoko chit, I think, only shot one or two times and Golden State made some adjustments at halftime. The nuggets were winning probably who would have to go back and check, but I think it was around seven to 10 points at halftime. And then Golden State just could not miss in the third quarter. And it's impressive when they get rolling Steph and Clay they had Pajensky, their rookie, going and once they get going that crowd pumps them up and they're a great team when playing ahead like that. They just that momentum carries them. So it was impressive. They outscored the nuggets by 20 points that quarter and it was domination on their part. So nuggets were down by 18 with, I think, about eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter. And I was so close to going to bed I was telling my wife if the Warriors would have made one more shot or the nuggets would have missed one more shot during that comeback.

Speaker 1: 2:42

I might have folded up for the night and headed headed to bed, but it did not work out that way and I'm so glad it did, cause everyone played well. Gordon was an absolute beast, murray Yolkich, peyton Watson was amazing, so it was an all around team effort. And then, of course, yolkich ties it and then Murray steals the ball with three seconds left and we call a timeout, doing inbound play, where Yolkich gets the ball, dribbles up just past half court and banks in the three. It was so great so I, like I said, wasn't playing on recording, but I'm still flying high off of that game and just wanted to. I don't know. It made me think I was like man. How sad would I have been if I would have went to bed and woke up and read that. On one hand, it would have been a really nice surprise Like that's. That's a great way to wake up and see your team made a miraculous comeback and had a game winning half court shot, but at the same time, it's just so much fun to experience that in the moment. So if you're listening to this, hopefully your teams have some moments like that that you can appreciate that, like this is just one game and it's not anything compared to some of the moments they had in the playoffs, but it is so fun to enjoy these moments in the regular season as well. So just kind of looking back since we last recorded, nuggets have still been looking good. They had some, had some great games, had some little couple downs. As far as they lost the game to Oklahoma City, they've actually lost the last two games to Oklahoma City, but 11 of 13, they've won and it's just funny because the national perception kind of seems to be that they're having a down year. But really I think they're just kind of cruising right along. They're ahead of pace of where they were last year. I think they are just fine. They are exactly where they want to be, and so it's been fun to see kind of some of the small stories pop up.

Speaker 1: 4:52

As far as Peyton Watson's development, he's really looking good lately. Jamal Murray's starting to kind of look like Jamal again, and then just even little things like Yokic. He is breaking records, of course, because that's what he does, but in his last four games he's only missed five total shots, and that's hard to do. It's hard to make a shot in the NBA, but let alone to make oh, I forget the exact number. I think it's like 88 out of 94 shots or something like that is just ridiculous. So it's kind of fun to think about some of the sections I've had on this very podcast where Yokic was missing some of the shots that he normally makes, and was it something to be worried about? Well, he is obviously showing us that it is not something to be worried about at all. He looks amazing.

Speaker 1: 5:52

Ryan Blackburn, who covers the Nuggets, brought up a great point on his podcast today. Last year there was a game in Portland where Jamal Murray had been coming back from his injury. The Nuggets have been kind of slogging along and they just didn't look like who we thought they were gonna be, until a game in Portland last year when Jamal Murray hit a game-winning shot and it kind of propelled the Nuggets for the rest of the season. They just they looked focused and obviously they went on to win the championship. And so Ryan Blackburn brought up that this game in Golden State last night could be our Portland game this year. Like I said, the Nuggets have been kind of cruising along, but this could be the game that kind of focuses them and says, all right, we need to start gearing up for the playoffs and we'll start really focusing in Cause. I'm telling you, guys like Aaron Gordon, jamal Murray, there's something different about them, not only last night, but the last couple of games, and so, with the Golden State game being so memorable, I'm hoping that we look back on it as our Portland moment for the 23-24 season.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Now our segment for our favorite yokism of the week, and I have to give it to the perfect triple double that he had against Memphis. Like I said, it's so hard to hit a shot, let alone the majority of your shots, and then nobody hits all of the shots. Well, yokic did that, and then not only did he do that, but he also had a triple double, which is extremely hard to do, and so he just decided to have a perfect triple double, and the stat is a theme with Yokic is you'll see that he's the first person to do it since Wilt Chamberlain, who put up ridiculous stats back in his day, and so I think he and Wilt are the first players to have I believe it's three perfect triple doubles in their career. So that is our yokism of the week. What am I looking forward to? I'm actually looking forward to I just reached out to Mason, who's been on the podcast a few times and he is going to come in and we're going to do kind of a NBA review. We're almost at the halfway point, which is crazy already, but we're going to kind of talk about some of the things that we've seen in the first half, what we're expecting for the second half, and just kind of have fun with that. I always like when Mason comes in and then everybody's favorite section.

Speaker 1: 8:36

Oh, there's other teams where I will force myself to talk about other teams besides the nuggets, but I'm kind of cheating this week. The teams I want to talk about today are Orlando and Oklahoma City, and the reason I want to talk about them is because I see a lot of the nuggets in them, and by that I mean they're already good young teams, but in different ways, and I think they have two very different ways of taking the next step. And so I think it's going to be very interesting to see how these teams approach the next, not only the rest of this season, but the next two seasons or even five years, because the nuggets they built from within and they had a long-term plan and they stuck to it and it obviously worked. Now Getting lucky with Yokic Is obviously the biggest factor, and if that didn't happen then you can have the greatest plan all you want, but if you don't have the greatest players in the world then it's not gonna work out quite as well. So Orlando has so many guys that I like on their team and I would say it's pretty obvious.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Their top two guys are Palo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and It'll be interesting to see if one of those guys steps up and becomes like the guy when he is undoubtedly the best player on the team, the leader of the team. The other guys know, alright, if we need a big shot or we need a Clutch play, then then that guy will take care of us. And then it'll be interesting to see if the other guy, whoever does not step up as the lead guy, accepts his role as a number two, kind of, I think, just like Jamal Murray has, where Jamal Murray in his own right is a superstar and an amazing player, but he has always kind of accepted the fact that Yoko just one of the all-time greats and he is Yoko just teammate, and so that means he is not the guy. And so it'll be interesting to see do Wagner or Banchero Do they accept that role, or Are they both number twos and maybe there's a secret top dog, number one guy that is not in their team yet and and that's part of the plan. So they have a lot of pieces, which I think gives them flexibility to make trades. The only downside with that is, when you have so many good young players, it's hard to get everybody playing time. So I Think Orlando's getting very close to the point where they need to kind of pick out their guys and Hopefully have a pecking order and then move forward with that plan. Now I just saw a Article yesterday saying that Orlando is gonna have over 40 million in cap space this offseason. So it's gonna be really interesting to see what they do with that and if they go for a Number one guy or if they just feel like they can use that space to fill in the pieces around Wagner and Banchero, and it's gonna be really interesting just to see how they build their team. So I I view them as very similar to the nuggets from a few years ago and I'm just very interested to see their theory on how to take the next step.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Now. Okc is the other team I mentioned that okC is actually the only team to beat the nuggets in the last 13 games and they've beat us twice, and I think they're in a little bit different position than Orlando in the fact that they have a number one in Shay Gilgis Alexander, and he's already amazing and really their team, I think, is a level above Orlando already as well. And then they have, I guess, just the Awesome luck of having chat home grin and Jalen Williams, who could very easily be the number two. Both even still might have the potential to be Good enough to be a number one. It's just that Shay is so good that he is that number one for now, and so I think they have even better options than Orlando, and there there may be a level ahead.

Speaker 1: 13:03

But Oklahoma City of course, has the flexibility of having every single draft pick that the NBA has ever given out over the next couple years, and so they have the flexibility to make trades. But their team is so good already. It's gonna be such an interesting decision. Do they hold and just let the team they have Continue to develop and get experience, or do they go for it and try and add To what they have now without breaking up what makes the team so special? So Two very different situations, but great situations, like there's 20 teams that would kill to be in Orlando or Oklahoma City's Position right now. So it'll be very interesting to see what they do, not only for the rest of season Trade deadlines about a month away, but this offseason and the seasons moving forward. It's gonna be. I'm gonna be keeping a close eye on that.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Speaking of Orlando, the nuggets of course have another back-to-back game tonight, because that's what the NBA loves to give for the nugget and it'll be interesting. Nuggets flying back home to play the magic. Magic had the night off, so it'll be interesting to see if they arrested or if they are tired as well, because they are at the end of a road trip Little West Coast road trip for the magic too. So we will talk about that game next week, but I appreciate y'all listening. As you can tell, I was very excited with how that game turned out last night and I'm looking forward to hopefully many more moments like that this season. Thanks,