Nuggets Playoff Run Comes to an End

The defending champion Denver Nuggets' season ended with a disappointing Game 7 blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder as Denver's lack of depth was exposed against the younger, more athletic Thunder team. Despite the difficult ending, the mid-season coaching change likely saved the Nuggets from falling into the play-in tournament, giving fans a respectable playoff run.

• Thunder dominated Game 7 with superior depth, energy, and athleticism
• Media narrative that Alex Caruso "shut down" Jokic is misleading as Thunder used a team defensive approach
• Players who gained respect: Alex Caruso for maximizing his role, Aaron Gordon for playing through injury, Christian Braun for fearlessness
• Players who lost respect: Lu Dort and SGA for excessive flopping despite their talent
• MPJ and Jamal Murray struggled significantly for the second consecutive playoff run
• David Adelman officially named head coach, bringing hope for improved accountability and rotation management

Looking forward to bringing you an offseason preview in the next episode where we'll dive into all the possible moves Denver might make to improve their depth and championship chances.

Chapters

• 0:00 Thunder Blowout Ends Nuggets Season
• 2:30 Caruso Narrative and Thunder's Defense
• 5:45 Players Who Gained Respect
• 10:50 Players Who Lost Respect
• 16:20 Nuggets Future Under David Adelman
• 21:30 Playoff Updates and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

all right, everyone welcome back to fandom from afar. Well, we knew this might happen. Unfortunately, the thunder were able to blow out the nuggets. It uh started out close but uh it, it definitely was a blowout. The thunder. Thunder were able to show their depth, really their talent, and we knew it was a possibility. I thought there was a chance the Nuggets could hang in there, but it kind of all came to a head and the Nuggets looked tired. I don't know. The Thunder just looked more athletic. I think they were quicker, they had more energy. It was just a team effort. I'm impressed by the Thunder. They are a great young team.

Speaker 1: 0:58

I think one of my big takeaways from game seven, and there's really not much to talk about it. It was a blowout, but the Nuggets just need more depth. The Thunder obviously have a roster full of talented players and that's not even counting. They have a lottery pick from last year. Who was hurt, who was supposed to be one of the top point guards in the draft last year. He's on their team, so they're going to get even deeper next year.

Speaker 1: 1:27

And yeah, it was a beat down. I can't put any other spin on it. Like I said, my last episode, I'm just proud of how far the Nuggets did get. It could have been much worse. I really feel like if we didn't get rid of Malone and Booth when we did, the season would have ended poorly. Uh, we probably would have ended up in the play-in and then possibly lost the play-in. So the fact that we as fans got those fun, um playoff moments, I think was well worth it. Even if it was a a sad ending, it was still a fun run and, uh, obviously a big offseason coming up. So, um, one big takeaway I have to mention we're a few days out now from the nuggets loss and and, uh, the thunder. I've even already started playing the Timberwolves.

Speaker 1: 2:21

But the narrative that Alex Caruso shut down or he can guard Jokic is crazy to me. Either people that are saying that just did not watch the game or just don't understand what was happening. But Caruso, he's for a normal human, he's big. I think he's like 6'6", but for NBA standards. The other teams have found out that when you play the Nuggets you can put someone on that's about that size 6'6", 6'7" noticeably smaller than Jokic. And the reason I make sure to point that out is the referees will let the smaller guys grab and hold and really do whatever they need to, just because Jokic is such a monster. He's a big boy, and so the referees have decided that the smaller guys can do whatever they need to, and then if Jokic tries to power through them at all, it is a offensive foul, and so Jokic is really in a no win situation. And other teams have taken full advantage of that, and Caruso was the latest, and he did a great job. Like not many guys are willing to put up that fight and to make the effort that is needed to do that.

Speaker 1: 3:50

But it wasn't just Caruso. Like they constantly had Jokic pretty much in a triangle, with one of the big guys right behind Jokic while Caruso was guarding him um, up front, and then also either one or possibly two guys on the side. So I love Caruso we're going to go into it more here in a little bit but the narrative that Caruso shut down Jokic in Game 7, it's just wrong. And so the Thunder did a great job and they executed a plan that can shut down Jokic because they didn't have to worry about anyone else, and that again goes into the Nuggets depth, but it was a team effort and they constantly had two, three, if not four guys right within arm's length of Jokic. And so the narrative that came out of game seven was a bit frustrating, but it didn't change the fact that the Thunder dominated and they played tremendous defense. It was more so that they were able to do so because of weaknesses on the Nuggets side, so I just had to straighten that up. The narrative was frustrating after the game, but in the series as a whole. It's just natural when you play someone seven games within a short amount of time like that, as a fan you can't help it. You get to know guys on the other teams a whole, really a whole lot better, and it either will increase your respect for them or decrease. And so I want to cover a few players in the Nuggets and Thunder series that I either gained respect for or maybe lost a little bit of respect for, and this will be quick. It does have players on both sides, but it was a battle and respect was given and taken.

Speaker 1: 5:54

So let's start out with Caruso. We were just talking about him. He's just a beast For his size, for his talent. He gets everything you can possibly ask for out of a player like him, and he's basically been a role player his entire career, which is great. Most people would kill to have his career. But what he does he just totally changes the game. He's kind of the veteran leader on the Thunder but he hits big shots when he's open. He plays tremendous defense, whether it's on a big guy or on a guard, and obviously the effort is always going to be there. I think because he's having to max out his effort at all times. That's kind of why he's only been a role player, because I've heard a couple people say that his body kind of breaks down if he tries to play starter minutes or more minutes than he does, and so he's kind of found the perfect role where he can be a star role player. And he was exactly that in this series. He came in multiple times and really changed either the momentum or just made big plays. And I have to say my my respect for Caruso. I already liked him as a player. I thought that was a great trade for the thunder in the off season, but just seeing what he can do for this particular team, it's kind of like when Aaron Gordon came to the nuggets. He found a perfect fit for his skill set and it just gets highlighted on the right team, and so Caruso definitely gained respect.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Speaking of Aaron Gordon, what can you say about Mr Nugget? He battled through what was originally a calf injury and then, in game seven, had a grade two hamstring strain which, if it was the regular season, he'd be out for at least a month. And he gave it a go in game seven and actually played pretty well. He was hobbling up and down the court. You could tell he couldn't run, he couldn't jump, but he was out there. He was not going to let his teammates get blown out without him, and so he gave it a go, and not only. I think it just shows toughness, it shows leadership, I think it just shows you Aaron Gordon wants to play basketball in these high leverage moments, and he was not scared. He didn't care if he was going to look bad in some situations, he was out there and I think he finished with like 11 rebounds. Like for how limited he was. It was quite impressive what he was able to accomplish, and so respect. I didn't think it was possible, but my respect for AG went even higher.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Switching back to the Thunder, cason Wallace is another one of their guards off the bench and I've seen a little bit of them when the Nuggets play the Thunder and just some highlights and everything. But watching him over the course of the series he's really impressive. And so he's great at defense. Uh, he was hitting some big shots and just kind of the overall team play like on defense. He's swarming around just like all their their guys do. But even on offense it seemed like he was always driving when, when the defense was allowing him to drive, he was passing the ball to the open guy. He just was a solid, solid player. And I think it's only his second year. So for their backup point guard, I think he's amazing. So again, thunder have tremendous depth. They have that other young point guard, topich, I think his name is, and next year they're going to have just more guys coming at you. And so Cason Wallace was very, very impressive.

Speaker 1: 9:49

And just to finish out, who else? I gained respect for Christian Brown. He far exceeded my expectations of what I thought going into the season and even coming into the playoffs after he had such a good regular season. I I'm just so impressed with Christian. He's not scared of the moment. He's obviously not the world's greatest shooter, but he seems like he hits big shots. Uh, rebounding, passing Like he. He does everything for it. He's basically our fifth starter, but he does all the things you need a role player to do and he's going to get paid this offseason. So he won't necessarily be an inexpensive young guy anymore, but he's earned that money and he fits really well with our starters. And I just I love Christian. I think he plays the right way. He cares about winning and losing. He will always give full effort and we cannot say that for everyone on our team. And so love Christian, respect gained.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Now let's get a little negative. We won't spend as much time on that, because obviously part of this is just being sad and bitter that the nuggets lost. But you can't help but notice things when it's a seven game series or, in the nuggets case, for 14 games in the playoffs this year. So let's start out with lou dort. Lou dort is a defender. He hit those three big three-pointers to give the Thunder the victory. I think it was in game. What was that game five?

Speaker 1: 11:29

But I have to say he is such a flopper. It drives me crazy too, because guys that flop don't normally have the skill to play defense. But he's a really good defender yet he has kind of figured out when to really accentuate contact and when to really just dive to the ground on screens, and it was often and he gets the call sometimes, and when he doesn't it looks kind of silly, but he, he, he does it at the right times and he gets the call sometimes. And when he doesn't it looks kind of silly, but he does it at the right times and he gets the call a lot. And so it was frustrating to watch him and especially because he is talented, that he's kind of built it into his game of just flopping to try and get some bogus calls and sadly it works. Speaking of flopping, shea Gilgis-Alexander, he has now been appointed the MVP and it's kind of funny.

Speaker 1: 12:28

With the first two games of the Western Conference Finals now over too, more and more people are seeing his little antics and there's all these kind of mash highlights, if you want to call them, of all his different flopping moves and maneuvers and everyone's talking about it now and so in a way it's like oh okay, the Nuggets fans weren't just complaining because it was happening to them. Everyone's kind of seeing it now and he's trying to defend himself, but again, he's so talented he doesn't need to do that he's just kind of gaming the system and refereeing is absolutely impossible, especially with how big and strong and fast these guys are. But he's found little ways to trick the referees into getting calls where he just dives into the defender knowing that he's going to bump and then back up and then shoot, and so he gets so many and ones because he is creating all the contact. He's flopping to the ground but he knows it's going to happen and so he's able to make the shot still. And so loss of respect in the fact that that one particular part of his game is so frustrating to watch. It's not fun to watch someone. You can just see that he's trying to do that with no intention of shooting or actually going to the basket. He's thinking in his head I'm going to bounce off this guy, scream and throw my head back and then shoot it. And that's what he does multiple times a game and he doesn't need to. He's so good because I will say his mid, his mid range shot. He's just absolutely so fast with the ball. He can get to anywhere where he wants to. He was even hitting just big time, three pointers. He is an amazing player, but, man, that flopping drives me crazy. So little, little, tiny bit of a respect loss for SGA.

Speaker 1: 14:22

This next one was tough, uh, mpj Michael Porter Jr. He in one way gained respect because he's out there trying to battle with his shoulder injury. A lot of guys would just shut it down. They don't want to be put in a situation where they could potentially look bad or even just a lesser version of themselves. But he was out there fighting and I do appreciate that. But man, he was bad. If you're going to go out there and play, we kind of have to judge you on what you do out there, and pretty much for six out of the seven games of the series he was really, really bad. He was just so bad at some points that you don't even notice that he's out there.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Sometimes MPJ will have instances where he's making loud mistakes, and that's kind of how he got hurt is one of his loud mistakes in the Clippers series. But in this case he just either wasn't doing anything and playing poor defense or he was trying to force it on offense so he would shoot it, but his shots were just nowhere near going in and so it was just negative all the time. And so it's just so hard to balance, because you appreciate him trying to fight and be out there because we literally had no one else that could play, but at the same time, he was just so bad and we'll talk about it with Jamal coming up as well but this is two years in a row where their skill set just does not show up in the playoffs and playing a team that has guys that are much more athletic. Just shut them down and we'll focus on MPpj right now. But jamal the same thing. It just seems like they are bothered so much by guys that can actually guard them that they just can't give us what we need and for them, being the second and third highest players on the team, it just it's not going to end well. So let's go into jamal now too. It's it's a very similar situation.

Speaker 1: 16:33

For so long, jamal had the playoff jamal uh, moniker and you just always were like, well, yes, jamal is extremely frustrating during the regular season, but he turns it on in the playoffs. And now it's been two years in a row where he just hasn't done that. Um, last year he had an injury. Um, this year he just was okay, like he played well, maybe like as an above average guard, but we're paying him to be a superstar and he just gets swallowed up by guys that can actually play defense and so, while he'll have his moments, a lot of it is just because he's a good tough shot maker but he's not athletic enough to get to the basket or get an open shot, or he's not a good enough shooter just to hit these open three-pointers and it just gets extremely frustrating.

Speaker 1: 17:30

And I know after the clippers series I was saying that our, our core, our starters, have shown that they're good enough and and they are, but they've also shown last two years that they can get shut down and and a lot of it, uh, is on jamal, because we are paying him to be a superstar and if you look at the other guys in the league that make the amount of money that he makes, you would take almost all of them over Jamal, and so I hope Jamal takes his offseason seriously. We'll do an offseason preview, maybe next episode, but this next season is going to be so interesting for Jamal because of the fact that, uh, a lot of this team success rides on him and and, uh, he, he, he just is what he is right now and that's just not good enough. So hopefully, hopefully, a big off season for Jamal, and he can he can, uh, improve. So, like I said, it's a huge off season coming up for the Nuggets. There's so many possibilities of what they could do, and so I'll probably do a whole episode on that coming up next.

Speaker 1: 18:37

As far as what I hope they do, what I think they can do, all that good stuff, because really you could see big changes coming. You could see them just running it back. Really you could see big changes coming. You could see them just running it back. But whatever they do, they got to find depth. It was just so blatantly obvious this playoff run that they need more guys, and so it'll be interesting and we'll definitely talk about that more next time.

Speaker 1: 19:04

But one thing that's already happened that I think is a great move for the off season is they officially hired David Adelman to be the head coach, and I've talked about this in the past couple episodes that I think Adelman did a great job for being put in a tough situation. I think he was amazing and it sounds like the players, um, and Josh Kroenke, the owner, they saw that too and obviously they know much more than I do, but they said nothing but great things about Adelman and I can't wait to see what he does with a full season and, like I said, hopefully he'll have some depth to work with. I'm interested to see who he keeps on his staff and who he brings in as a as a new coach. I'm interested to see how he treats the regular season and how he rotates players and gives them nights off and all that good stuff. And maybe the biggest thing is I'm interested to see how he holds players accountable.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Um, it sounds like just more and more stories come out about Malone and how bad things were, but it really sounds like one of the big frustrations amongst the roster was how Malone kind of let Jamal Murray get away with things, and obviously half of this podcast has been complaining about Jamal Murray, so I won't go into that in any more depth but it sounds like Jamal was not held accountable for maybe some of the off season workouts or even in season practices and stuff like that, and I'm sure that frustrated some players, whereas Malone was especially hard on the guys that were not necessarily his guys, and so I hope Adelman holds people accountable, especially Jamal Murray. I hope he gives second chances to some of the young guys who maybe Malone had given up on, and whoever the new players that we get on the team. I hope that David Adelman has a plan and and a a little bit, uh, longer rotation to not wear out the starters as much during the regular season. So it'll be fascinating and, um, I'm excited to see what happens. Obviously ever the eternal optimist, I think that the nuggets still have the talent to win a championship and we'll. We'll see what happens, but, um, we'll talk all about that next time.

Speaker 1: 21:32

I hope you're watching the playoffs still, even though the nuggets are out. It's been really fun. The Pacers come back against the other night or against the Knicks the other night was absolutely incredible. Uh, if you've seen some of the stats, I think something like that has never happened before, and I was an old man who went to bed because the Knicks were winning by 15 and I thought the game was over, so I missed it. But that happens. So the playoffs have been fun. The Thunder looked like a juggernaut. They already up on the Timberwolves 2-0. And it kind of makes me feel better about what the Nuggets were able to accomplish against them and it also makes me feel worse about what the Nuggets were able to accomplish against them, and it also makes me feel worse, because if we would have beat them then maybe we would be up 2-0 now. But it is what it is. All right, y'all, I am going to stop here and start working on that offseason preview and we will have that out soon. Thanks for listening everyone.