When Denver wins this championship it will be 5 straight years of different champions in the nba. With only GSW and the Heat making more than 1 finals appearance. It seems this is what the owners and league brain trust wants because the new CBA starting next season will make it very hard for a team to pay two stars and also give good money to role players.

donlittle25:
Watch PAT RILEY go after a big name soon

Dame is interested

A40:
1 more for Denver.

The Heat will put up a brave face but I feel at this point they know

The final nail for me happened when they could only chip off 1 point when Jokic sat because of his 5 fouls

Game 3 was the 1-2 carrying the team. This game has been a tale of the others for Denver. Role players coming up big with timely shots and stops

A40:
KCP and Brown. Issa wrap

Assin, 3 possession 3 buckets down the stretch

Roland17:


I swear I can’t with him… This is coming from a guy that has M. Smart in his team..

He is annoying as an opponent, but if he is on your team, he just knows how to get some pretty easy points now and again

SmooshCHN:

Someone sounds pained. A40, I don't really blame these young boys with money. I just thought at this point it was common knowledge to avoid these girls and they'd have agents whose job is to save them from themselves.

All these things are not new, social media and the internet as a whole just makes these information more accessible.

Roland17:


MPJ has been disappointing in this series. He has managed to stay healthy which is shocking but this series has been a struggle for him. He is missing defensive assignments and not imposing his will offensively. With his size and length, he can help the Nuggets with guarding Butler so Gordon can catch a break. Yesterday, Malone made the call to stay small by taking MPJ out and keeping Braun on the court because the latter was more impactful.

His defense in game 3 was actually good, his issue in that game and why Braun got more minutes was his unwillingness to be a cutter/slasher on some of those Murray and Jokic 2-man game. As soon as the heat started trapping Murray without leaving Jokic, he countered by looking for cutters, Braun was willing to do it but MPJ not so much.
Lastly Braun showed a willingness to attack the basket off the dribble on fast breaks and off pump fakes when he had the opportunity.

Roland17:


The Heat culture is the system and hierarchy is a big reason Spoelstra has succeeded and no, culture is quite difficult to replicate because it is not driven by one person. If it was that easy then every team will be successful because they will buy the culture. The Heat have the most stable leadership in Riley and Zo. They are responsible for the recruiting and establishing expectations. Spoelstra is a great coach, the best right now but make no mistake about it, the system is why the Heat have thrived.

Shaq was overweight when the Lakers trades him to the Heat and in the following season he returned with 6 packs on his way to another championship because the Heat system is not for slackers and is intense. You can send Spo to the Sixers but if the culture of accountability is not replicated from top to bottom, then there is not much Spo can do. Embiid is lazy and entitled, he would not survive Miami Heat culture if he was sent there sef.

That's what I am saying, if you start it and most of the role players are up for it, but the franchise guy is the one against, that in itself is a statement that not only is he not a winner, he also is not willing to learn how to be one.

Roland17:


You are right about retaining them but their success has largely been because of the Heat system, style and coaching.
I’d like to see them to get paid because they deserve it but I don’t think they will replicate this level of success on another team.

But if you bring them to a team and they start out working your franchise player, and said franchise player refuses to step up, you know then and there it's time to reset and start over. The heat culture is something that can be replicated easily, the harder task is getting a coach with Spoelstra coaching acumen.
A team like sixers would benefit from this, that body fat metric would do wonders for Embiid and the work ethic can also bring forth a more complete version of Maxey

A40:
Miami has too many hungry niggas mehn. Goddamn

I really doubt they will be able to retain all of them this offseason. To be more precise, if any team needing a PG is not pricing Gabe Vincent out of the Heat budget they need to fire their GM ASAP. These are the type of role players that helps to build a winning mentality.

Jamal is a baller. Great defense better offense

A40:
Denver's transition offense is brazy. Once they get the ball. 100 meters senior boys

That is what they used to kill the Lakers. They never let them set their half court defense consistently. Totally smoked them

The worst part about this denver run is that it is in non Jokic minutes

A40:
This Braun kid. Nice impact

Nuggets are deep abeg. The dude played great all year and also against the Suns, but couldn't just find his groove in the Lakers series. Now he his back

donlittle25:
So they asked jokic who are the players he patterned his game after and he mentioned Boris Diaw. Interesting, cause you wouldn't even think of Diaw when looking at him but if you watched Diaw play, You will see it

You can see a bit from his face up passes, and how he sees cutters from the elbow. The only thing is, the student is way better than the master

steady986:


Yea I was only being sarcastic

. I still cannot see how Miami competes in this series. I was talking about them making 3s, but just saw that Denver only shot 29% from 3,which is 10% points lower than their average.

steady986:
Man the FT disparity was too much in game one. 20FTs to just 2FTs. The refs want Denver to win. How can Miami cope?

There was nothing of the sort, Miami only have themselves to blame, you only get FTs if you drive to the basket, only Bam was even attempting to try to score from about 8ft in, every other person was just driving to kick out or taking a jumper or shooting the 3 ball.
As for how they will cope, they will only avoid getting swept if their 3 ball starts falling at a high enough clip, they cannot beat the Nuggets with defense because they just don't have the personnel, but they might be able to outscore them if they shoot the way they shot during the Bucks series and the 1st 3 games of the Celtics series.
If not at most this series goes to game 5.

donlittle25:
When did jokic score 27?

That's why his game is hard to understand. His game just sneaks up on you and because he his so efficient, you wonder when he got the shots up to score 27pts. Today he went 8 of 12 with 27pts and a triple double to boot.

donlittle25:
That last series woke Gordon up o

The worst part for Miami is the pocket of spaces where Lakers wanted to send Gordon to, in order to minimize his impact on offense will be a disaster for them as this first half has shown. Sending Gordon under the basket with a smaller guy on him, with Jokic passing him the ball is just barbecue chicken for Gordon.

Jokic is a mismatch in this series

steady986:


It's easy to say top 5 center all time until you have to remove one or two names from that top 5 centre list. You have Kareem, Wilt, Russell, Shaq, Hakeem, Moses Malone, David Robinson. And it gets harder if you consider Duncan and KG centers.

If he wins, then automatically he is already better than David Robinson. KG and Duncan are not centers they are both PF.
As for the rest as i said an argument/discussion can be made that he his top 5.
Jokic is an elite rebounder, as good a scorer as any of them in totality (his range of shooting helps him in this category). his only knock is that he is the worst defender amongst them. But, I will argue that the gap between his playmaking and everyone else's is wider than the gap between their defense and his.

PS: If he wins it, he will definitely be ahead of KG on my all time list

steady986:
Who y'all got?

https://twitter.com/FanDuelTV/status/1663224117821161488?t=OmFfEJhNDgXquY7r_4w-vA&s=19

Jokic is already a better player than Howard has ever been. Jokic is a phenomenal playmaker (top 5 all time in my book), a great scorer and rebounder and an adequate defender. Dwight was an all time great defender and great rebounder. But you couldn't run an offense through him and as a scorer we never got to see him at his very best because he adamantly refused in his prime to play an offense which maximized his ability. In his stint with the Lakers, he was told that his PnR scoring efficiency with Nash was number 1 all-time, and they hoped to increase the number of those sets run, but he refused and wanted the ball in the post because of his stupid feud with Shaq.
So Jokic clears for me and if he wins this title, he is going into top 5 center of all time discussion.

Caleb Martin is a dawg

I Just hope game 7 is not a dud. Game 6 was not the best basketball, but it was close and tension filled till the end.

Whoever wins this series might just have emptied the tank both physically and mentally just to get to the Finals.

Both teams are playing subpar basketball, too much TOs by the Cs and too many misses on good looks by the Heat

greypencils:
Plus Like O, plus respect O, ManUtd fans don't give neither to Messi. We hate him. You are NOT a ManUtd fan, so you cant relate.

I have friends who are man utd fans, I am a real madrid fan. Nobody that I know was insulting Messi when man city knocked city out of the champion league

A40:
The fantastic irony too that the Nuggets make their first ever finals on the day Melo announces retirement.

Now to arguably the most underrated controversial debate. Which #15 will the Nuggets retire? Melo's or Jokic's

They will retire both I think. It will just be a unique situation, just like the Lakers retiring both of Kobe numbers

A40:
You people are just emotional. United fans respect Stevie G? In what planet does that occur. Someone that still gets roasted for failing to win a league title till this day

Plus most NBA followers today are fans of players not teams, can argue it's always been that way but it's more pronounced today. Even the people masquerading as Lakers fans now are actually Lebron fans. Seen an awful lot of people who were definitely not Lakers fans in the recent past suddenly pick interest when he joined

Where I draw the line is wishing evil on the player in their personal lives, injuries and that type of thing. But as far as wanting him to lose on the court and glad when he does. Abeggi. That one is never never going to change and if that makes us haters. So be it. It's not a crime

Maybe me and you grew up in different environments, so I disagree, when Gerrard was playing any man utd fan will jump at him playing for them.
I as a Madrid fan watched live when Madrid fans gave Ronaldinho a standing ovation after watching him demolish their side 3-0. I watch sports to enjoy the game not to see a players downfall.
If I have my team playing I want both teams to play to their very best and my team winning in the end. But where I don't support any team, I want to watch a spectacle, I want to see great players play great.

greypencils:
No Man Utd fan likes Messi. You don't like someone who prevents you from winning 2 UCL finals.

They don't have to like him to respect him as a footballer. For instance,I don't know any man utd fan that watches PSG lose and makes it all about Messi

A40:
Why is he crying? Nobody hates hates Lebron. We just want to see him lose. Especially with insufferable fans like these

Like asking a Liverpool fan why they hate Man United

For me there is a difference, man utd fans hate Liverpool with a passion but they still by and large respect Steven G. This hate for a player and not the team, I just will never understand it

PS: Its also observable in cR7 and Messi, but at least that can be said to be about their rivalry. But the Lebron thing I just will never get it