You can sum up the season with the fact that the Suns have won the season series against the first place Nuggets, and lost the season series against the last place Spurs.
I’m not really sure why folks are super high on phoenix. I understand their roster on paper has great talent with three legit stars, but they’ve been bad. Their effort defensively specifically has been fucking horrible at times down the stretch of the season, and their fourth quarter offense is still pretty bad. I don’t think we can automatically write off every glaring issue with this team during the regular season just because they have 3 good players and it’s playoff time.
Their team concept is that they're an offense that actually keeps all their offensive rating going in the post-season when transition attempts dry up. Just like last year, it doesn't take a scheme weakness to let Booker or KD shoot 70% true shooting against your team; they can just do that, against your best perimeter defender. Grayson Allen means you can't cheat off the corner, and their 5th starter is their 1 nonshooter.
The fear is just that the Suns can trivially get an efficient 100 from their starters without your team really being to blame.
Are they a playoff defense? No. Will they win the rebounding battle? Actually, they're middle of the road. Do they protect the ball by being the iso offense of the year? No, actually, they have negative turnover differential, bottom 5 in protection and in forcing turnovers.
They're not exceptional and the 3 stars don't have a ton of minutes as a +20 lineup (true starters are +7 in 400mins & Beal-Booker-Durant-any-any is +7 in 700mins), but they definitely can take games away from your team while having worse process.
>Are they a playoff defense? No. Will they win the rebounding battle? Actually, they're middle of the road
Thing is, "middle of the road" at something during the regular season usually means one of the worst in the playoffs.
Not so fast, the West is the conference with the Thunder around, and they're like.. great to exceptional at everything but rebounding (I think they've been near the complete bottom of the league at points in the season but rounded out a bit as its gone), which is in part the Chet Holmgren identity but also that the Thunder basically don't employ a true 4.
With season sample set to last 15 games, I'm seeing Suns as 9th/10th in OREB%/opponent OREB%, Suns are 23rd/6th.
Not that the response isn't true that "middle of the road" in some regard can mean a team is about to get pounded by a championship contender in the playoffs, but I think the Suns' rebounding is still more like a non-strength than a weakness. Like last year's Cavs got pounded on the boards in the playoffs, but they were 20th across the full season sample in OREB%/opposing. Suns are at least better than that.
The team with clearly better 4 factors usually wins, and like I was pointing out the Suns stink or aren't all that in 3/4 of them. But it's obvious why they're scary if they scare someone, it's that 1 of the 4 things that they're really good at.
Yeah I’m not worried about the Suns, just like I wasn’t worried about them last year despite some great individual performances. Nuggets in the playoffs are a different team
I was watching and the Twolves definitely gave a surprisingly good series. I think the Suns looked harder but in reality once KD/Book stopped shooting 80% from the field they didn’t have a chance.
The Suns have to make the freaking playoffs first. Great win against the Nuggets but they still have the toughest remaining schedule. If they drop to 9th and have to win 2 games just to get in? Man that's tough. The Lakers by the way have the 7th easiest schedule the rest of the way.
As a Nuggets bandwagoner, my least desirable potential first round match ups are, in order from most to least scary:
Mavs
Suns
Kings
Warriors
Lakers
Rockets
It was fire last year! Seeing KD and Booker both having 40 plus points exhausted out of breath to barely squeeze out two victories out of the nuggets. Gained a lot of respect for those two after that
Murray is the difference between unbeatable champion-tier Nuggets and Jokic-can-only-do-so-much Nuggets.
It’s no surprise that they couldn’t win a chip until Murray had a healthy playoff run and his tough shot-making gave them the two close wins against the Celtics.
Literally 10-40 from 3. Could not buy a bucket but we jacked them up all night while simultaneously missing multiple cutting layups.
It was truly hell watching that game. I'm not going to pretend Phoenix didn't win that game outright but that was potentially the worst the Nuggets have looked all season effort wise.
I feel like AG is actually the ultimate prototype for who can defend KD well. Strong guys with length who can play him physically and move with him pretty well. Feel like Gordon has another level he can go to defensively that he wasn't bringing which IMO is understandable with where you guys are at.
I think this genuinely is just one of the most competitive seasons I have ever seen. I could see all the top seeds from either conference having a 1st round exit. I'm so excited for the playoffs.
I'm pretty sure the Heat had like the worst offensive Finals of all time relative to the league average offensive rating lol
They weren't even cracking 100 points regularly in the year 2023
If the Heat shot 3s against Denver like they did against Milwaukee/Boston it would have been a much longer finals. Contested, open, wide open, didn’t matter they were knocking all those mfs down.
Every damn team in the West will be tough. It's low-key unfair how much worse the East is. They will have much less wear and tear compared to their Western counterparts.
I know crazy things happen every playoffs but yeah it’s tough to see the Celtics not getting to the finals with a considerable rest advantage built up over the prior few weeks
Luka, Kyrie, Booker, KD, Beal, Sabonis, Fox, Lebron, AD and Steph are in teams 6 through 10 in the west. Outside Beal, that’s a bunch of top 20 players in the NBA right now with arguably 3-5 in the top 10
The play-in is gonna be insane. Who would've thought that you'd get an all-NBA showcase going on in what is essentially the pre-playoffs. It's gonna be like all-star games but the all-stars are actually going to play their hardest basketball of the season
Yeah but the Knicks/Heat/Philly play _hard_ and can definitely take a lot out of you with their physicality. Bucks are still scary when they’re healthy and I’m excited to see if the Pacers and Magic can make some noise.
Everyone was calling the Suns frauds for losing to the Spurs but suddenly they can beat the Nuggets in the playoffs because of a regular season game lmao I love NBA reddit.
We beat them without Book last time so it evens out. Feel like we’ve never seen these teams (Book Suns vs Jokic Nugs) fully healthy outside of game 1 last year
It’s the Suns first win of the season without Nurk. 0-4 before today. Obv not nearly the player that Murray is but Phoenix hadn’t even beat bad teams without Nurk
God the west is going to be on some gladiator shit these playoffs. Absolute bloodbath. Even the play in is gonna be competitive af. Meanwhile I don’t think the east will be interesting until the ecf. Unless the Heat go zombie mode again and Embiid comes back reenergized and putting up 35/10/5
For real, the Celtics and Bucks have a bad shooting half and they're frauds, but the Nuggets shoot bad from 3 and it's "well this isn't going to happen again"
Cause they won a ring last season. You have endless excuses as a champ even if the team doesn’t perform well. Don’t think it’s fair at all but that’s just how it is. Really don’t think the nuggets are some clear favorite to win the title.
Very real chance the Suns could have taken Game 2 of the series as well if CP3 didn't get hurt. Suns were playing well right when CP3 got hurt too. Obviously doesn't guarantee Games 3 and 4 still go the Suns way as it did in the real timeline but still.
2 wins against them playing 2 on 5 last playoffs.
We may not be the best team in the west in general but we are definitely the team in the west the nuggets want to see the least.
I knew we were in trouble the moment Gillespie entered the game. Living on the East Coast, I try to keep up with the Nuggets as much as I can, but I think this is the first game this season I saw him get minutes.
Phoenix is *potentially a bad matchup* for anyone when fully healthy. Yeah, they’ve had their struggles, but rotations shorten in the playoffs. A healthy Suns team is not one I would want to face come May
Denver shot like 30% from three over the two games and Phoenix shot like 47%
Unless the Suns have somehow figured out how to be a combination of the 2004 Pistons and 2017 Warriors I wouldn't take much from these two games
I can somewhat believe the Suns shooting on offense but the Suns defensively are exactly league average in 3PT% so no way they can lock up Denver like this every game
Right? I have no idea why people are still focusing on 3 point variance. It's cooked into the modern NBA. More teams are shooting more 3s than ever. Instances will continue to exist where teams live and die by the 3 ball.
The Suns don't shoot a lot of them compared to the rest of the league, but they have a bunch of great shooters. They (and other teams) will win games easily when they are hitting 38-40% of their 3s on high volume
Dude. Suns scored 104 points this game idk about comparing them to the 2017 warriors lmao. Suns do have the tools and strategy to defend Nuggets well though, as shown in these past 2 matchups. Nothing wrong with admitting that
i mean the 2 games they took off the nuggets in the playoffs featured exceptional shooting performances from book and KD. and now they have Beal as well….
that could put them over the edge
There's a level of smugness from Nuggets fans that's pretty predictable, but still kind of silly.
Phoenix played them better than everyone else last year. And on paper they should have gotten better but they haven't really been able to figure it out. Denver should still be the favorites, gotta give the Champs their credit. However Phoenix won't be an easy series for them and they could come away with a win.
It’s rightful confidence. Team has proven enough to trust them to beat any single team in a 7 game series. Not discrediting other teams in a matchup, but Nuggets deserve that respect as long as they’re healthy. It’s far from smugness lol
Fuck no it isn’t. I have never seen a Nuggets fan goof on an entire fanbase the way that Mavs fans did in 2022. That Mavs team didn’t finish the job. The Nuggets did.
Suns fan's were the most smug fan base in here for like 2 years and didn't even win a title lol. Maybe not you, but it was like 2 years Jamal Murray and Suns in 4 jokes.
Booker was on some GOAT shit for most of the playoffs. He's not gonna play at that level this time.
I agree it won't be an easy series but all that matters if you win or not and I just don't see the Suns win it.
People care too much about regular season wins against teams. It means nothing once the playoffs starts.
No they didnt lol. That would be the Rockets. We are 2-1 against the Suns this year and one was in OT.
People have really bad short term memory and say shit just because it suits their narratives.
This team is hella wierd. How you lose to spurs and then beat the nuggets ? Honestly having the toughest schedule left would actually benefit them cause they lose to bad teams but win against good teams 😂.
Nuggets/Jokic is just too good offensively to be beaten by a strong defensive team. Trying to stop Jokic or slow him down isnt going to work, imo. Suns have the roster to outshoot them enough to win depending on the night.
I can see it being a pretty good series.
"To be fair the Nuggets didn't have jamal"
Uhh that's kind-of a pretty big deal. Especially if we're talking about playoff series being a bad match up and we all know Jamal shows up in the playoffs.
But more importantly, I don't think regular season is very telling for post season matchup success. It's a totally different game. Teams don't have time to game plan around a specific team and player every night, this isn't football. They have a general game plan they use every night and may make some in game adjustments but that's about it.
This years Houston rockets have a longer win streak than a Jokic Nuggets team has ever had. The Jokic Nuggets have never gone on a double digit win streak *Ever* and I don’t see that changing anytime soon lol.
The Nuggets just never get long winning streaks for whatever reason.
Let’s not forget that the Suns were missing Nurkic tonight as well who actually played Jokic really well in their prior matchup. Prior to tonight the Suns were 0-4 without Nurk.
You can sum up the season with the fact that the Suns have won the season series against the first place Nuggets, and lost the season series against the last place Spurs.
And if that sounds confusing and hard to make sense of, that's correct. You have the full picture that fans who watched 73 games have.
We're right there with you. We can beat the Celtics on the road but can't beat lottery teams at home.
Suns were unfamiliar with the Spurs’ game
this is the reason why without Wemby they lost. They didn't know what to expect from the others
Suns vs nuggets series would be fire
would be a good match up for us even in the first round
The two teams that scare me the most. I hope they play in round 1
If we could keep the Suns, Pelicans, and Nuggets on the other side of the bracket that'd be great.
I’m not really sure why folks are super high on phoenix. I understand their roster on paper has great talent with three legit stars, but they’ve been bad. Their effort defensively specifically has been fucking horrible at times down the stretch of the season, and their fourth quarter offense is still pretty bad. I don’t think we can automatically write off every glaring issue with this team during the regular season just because they have 3 good players and it’s playoff time.
Their team concept is that they're an offense that actually keeps all their offensive rating going in the post-season when transition attempts dry up. Just like last year, it doesn't take a scheme weakness to let Booker or KD shoot 70% true shooting against your team; they can just do that, against your best perimeter defender. Grayson Allen means you can't cheat off the corner, and their 5th starter is their 1 nonshooter. The fear is just that the Suns can trivially get an efficient 100 from their starters without your team really being to blame. Are they a playoff defense? No. Will they win the rebounding battle? Actually, they're middle of the road. Do they protect the ball by being the iso offense of the year? No, actually, they have negative turnover differential, bottom 5 in protection and in forcing turnovers. They're not exceptional and the 3 stars don't have a ton of minutes as a +20 lineup (true starters are +7 in 400mins & Beal-Booker-Durant-any-any is +7 in 700mins), but they definitely can take games away from your team while having worse process.
>Are they a playoff defense? No. Will they win the rebounding battle? Actually, they're middle of the road Thing is, "middle of the road" at something during the regular season usually means one of the worst in the playoffs.
and taking in account east vs west it definitely becomes *worst in the west*.
Not so fast, the West is the conference with the Thunder around, and they're like.. great to exceptional at everything but rebounding (I think they've been near the complete bottom of the league at points in the season but rounded out a bit as its gone), which is in part the Chet Holmgren identity but also that the Thunder basically don't employ a true 4. With season sample set to last 15 games, I'm seeing Suns as 9th/10th in OREB%/opponent OREB%, Suns are 23rd/6th. Not that the response isn't true that "middle of the road" in some regard can mean a team is about to get pounded by a championship contender in the playoffs, but I think the Suns' rebounding is still more like a non-strength than a weakness. Like last year's Cavs got pounded on the boards in the playoffs, but they were 20th across the full season sample in OREB%/opposing. Suns are at least better than that.
Over a 7 game series, this usually isn’t enough.
The team with clearly better 4 factors usually wins, and like I was pointing out the Suns stink or aren't all that in 3/4 of them. But it's obvious why they're scary if they scare someone, it's that 1 of the 4 things that they're really good at.
Yeah I’m not worried about the Suns, just like I wasn’t worried about them last year despite some great individual performances. Nuggets in the playoffs are a different team
Toughest team we played last year. Booker was also the scariest player. I'd prefer someone else deal with them this year.
I'm leaning Twolves. No shade at the Suns, but the last two games have been rough. Loaded with rage timeouts
I was watching and the Twolves definitely gave a surprisingly good series. I think the Suns looked harder but in reality once KD/Book stopped shooting 80% from the field they didn’t have a chance.
You mean the series that happened last year already?
The Suns have to make the freaking playoffs first. Great win against the Nuggets but they still have the toughest remaining schedule. If they drop to 9th and have to win 2 games just to get in? Man that's tough. The Lakers by the way have the 7th easiest schedule the rest of the way.
As a Nuggets bandwagoner, my least desirable potential first round match ups are, in order from most to least scary: Mavs Suns Kings Warriors Lakers Rockets
It was fire last year! Seeing KD and Booker both having 40 plus points exhausted out of breath to barely squeeze out two victories out of the nuggets. Gained a lot of respect for those two after that
The Suns are the perfect team to counter the Nuggets imo
Perfect? Nah. That said, the Suns probably do pose a better match up than most teams.
In fairness, Murray is a massive loss for Denver just because he's the only other guy that can consistently create his own offense
I swear they pulled someone out of the stands tonight who the hell is Jake LaRivia?
Ist that the guy from the Witcher
Murray is the difference between unbeatable champion-tier Nuggets and Jokic-can-only-do-so-much Nuggets. It’s no surprise that they couldn’t win a chip until Murray had a healthy playoff run and his tough shot-making gave them the two close wins against the Celtics.
just from this game... i would say the extremely poor outside shooting is the difference
Literally 10-40 from 3. Could not buy a bucket but we jacked them up all night while simultaneously missing multiple cutting layups. It was truly hell watching that game. I'm not going to pretend Phoenix didn't win that game outright but that was potentially the worst the Nuggets have looked all season effort wise.
Suns own Nuggets Spurs own Suns Nuggets own Spurs Wtf is this season
Everybody but the Suns own the Spurs
The warriors lost to the spurs without Wemby at home
Warriors without Steph pretty much are the Spurs
[удалено]
KD teams weak to teams with an even more slenderman player (Wemby, Chet)
I feel like AG is actually the ultimate prototype for who can defend KD well. Strong guys with length who can play him physically and move with him pretty well. Feel like Gordon has another level he can go to defensively that he wasn't bringing which IMO is understandable with where you guys are at.
A circlejerk?
It’s simple This season is Phoenix Suns father
uhhh I think everyone owns the Spurs and Suns
One of those is not like the others
I think this genuinely is just one of the most competitive seasons I have ever seen. I could see all the top seeds from either conference having a 1st round exit. I'm so excited for the playoffs.
Hey, I’ll be the first to admit… If we shoot 25% from three for a series we’ll lose
Every team in every series agrees
Doubly true if the other team shoots 50%
Hey we got close to that in the Finals and still won
Heat weren't exactly making it a shootout either though lol
I'm pretty sure the Heat had like the worst offensive Finals of all time relative to the league average offensive rating lol They weren't even cracking 100 points regularly in the year 2023
Shame on the Celtics for letting them get to the finals
They went from supernova against the Celtics to being dog shit from shooting threes against the nuggets. Shit wasn’t fair
To be fair, they also went dog shit against the Celtics for 3 straight games.
They shot 39% from 3 (9/23) in game 5, and shot 46% from 3 (14/30) in game 6 vs the Celtics' 7/35 (season low) where only Smart and White had made 3s.
If the Heat shot 3s against Denver like they did against Milwaukee/Boston it would have been a much longer finals. Contested, open, wide open, didn’t matter they were knocking all those mfs down.
The Celtics would need you to shoot 0%
They’re a tough out if KD is healthy
Book’s health is a bigger question mark than KD’s at this point. We need both, and probably Beal healthy to endure a whole playoff game offensively
honestly which of the West 5-8 (including 9-10) isn't a tough out? especially considering two of the top 3 are inexperienced teams
Every damn team in the West will be tough. It's low-key unfair how much worse the East is. They will have much less wear and tear compared to their Western counterparts.
I know crazy things happen every playoffs but yeah it’s tough to see the Celtics not getting to the finals with a considerable rest advantage built up over the prior few weeks
thats what people expected last year too and the nuggets ended up going into the finals waaay more rested than the heat
Imo the West is 10 deep with 7-10 having the ability to get hot and upset a higher seed
Luka, Kyrie, Booker, KD, Beal, Sabonis, Fox, Lebron, AD and Steph are in teams 6 through 10 in the west. Outside Beal, that’s a bunch of top 20 players in the NBA right now with arguably 3-5 in the top 10
The play-in is gonna be insane. Who would've thought that you'd get an all-NBA showcase going on in what is essentially the pre-playoffs. It's gonna be like all-star games but the all-stars are actually going to play their hardest basketball of the season
The Rockets have won 10 in a row and 12 of 13, so you better say 7-11
I'm dumb, I thought the Rockets were already the 10th seed
Yeah but the Knicks/Heat/Philly play _hard_ and can definitely take a lot out of you with their physicality. Bucks are still scary when they’re healthy and I’m excited to see if the Pacers and Magic can make some noise.
There's no West series that any team can take for granted unless there's a catastrophic injury.
Don’t forget the current longest win streak in the NBA is by the 11th seed in the west
For the nuggets? The lakers, gsw or sac would all be preferred.
The entire western conference playoff picture is a tough out
That's what we said about the Nets
To be fair they were a tough out. Half a shoe size away from beating Giannis and the eventual champion bucks
There were two post seasons after that. I don't think anyone denies the chip was most likely the Nets that season if health held up.
Everyone was calling the Suns frauds for losing to the Spurs but suddenly they can beat the Nuggets in the playoffs because of a regular season game lmao I love NBA reddit.
Dont get it twisted. We are still frauds
Frauds who can beat the nuggets in the playoffs
Phoenix Suns is Denver Nuggets father
Suns in 4 is so long ago
Suns in 1 gonna hit like crack in the playin
It would be so the Phoenix suns to beat the nuggets in the first round, then lose to the pelicans in the second.
Dallas. We’ll lose to Luka.
We usually knock out mediocre to bad teams and then shit our diapers after that so I wouldn't have a problem with what you describe.
According to the memes, this means that Luka is a proud grandfather of one Nikola Jokic.
Phoenix Suns is Murray-less Nuggets father
San Antonio Spurs is Denver Nuggets grandfather
Suns own us 😭
Most Suns thing ever to lose to the Spurs without Wemby then beat the Nuggets at home (Without murray yes)
We beat them without Book last time so it evens out. Feel like we’ve never seen these teams (Book Suns vs Jokic Nugs) fully healthy outside of game 1 last year
True, also didn’t have Nurk today who played Jokic really well last time
Suns vs nuggets would be a top tier playoff series
Good thing we can stop playing teams like the Spurs so we can dunk on the Nuggets
We are sonned by Suns yet again
Suns fans are shocked, after our last game, we did not see this coming
what was that other loss?
The Kyrie shot I believe
they didn’t have jamal
We didn't have Book for 2/3 matchups
And we didn’t have Booker last time
Tbh we didn’t have Booker tonight either lol
We didn't have Nurkic
Yeah that’s the same
It’s the Suns first win of the season without Nurk. 0-4 before today. Obv not nearly the player that Murray is but Phoenix hadn’t even beat bad teams without Nurk
Jamal is obviously the much better player but Nurk is usually critical for us.
When you have to play Eubanks it is. fuck that guy
This was our first W without him
We was 0-4 without him until tn
We had to play Eubanks 27 minutes. it evens out
and we didn’t have Nurk. KD also beat them with their duo without Devin
So in conclusion you can't tell too much from these two games that we didn't already know from last year's playoffs
Context is r/nbas father
Beal is not capable of dropping 30+ now, in fact he can barely drop 20 nowadays lol
God the west is going to be on some gladiator shit these playoffs. Absolute bloodbath. Even the play in is gonna be competitive af. Meanwhile I don’t think the east will be interesting until the ecf. Unless the Heat go zombie mode again and Embiid comes back reenergized and putting up 35/10/5
I think the Knicks will surprise people this year
i think we will play them in the ecf. if they’re healthy it’s going 7. they match really well against us. the x factor will be Porzingis vs Randle
Feels like this has been the case for a long, long time.
even moreso this year i think. just last year the Lakers made the wcf. no disrespect but the road to the wcf is significantly harder now.
It’s hilarious how this sub seems to suddenly understand shooting variance when Jokic’s team becomes involved lol.
For real, the Celtics and Bucks have a bad shooting half and they're frauds, but the Nuggets shoot bad from 3 and it's "well this isn't going to happen again"
Cause they won a ring last season. You have endless excuses as a champ even if the team doesn’t perform well. Don’t think it’s fair at all but that’s just how it is. Really don’t think the nuggets are some clear favorite to win the title.
The nuggets are the clear favorite to win the title. It’s not that hard to see
Playoffs are gonna be all about matchups. We could have wildly different teams representing the West depending on who plays who.
The Suns are the Nuggets toughest matchup in the west. Only team to beat them twice in the playoffs last year and now beat them twice in a row.
Last year was basically Book and KD by themselves lol the 3 other players on the floor were doing cardio
no it was just booker
Very real chance the Suns could have taken Game 2 of the series as well if CP3 didn't get hurt. Suns were playing well right when CP3 got hurt too. Obviously doesn't guarantee Games 3 and 4 still go the Suns way as it did in the real timeline but still.
[удалено]
ok skip
We got them right where we want them.
You gotta win enough to play against the Nuggets late in the post which would not happen.
Damn nuggets fans came out swinging right after this loss lol
We haven't won a ring for 9 months cut us some slack
There are people carrying human life for a full term in that time are you guys just lazy or what
We're not lazy we're big boned
Nah Jokic treats the Suns like the Hornets
2 wins against them playing 2 on 5 last playoffs. We may not be the best team in the west in general but we are definitely the team in the west the nuggets want to see the least.
Still the full power Timberwolves lol.
Start the Jokic bum threads /s
Suns v nuggets 1st round pls
I knew we were in trouble the moment Gillespie entered the game. Living on the East Coast, I try to keep up with the Nuggets as much as I can, but I think this is the first game this season I saw him get minutes.
Phoenix is *potentially a bad matchup* for anyone when fully healthy. Yeah, they’ve had their struggles, but rotations shorten in the playoffs. A healthy Suns team is not one I would want to face come May
And the spurs have beaten the sons 3 times so by simple logic the spurs are better than the nuggies
The other loss was to the Mavericks on that crazy shot my Kyrie!
Denver shot like 30% from three over the two games and Phoenix shot like 47% Unless the Suns have somehow figured out how to be a combination of the 2004 Pistons and 2017 Warriors I wouldn't take much from these two games I can somewhat believe the Suns shooting on offense but the Suns defensively are exactly league average in 3PT% so no way they can lock up Denver like this every game
Breaking news: If you shoot better than the other team, you win
Right? I have no idea why people are still focusing on 3 point variance. It's cooked into the modern NBA. More teams are shooting more 3s than ever. Instances will continue to exist where teams live and die by the 3 ball. The Suns don't shoot a lot of them compared to the rest of the league, but they have a bunch of great shooters. They (and other teams) will win games easily when they are hitting 38-40% of their 3s on high volume
Dude. Suns scored 104 points this game idk about comparing them to the 2017 warriors lmao. Suns do have the tools and strategy to defend Nuggets well though, as shown in these past 2 matchups. Nothing wrong with admitting that
i mean the 2 games they took off the nuggets in the playoffs featured exceptional shooting performances from book and KD. and now they have Beal as well…. that could put them over the edge
[удалено]
Three times*
There's a level of smugness from Nuggets fans that's pretty predictable, but still kind of silly. Phoenix played them better than everyone else last year. And on paper they should have gotten better but they haven't really been able to figure it out. Denver should still be the favorites, gotta give the Champs their credit. However Phoenix won't be an easy series for them and they could come away with a win.
Is it smugness if we're just confident in our ability to win that hypothetical series? Or are you only allowed to shit on your own team after a loss?
It’s rightful confidence. Team has proven enough to trust them to beat any single team in a 7 game series. Not discrediting other teams in a matchup, but Nuggets deserve that respect as long as they’re healthy. It’s far from smugness lol
Fuck no it isn’t. I have never seen a Nuggets fan goof on an entire fanbase the way that Mavs fans did in 2022. That Mavs team didn’t finish the job. The Nuggets did.
Suns fan's were the most smug fan base in here for like 2 years and didn't even win a title lol. Maybe not you, but it was like 2 years Jamal Murray and Suns in 4 jokes.
A Nuggets fan sucker punched a Suns fan and still lost the fight and somehow that story turned into 'Suns fans are toxic.'
There's more Bucks fans in here than Nuggets flairs lmao
That makes it super fucking weird
A lot of Giannis/Bucks fans like to hate on Jokic and Denver now lol Giannis/Jokic stuff replaced Embiid/Jokic stuff with Embiid hurt
We are the smuggets mate
Booker was on some GOAT shit for most of the playoffs. He's not gonna play at that level this time. I agree it won't be an easy series but all that matters if you win or not and I just don't see the Suns win it. People care too much about regular season wins against teams. It means nothing once the playoffs starts.
No they didnt lol. That would be the Rockets. We are 2-1 against the Suns this year and one was in OT. People have really bad short term memory and say shit just because it suits their narratives.
i am officially shooketh
I don't think DEN wants to see the Suns in round 1
[удалено]
Doesnt mean the nuggets wouldnt prefer to not play them in the first round.
If they beat the suns round 1 who else stands a chance?
Truthfully? The Celtics or Bucks and that’s it.
Healthy Timberwolves man
True. We want the Lakers man
Saw a comment earlier saying to just wait for the post of “are the suns a bad matchup for the nuggets”. Like clockwork lmao.
KD showing horseboy what a real legitimate MVP looks like
The nuggets have just been trolling. They’re 1-3 vs the kings too. I do think the suns could beat them
bald headed loser scared of the lakers. doing his best to throw games lol
I don't even know who this is referring to but I upvoted it because it sounds spicy.
really fun game to watch, let's see how the playoffs go! West will be a battle
5D chess by suns to play for the 8th seed
This team is hella wierd. How you lose to spurs and then beat the nuggets ? Honestly having the toughest schedule left would actually benefit them cause they lose to bad teams but win against good teams 😂.
Durant looks great. I haven’t watched many Suns games this year but he’s really giving 100% out there and making huge plays on defense, too.
Nuggets/Jokic is just too good offensively to be beaten by a strong defensive team. Trying to stop Jokic or slow him down isnt going to work, imo. Suns have the roster to outshoot them enough to win depending on the night. I can see it being a pretty good series.
I'm going to save this thread and refer back to it in one to three months.
Kevin Durant is a playoff choker. He can only win if he joins the defending champs. I'm surprised he hasn't joined the Nuggets yet.
Keep in mind the suns were the only team to take 6 games out of the nuggets last year. I think for KD every Nugget match is personal
I fear the nuggets might have entered cruise mode
"To be fair the Nuggets didn't have jamal" Uhh that's kind-of a pretty big deal. Especially if we're talking about playoff series being a bad match up and we all know Jamal shows up in the playoffs. But more importantly, I don't think regular season is very telling for post season matchup success. It's a totally different game. Teams don't have time to game plan around a specific team and player every night, this isn't football. They have a general game plan they use every night and may make some in game adjustments but that's about it.
This years Houston rockets have a longer win streak than a Jokic Nuggets team has ever had. The Jokic Nuggets have never gone on a double digit win streak *Ever* and I don’t see that changing anytime soon lol. The Nuggets just never get long winning streaks for whatever reason.
Denver > spurs, Spurs > suns, Suns > denver. Hmmmm....
Bums
Let’s not forget that the Suns were missing Nurkic tonight as well who actually played Jokic really well in their prior matchup. Prior to tonight the Suns were 0-4 without Nurk.