( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) )

For reals tho

Denver is dope! Respect

lebron james

Leborn Jemz

They will take away a lot of confidence from this run. Incredible team!

Shoulda had game 2 :(

RIP sweet nuggz

Grant made himself some money in these playoffs

Such a weird team these Lakers

Nuggets just need Porter to only make 2 bonehead plays per game and the sky is the limit

Really wish Barton could have played, need someone in that vein

Idk I think Miami playing the best ball right now.

Barton woulda been big

What does Denver look like next year?

My guess is plumlee and Millsap are gone, Grant stays. One PF/C vet signed in free agency

rip nugs great run, jokic/murray/porter core should be good for a while

denver is poised to inherit the post-lebron west.

congrats to the nuggs on their inspiring run to contention proximity — next year’s goal: a positive scoring margin in the playoffs. see you in the finals!

Don’t count out the mavs. They have some things to figure out but they’ll have the best player

I actually think the goal should be to make the nba finals

Western conference semifinals—> western conference finals—> positive scoring margin isn’t the progression I’m hoping for

chicken or egg thing w/ that one i guess huh

j0rd is a nuggets truther

In a way they didn’t beat the clippers

Federer won more points that djokovic at wimbledon 2019, still waiting for that result to be changed

what does winning in the second round get you if you lose 4-1 in the next round?

Lmao jord, idk man. It gets you to the state of being a good basketball team

If you believe that there is one winning basketball team each year and everyone else should commit seppuku well I guess that’s an ethos

https://i.imgur.com/1eJstwy.jpg

the nuggets had a nice run in the bubble, their fans should be very happy. i'm not saying you have to be sad because they lost. my point is simply that going down 3-1, 3-1, and then losing 4-1 w/ a negative scoring margin across the playoffs doesn't normally portend future success, but that will not be the narrative on the nuggs coming out of the bubble.

i don't disagree that they are well positioned for the post-lebron west. i think that is pretty obvious. but the post-lebron west is 2-3 years away at least. i think the nuggets will be good next year and there will be a bunch of other good teams in the west. what i'm taking away from their 9-10 showing in the playoffs w/ negative scoring differential is that the margins were extremely thin for them and unless that changes in a drastic way next year they're likely to go out in the first two rounds to one of the other teams in the west who are of roughly equal or better quality.

the nuggets don't have the bucks problem of their offense shutting down in the fourth quarter of every playoff game so that's a step up. but they also play in a very tough conference and are an obviously flawed team. i just see them as among the pack of the large group of teams in the west who are not the lakers.

“Obviously flawed team”

Jord you’re just doing your typical long term cope thing, you underestimated them vs the clippers, murray has made a leap and they’re a really good team now

if murray is still an elite scorer outside the bubble then the nugs have a pretty clear path forward, they have to get the right supporting cast but thats doable, if he turns back into a pumpkin then theyve got a lot more work to do

Has any player had a 19 game playoff run like Murray had and not been a star? I doubt it

theres never been a bubble before!

We all thought the bubble was magically making people awesome and then it turned out to just be murray

a lot of wacky numbers and outcomes have happened in the bubble, its not normal nba, not taking anything away from bubble stars but its just different

i personally would put money on murray having made some sort of leap but is it really a leap into the dame/steph zone... idk gotta see more

Trevor Ariza had a playoff run where he shot the shit out of the ball, I guess that’s sort of what Crowder is doing, but Murray is different. I would say the possibility that it was just bubble psychological effects is unlikely. Maybe he and Jokic just worked harder than most in their daily training sessions. But that’s reason to believe he’s a star on its own.

I was always a murray doubter and thought he was mostly just streaky but at this point he has to have so much confidence. Refs will give him more respect too

If he was on another team I’d be upset about not having him and doing jord cope things

he def has at the very least shown that he has the talent to be a leet nba guard, some of the stuff he did this run 98% of nba players couldnt dream of

i think he's more in the bradley beal zone than the dame/steph zone

I’ll take it

i mean dame isnt in the steph zone if we're being real

we can't fully discount what we've seen in the bubble, players and teams showing new skills should be recognized. but we also have to acknowledge that it's a context for basketball that we will never see again. and it's not just murray or the nuggets! i'm very happy to talk about my miami heat. do we really think the heat would be 12-3 in the playoffs w/ tyler herro eurostepping over everyone's faces if they had to play a normal amount of playoff road games? bcuz i don't. i'm going to be using caution in extrapolating no travel/no crowd/games every other day playoff basketball to the playoffs of the future.

murray may have taken a "leap"... the nuggets could also lose to utah, dallas, or houston in the first round next year, or the clippers, lakers, or warriors in the second round and it wouldn't necessarily mean they're any worse than what we're seeing from them in the bubble.

Has any player had a 19 game playoff run like Murray had and not been a star? I doubt it

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, September 27, 2020 12:35 PM (fifty-one minutes ago)

it was a great 19 game run no doubt but this point is entirely devoid any context whatsoever

i mean dame isnt in the steph zone if we're being real

― Spottie, Sunday, September 27, 2020 1:00 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

uhh thats why i called it the dame-steph zone please do your research on how zones work before posting