ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

awful decision by murray getting thirsty when he knocked schroeder down and got a correct no-call

lebron leaving two points at the FT line & joker’s end of quarter three pointer looming very large here

Oh no

wow what is going on here

jokic needs to score

why does jamal murray keep getting matched up with lebron

rui on Jokic and brow roaming to help is smart. Jokic has to figure that one out

jamal is gassed like he always is and isn’t rotating. and for some reason the nuggets are switching everything

jok’s been completely out of sorts this quarter

Jvg otm

some of the reffing in this game has been completely atrocious

murray begging gordon to switch back and gordon's like no you're good

oh wow that layup not rolling in was huge

it feels like ham threw a curve ball at jokic putting rui on him basically goading him into the post where AD is helping. it doesn’t feel sustainable to me but it does have jokic second guessing himself

murray is literally walking around out there

guh that lebron 3

murray is basically dead

hey Kevin if it helps this is exactly what half of Bucks playoff games feel like

it feels like ham threw a curve ball at jokic putting rui on him basically goading him into the post where AD is helping. it doesn’t feel sustainable to me but it does have jokic second guessing himself

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 16, 2023 11:14 PM (forty-three seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lakers are using a similar strategy to what Boston has done against Jokic:

Put a secondary big on him (Boston uses Grant a lot or Horford when it's him and Rob) and let the shot-blocker roam and help (Horford or Rob).

LA has Hachimura up into Jokic, while AD is roaming.

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) May 17, 2023

if ad is just going to hang out in the paint waiting for jokic the nuggs have to punish it by finding the open 3

it’s the right strategy for sure. but jok will solve it

wonder if Wembanyama will be choking away games down the stretch like this in 20 years

if ad is just going to hang out in the paint waiting for jokic the nuggs have to punish it by finding the open 3

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 16, 2023 11:17 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

he found a bunch of them to kcp but those were bricks. this is solvable but they're lucky to escape this game.

lebron leaving two points at the FT line & joker’s end of quarter three pointer looming very large here

crazy game good stuff

silver lining of this game is that the lakers were forced to show their hand a little earlier than they probably would have liked. we’ll see if malone is up to the challenge

Lakers feel like the New England Patriots right now, you don't really wanna see 'em win but every game they play in is so insane you don't mind when they do

some of the spacing on those denver possessions was horrible at the end. gordon was just sitting in the dunker’s spot which let AD hang right at the rim. murray wasn’t moving at all.

yeah a ton of people were pointing this out but if they’re going to use AD as a rover you can’t have gordon hanging out under the basket

the lakers seem good enough to put some strain on denver’s line ups. malone will prob have to make some offense/defense decisions in this series and he didn’t seem prepared do that tinkering tonight, not really a surprise given they’ve played two unserious series so far. JVG was correctly calling out that he should have been subbing brown in for murray on defense… he made the decision to leave gordon in to compensate but that was also gumming up their offense. all of it is solvable assuming malone is up to the task but it’s stuff denver just hasn’t had to even think about so far

i gotta say ham seems like a pretty good coach. putting murray in the PNR and flaring out the screener was a nice move

shooting tonight:

lakers - 54.8 FG, 45.8 3P
nuggs - 54.9 FG, 46.9 3P

davis was so good in the second half

jokic scored 1.53 points per possession with AD as his primary defender tonight for anyone in this thread interested in such things

The lakers can def play with this team! Gonna be a good series imo

a good "hoops" matchup in the 2023 western conference finals

the west seemed weirdly impoverished and incompetent for most of the regular season compared to the east. thank goodness the playoffs have a way of sorting things out.

well the lakers dumping westbrook and putting basic competence around lebron certainly helped

dumping westbrook's contract onto steve balmer was an inspired move

This is probably gonna be one of the counters to AD on Gordon. They do the Jokic/Murray P&R and set a weakside screen with AG to free up KCP who gets an open 3 but misses pic.twitter.com/BEVcDPCwdH

— D.O.C (@darwinchvz320) May 17, 2023

getting some 3s for joker could work too

yeah that was such a nice play and if KCP hit it it would have been a dagger

what are the odds this series AD gets in foul trouble early and we get a tristan thompson sighting?

oh gosh

what are the odds this series AD gets in foul trouble early and we get a tristan thompson sighting?

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, May 17, 2023 11:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

there are, shall we say, mechanisms in place to prevent this

they'll go small before they ever put tristan in

dumping westbrook's contract onto steve balmer was an inspired move

Wait aren't the Jazz paying Westbrook through a buy out and he was playing on a vet min in LA for Ballmer? Next year will be interesting to see where he goes and for how much

it’s not fair the celtics got brogdon

the 5 days off in between games prob helped but based on how bouncy butler looks tonight i think he played that knicks series at like… 65% effort

the physics seem off in this game idk how to explain it