I’m 50.. picking up full court all game is not regular d as far as I know.. from any era.
I think it's going to be a whopping fine. I don't know the CBA but I think it will probably be the maximum allowed...and yes, I don't think there's anyway he gets suspended
Really depends on how his leg responds to all of the rest. A limited Murray really hurts DEN as unlike the Cs - they don't have different ways to win.
The problem over the past week has been that we enter each game without a clue as to how they are going to officiate that particular game. Once the initial "Let's go back to the Knicks of the '90s" whistle the Totals were aggressively and overly adjusted....so once the officials seemed to collectively pull back a little to gain more control of the game the Totals didn't budge so the Overs have done very well of late. Then you get last nights game that returns to how they whistled in the first week of the playoffs. The same crews aren't even consistent with this which makes it very difficult if they now return to Knicks 90's. Never seen anything quite like this.
Primarily their own reputations and standing among their peers. It was a lame, bush league thing to do. I doubt many guys want to be attached to that kind of thing. I hope he doesn't get suspended so there's no excuse and Minnesota can win this series with Denver at full capacity. (And I really doubt we'll see anything.)
100%.
That's fair. At the very least, the league's decision to wildly change officiating standards in the middle of the season has seemed hard for officials to implement consistently. I don't really even blame them--they're clearly getting instructions from the top, and I wouldn't be surprised if those instructions are changing/pivoting constantly, within a range.
My initial thought when seeing this was really just how much luck is involved in winning a title, unless you are part of a dynasty type operation like Spurs or Warriors. Id put an * next to Jokic, as I feel he should get credit for beating a 49 win clips team in the shortened bubble year, not that it changes the overall point.
They had a very good season as well... it's not like it was all based off of last year. Pretty crazy that this is basically the same TWolves team that lost to Denver in five last year.
You could go back through any playoffs and there are significant injuries every year that either dash hopes or create an easier path than expected. At one point I went through all of LeBron's titles.. in almost every case the expected best rival for that year had a significant injury either during the playoffs or right before (several times that was the Celtics). Injury luck is a huge factor... just look at the Bucks the last few years.
Yea and it's not even just throwing it at an official. The heat pack landed on the court and right at KAT's feet as he was going up for a layup
There's a reason I didnt mention Lebron and/or his Heat teams
I found the post I made six? years ago.
And the Bucks beat a 48-24 Nets team in 2021, Brooklyn certainly would've won 50+ if that was a full 82 game season. It is remarkable how much luck is involved in these things, and why it's so crucial not to let opportunities pass (I'd love to be able to look back on 2022 as a stepping stone rather than the blown opportunity).
To be fair, 2022 had Timelord’s injury, which was some bad luck. He’d never be the same.
Possibly, but I felt Minnesota's shot quality reflected the difference in shooting %. It's not just a make or miss difference.
Also, Minnesota's shooting %'s are good but not really out of character. They shot 48.5% from the field and 38.7% from 3 this year during the regular season. They're at 51.2% from the field and 40% from 3 in these two games against Denver. This isn't Miami shooting 53.5% from 3 in one game (more than 16% above their season average), A 2% bump in shooting %'s isn't something crying out for mean reversion, not in the next couple of games anyway.
Yeah, he's probably really frustrated because his injury doesn't give him any outlet to get over the call and move on. You "move on", and it's just more swarming Minny defense that he can't counter physically.
My guess is that he's injured, which is frustrating him since he can't do what he normally does. Combine that with this being the playoffs and the Wolves hounding him, I think he had a very uncharacteristic meltdown
Just wait until Payton Pritchard gets suspended three games next season for tossing a towel in the general direction of a ref and the league entirely ignores this decision as "precedent."
I'm sure the injury is playing a role but he's coming across like a frontrunning baby. His game is fun to watch but his antics are all annoying to me. He's going to have to get it together for them to have any chance. This is not the best series for Joker, clearly.
The Denver whiplash is incredible.
It's definitely swung too far but, assuming Murray's injured and it definitely seems like he is, isn't this kind of what people were calling out all along?
The overreliance on crunchtime execution hasn't been talked about enough imo. They easily could have been down 3-2 to the Lakers, but people treated it as total domination.
I was essentially about to write the same thing. Perhaps they were a bit overrated, but even if so always with the caveat that they're treading a thin line needing to be injury free. If Murray gets healthy over the next few days (by the way, shouldn't they have sat him out for game 4 and/or 5 against the Lakers?), I'd absolutely put them back up there with contender status. If not, though, they're a very thin team and while I like Porter and Gordon they thrive as secondary players. As great as Jokic is, hard to see him single-handedly carrying the Nuggets. That was always the analysis, not just a reaction to one loss.
Yeah this is where I am. Denver's offense is a finely tuned machine - when everyone is present and close to 100%, it looks absolutely unstoppable in the half court, which means they win close games at an unusually high rate. Throw some sand in that machine (Murray's injury), and they are drastically worse.
This nails it. Last year they had health, and they also had more depth with Brown. This year, they are less healthy and have less depth. It's really that simple.
Five times, including that Celtics example:
Murray takes this team from meh to very good. Without Murray, or with him as he is his current physical state, they see the equivalent of a play-in team. The response from a playoff loss is so telling…..Celtics G3 in Miami was one way, Nuggets G2 at home was the opposite. I had the Nuggets losing all 3 games in Minnesota pre-series and obviously nothing is changing my mind now. The Wolves look like a team on a mission but Murray has 3 days off and another chance to rebound off a loss. I don’t expect them to but we’ll see what happens with Murray’s physical state.
It's not really an offense but more like a cheat code. When everything is working, the league really hasn't figured out how to defend the Jokic/Murray PnR and that's going back years. But as you say, everyone has to be healthy and Murray isn't - when he's shooting 9-28, the PnR becomes a lot less productive.
