Huge win for the underdog Denver Nuggets in Oklahoma City last night as Aaron Gordon sank a game-winning three with only seconds remaining. Questionable tactics from Thunder coach Mark Daigneault down the stretch and he undeniable resilience of the Nuggets led to a 1-0 series lead for Denver.
In a press conference today, Chris MacFarland and Joe Sakic announced that the Colorado Avalanche have parted ways with assistant Ray Bennett, but Jared Bednar will return for his 10th season as head coach.
Doug Ottewill joins the show to discuss the Championship grit on display as the Nuggets out-executed the Thunder down the stretch.
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[Music] Hi everybody. Welcome to Mile High Sports today live from the Mile High Sports studio presented by our friends at Volo at number 30. All of these allergies can kiss my ass. Well, the rain helps with that. down. Like I was doing my best yesterday when we were in our home studios, you know, you at home, me at home, but like whatever’s going on right here, Mother Nature, good heavens. It started for me last week. Like I’m dying right now. But that and yelling at the television on Saturday night did not do my sinuses or my throat any favors. So Danny, if you want to pass me through that filter that makes me sound uh more silky smooth, a little more uh or give him the old share autotune if we got that. Oh, that’d be fun. Little T pay. See if we can do that. That would be fun. It is obviously a uh a great win for the Denver Nuggets. Something we talked about a little bit. The idea about I’m still in shock. Championship grit and experience. We talked about this, right? It it’s not as if uh young teams can’t go and and make a run. They can, but we talk about all the time in in sports in the NBA and all sorts of sports where a team in the playoffs for the first couple times in a playoffs until they’ve really made a deep run, they don’t know what it’s like. And we saw this in this game, especially in the fourth quarter where the Nuggets consistently outexecuted and the Thunder did not. And a lot of that simply had the vibe of we’ve been there. We’re keeping our cool. The Nuggets weren’t scrambling as much and the Thunder were. And some of the choices that that they made, you know, they fouled in the three points up really early. That was just something that after the game, Mark Daniel said he was he was, you know, had been coaching them to do. So, there were some mistakes there because that that move meant Nicole Yokic could come back out on the floor, change the dynamic of the game. Obviously, they they get the ball late. Christian Brown gets a rebound, fires it up the court to Russell Westbrook. Russell Westbrook makes the right read, the right pass, fires it across court to Aaron Gordon who hits a three-pointer with 2.8 seconds to go and then the Nuggets played the prey defense and then they end up walking away with game one and a stunned Oklahoma City Thunder. The Nuggets in the second half, Nate, despite quite frankly not playing very well in this game for the vast majority of it, still outscored Oklahoma City 71 to 59. And when you think about how good that Oklahoma City defense is, and if you watch that game, uh, now you get an idea how good they really are. Oklahoma City did not win 68 games by an average of 13 points a game by accident. They’re outstanding. But you had an opportunity for the Nuggets to get it and keep it tight. And sometimes in tight games, the more experienced teams are more comfortable. They find a way to win. That is the thing that we talked about. Even though the Nuggets, Nate, are not as good as the Thunder. They’re not as deep as the Thunder. They’re not. But they do have something that the Thunder don’t have, and that is a championship pedigree and experience. And it mattered last night. Well, and I think obviously we saw it last night. We also um you know, I know that a lot of the national media was really um taking Oklahoma City to task um across the various shows this morning on into this afternoon. Um, and I and I guess I can kind of understand why, but um, at the same time, you know, I think about even like what Kendrick Perkins said and and and some of the I’m like, you know, one, there’s always the, you know, could you give some praise to Denver as well. But, um, I think that is the the the key piece that any of the national media that wants to try to throw Oklahoma City under the bus is forgetting. Mhm. And that is you need to have um you need to have been in some of those places before in order to know how to come out the other side. Um and the Nuggets have done that because of the fact that they’ve got the championship. I give them an immense amount of credit um for recovering from what were some really poor decisions. As much as they were coming back, there were some poor decisions there in the fourth quarter as well. Um but um I I I mean I just I I I said it a second ago. I to this moment as we sit here, you know, you know what what 17 hours removed, I’m still in shock. Yeah, it it was a remarkable comeback. And here here’s a little bit why, right? ESPN analytics uh runs win probability on games and they run it at every point in the game. When the Nuggets were down by 13 points, was 108 to 95 with 6 minutes and 39 seconds left right after Chad Homegr made a layup. Their estimation is Oklahoma City’s win probability was 98%. Right, with six minutes to go and the Nuggets find a way to battle back and that’s despite the fact uh they had double the turnovers that Oklahoma City did. 18 turnovers that led to 23 points. They did not shoot the three all that well. That is, I guess, not a huge shock. We know that you pointed out yesterday Oklahoma City has the best three-point defense in the league. But the Nuggets played a game that was a little bit underwhelming. They looked like the more tired team until they didn’t. A and because of the confidence, because of the belief, and because of a little bit of what we’ve talked about here, the diversified scoring, it was able to carry the day. And an impressive performance by a lot of Denver Nuggets. Nicole Joic obviously with a ridiculous 42 points and 22 rebounds while playing a big chunk of the fourth quarter with five fouls. And uh but had more more turnovers than assists. I mean, that’s not the kind of thing that happens. Um, and the the Nuggets will get better at that. And so, this is this is something to be very excited about. I I still think the Thunder are the favorite to win the series, and they should be, but the Nuggets have now planted the seed of doubt in a young team’s mind. And I do think they understand that as much as they like Chad Homegrren, uh, Chad Homegrren can’t stop Nicole Joic, Nicole Joic is going to break that guy in half. And as the season goes along, uh, series goes along, pardon me, it’s going to be hard for home to stay out of foul trouble. No, it’s gonna be really difficult for him to stay out of foul trouble as well. Um, you know, I mean, it was, you could see that the frustration was happening um for them, which you know, I think one of the things that that that got under Oklahoma City’s skin there early on in that game. um with regards to Joic by the way for me is because Nola was turning the ball over as Sean just talked about he it was it was silly how many times he kept turning the ball over and yet here the Nuggets were still just kind of sticking around. I mean even though they got down by a bit and eventually came back but you’re as a team you’re sitting there thinking okay we’re forcing them into turnovers. Joic has made a couple of bad passes. Um you know like he there twice that he tried to get cute. Yep. as he’s been known to do. Um, and both times Oklahoma City read it perfectly and just simply took it away from him. Um, those are turnovers that obviously as a as a Nuggets fan can’t happen going forward in this series. But I’ve got to think that it became frustrating for Oklahoma City because those turnovers were happening and they still weren’t stretching their lead right further and that’s got to be frustrating. They were getting a good uh performance out of Alex Caruso. Of course, it seemed like he couldn’t miss some three point 20 points for him off the bench. Jaylen Williams did not have a good shooting night. He will be better, but he was still impactful. You talked about the defense. Yeah, I I think if you’re if you’re the the Thunder, you are probably pretty down this morning. You’re like, we we had them. We were we were outplaying them badly in in for a lot of the first half. I mean, you talked about some of those turnovers from Jokic. I remember one and I I think it was it was either Dort or it’s Jaylen Williams. I think it might have been Jaylen Williams who inter cleaned like football style intercepted Joic pass two feet in front of Joic’s face. He had it read just immediately jumped up and and grabbed it immediately as Jookic let go of it and you saw this, you know, this look of of shock on Jookic’s face that that happened. They’re going to have to play it a little tighter and they will play it tighter. And I think that’s where you look at it and say, “What did the Thunder do wrong last night? How do they fix it? They could shoot a little better, specifically Jaylen Williams, but they weren’t bad. They only had nine turnovers.” The Nuggets look at it and say, “We can take care of the ball better. We can shoot the three a little bit better than we did, and we still won the last game.” So, I mean, I I don’t think you look at it to say the Nuggets are just going to go out there and thump the Thunder in game two. I wouldn’t expect that they will. But now all of a sudden it goes from the idea that the Thunder have been rested for six days, the Nuggets were rested for one, they go into Oklahoma City and they win like that. The momentum and it’s there’s still a lot of series left, but the momentum shifted dramatically as of this morning. One team’s got to feel a lot better, one team’s got to feel a lot worse. From our friend Troy Rank, who’s out in Oklahoma City, he had an opportunity to sit in with David Adelman at the presser this morning. Adelman had an opportunity to talk about what it was like being the underdog. Yeah, I mean, you don’t go into series thinking you’re a favorite or an underdog. You just go in trying to win the series. Uh them winning 68 games, them sweeping the the Grizzlies in the first round. Has nothing to do with us and what this moment is. And we know they’re going to respond in game two. They’re a great team, well coached team. I’ve said that. Uh there’s a reason why they had historic numbers this year on both sides of the ball. Uh expect a very energetic response tomorrow. Uh but yeah, you have to take care of yourself. Uh you know, we we’re going to maintenance ourselves and try to beat this team. And to beat them four times is going to be an unbelievable challenge. Uh but, you know, embrace it. Uh we know what this is. It’s uh to me it’s like the six the six seeds played the seven seed, you know, in the West. The West is unbelievable. So them being the one seed, us being the four seed, throw that all out. I mean, I would say the top seven teams and Josh can get hurt. You’re talking about the top eight teams, the teams that made it, all unbelievable basketball teams. So, playing defender, playing the Warriors, playing the Wolves, playing whoever, playing the Clippers in a seven game series, what’s the difference? Probably fair to say. I mean, we know the West is loaded and we know the situation would have been different in the first round of John Marant not getting hurt on a really unfortunate borderline cheap shot by the Thunder, but yeah, the the approach has been has been right by David Adelman, who has a a very weird career statline of five playoff wins and three regular season wins in his career. But it it felt as if Adelman in the final five minutes of that game out coach Daniel, which was shocking to see, but good news for the Denver Nuggets. Obviously, when you’re talking about a rookie head coach. Yeah. I mean, look, it’s I I I said this on yesterday’s show, right? You and I talked about the idea of um you know, him coming into this situation. Yeah. You got through the first round. Um and I think there’s a lot to be said for that. We talked about the praise that should be given to him on coming into this situation with three games remaining in the regular season and then um you know and then moving into the postseason. I think he deserves a lot of credit, but that that the I felt like the real test was going to come as we got into this second round and then hopefully as the Nuggets continue to advance is what can he do? How does he make those coaching decisions? um you know, you you said it yesterday, some of the coaching decisions are going to be made for him because he doesn’t have a bench um that that he can lean into like Oklahoma City does, but um he did a great job last night of keeping them focused. And look, the the coach on the bench as kept getting pointed out um on the broadcast was Joic as well. Um Nicole Joic stepped up and was talking to his teammates, he was getting frustrated with him or he was talking them through different plays. That’s what you want out of a leader. Um, and I think that for all the things that people try to throw at Jokic or, you know, acting like he doesn’t care or being aloof, um, things like that, I I I felt like in some of those timeouts, he showed the exact opposite. Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit about there there was passion there, obviously, and we’ll talk a little bit more of that with Doug Ottawa as he joins us later in the show to talk about the Nuggets. But I think one of the things about Adelman that’s interesting is that multiple players in these last eight games he’s coached, Jamal Murray did so uh after the the game with his broad answer asking questions from the TNT crew. Calm has been a focus when people are talking about the players have been talking about David Adelman. You hear one consistent thing, calm. And maybe for the Nuggets, the the quoteunquote rage timeouts, all of that with Michael Malone who definitely runs hot. maybe for a Denver Nuggets team that more and more now is is is Nicole Joic’s team whether it’s you know coach player whatever you want to call it but this is Nicole Joic’s team and I think even the coaching staffs understand that and maybe the Nuggets just evolved and evolved to a world where if Nicole Joic is at the top of the pyramid and everyone’s working around that then you have to fit his personality and the way he handles things better and and he is generally pretty calm passionate when it needs to be so maybe Adelman in this case just happens to be of a better fit right Yeah, it may just be the right um the right message at the right time. Let’s um let’s hope that that’s the case and let’s hope that it continues as they go into game two tomorrow um and and know beyond into Friday and Sunday because this um this particular series is set up on the every other day. Yeah. Um there is not that one extra, you know, or sometimes they skip a couple of days. Um that’s not going to be the case between now and going into next week. This is truly an every other day type of thing. Um, I’ve got to believe exactly what Adelman just said there at the podium. Um, you know, thanks to Troy for for sending the video to us, but um, you’re going to get everything from them tomorrow night. Everything from them tomorrow night. That might be one of those as a coach that you have to make the decision to punt, um, late in the game. We’ll see. Um, but I bring up the every other day concept because I’m already looking ahead to Friday and I’m recognizing that Oklahoma City’s got to come here and get adjusted to altitude very quickly. Um, and I think that that’s they’re young, they’re athletic, it’s not going to affect them as much, but it’s still it’s still real. It’s still real. Um, you know, the altitude is real. So are these allergies. Um, and I would really like for the entire Oklahoma City team to get slammed by the same allergies that I am dealing with. I have so many drugs in my system right now and none of them are working. It is that time of year obviously. I got to sit here and drink my water and try not to hack up a hairball on this microphone. I’d appreciate that for sure, but it is kind of a rain. I mean, I know you’d appreciate it, but it’s like in a minute here I’m going to start sounding like Gil. Yeah. Yeah. No, I’ve been dealing with about a week and then I get the watery eyes and everything. It’s just the way it is. But hey, when you are are having a day like, you know, today and you’re thinking, boy, you know, I still want to go work out. I still want to do something, but it’s, you know, it’s kind of raining. It’s kind of wet. Well, that’s okay. You want to find the right place where you can go. Well, we know it. We talk about it right here. It’s the Denver Athletic Club. So, if you’re looking for that perfect place to work, play, exercise, and socialize. Oh, yeah. And most of it’s indoors. So, you know, you could go in today. Look no further than the DAC right in the heart of downtown Denver. As a DAC member, uh you’ll get all the top-notch amenities that you expect. The full fitness center, the spa, massage, Pilates, but there’s also a golf simulator, there’s a bowling, there’s a plunge pool, and a licensed childcare center on site. So, if you’re going with the kids, they can go uh do their own thing while you are going having fun, maybe hitting the uh virtual links. That’s what I would do. But what truly sets the DAC apart is that vibrant community. It’s a member owned club. So, when you’re a member, guess who it’s all about? That’s right. You, you and your family. Year-round social events, co-working, dining, and fun for your entire family. The Denver Athletic Club is truly a club for your whole life. So, take a look at it. Maybe the DAC is right for you. Look at joining at denverathleticub.cc for all the details. When I go to court, these aren’t my clients. These are my friends. These are people that I believe in. And they have one shot, just one shot for justice. If they’ve come to me and we’ve gotten to trial, their life has been turned upside down in some awful way. Uh, and I am their only hope. I need to be their champion. To quote Prince Oberin from Game of Thrones, they need someone in this trial by combat that can fight for them. I’m all they have. So, if I haven’t put the time in, if I haven’t trained, if I haven’t humbly looked in the mirror and thought about ways I can be better and I don’t present my best self in court, then I failed them. And that’s what motivates me as a trial lawyer. Because when this is over, that client goes home. And if I haven’t done my best for him, I haven’t been his champion, then I have failed. [Music] Colorado Avalanche had their uh postseason press conference uh today down at Ball Arena. The the big news coming out of it is uh they are not making the reactions they made with the Denver Nuggets. Jared Bednar will return for a record 10th season with the team. He is the all-time leader in regular season wins, all-time leader in playoff wins. Obviously, he’s won a Stanley Cup, but they do make a move. Ray Bennett, who was in charge of the power play assistant for a long long time with this team since 2017, uh has been they’ve moved on from Ray Bennett with Chris McFarland saying, “We made a difficult decision. We’re going to move on from a good hockey man and a good person and a good coach in Ray Bennett.” So, wanted to start off with that. We thank Ray for many, many years of 100% commitment to us. Ray has been around a long time and that was not an easy start to the day. uh Bedar kind of did the uh proverbial stood on the table for Bennett after last season to make sure that he was retained and then it felt like this year uh not just a short circuit in the playoffs. The ABS percentage at the power play was eighth in the NHL at 24.8%. But as as greedy as it sounds with the talent that the ABS array on their power play, it felt like it should have been better. And then when you take a look at at how it worked in the postseason, give credit to Dallas, but it cratered. Out of the 16 teams that made the playoffs, the AS converted at a 13.6% clip. That is obviously a major problem. And in the decisive game, seven and many points in this series. Uh a power play that was even slightly better might have altered the entire trajectory and the ABS could still be playing. Oh, without question. The man advantage needed to have been um you know, far more potent. um and maybe even not not necessar just um successful um even just to feel successful, right? I um those of you that watch hockey a lot um understand that there are times where a goal doesn’t happen on the power play, but you still come away from the two minutes feeling like, okay, that was good. There was, you know, there was a lot of energy. There was a lot of attack. Um there was crisp, you know, we’re talking tape tape passes, things like that, right? Um, and then there are some power plays that you come away from that um, you just feel lost um, as as a fan. And so if I feel lost as a fan, I got to feel the players feel a little bit lost out there on the ice where you’re just like, wait a minute, what was what was going on there? It’s like they they tried to do the entry and then, you know, 3 seconds later it’s already back in the neutral zone. And um, so I think that it’s it’s possible to have better power play even if it wasn’t necessarily always a goal, right? I mean, oh, absolutely. you can you can have a power play uh success rate that is, you know, in the low 20s and still feel pretty good about yourself depending upon who your team is and who you’re going up against. And the fact that they were not able to convert on those kinds of things um tells me um that they that they needed some sort of a something to to freshen it up because there’s way too much talent there, especially on the man advantage for that not to be the case. out of the top uh 10 teams that took shots in the that in the playoffs right now, shots on the power play and and that goes from Colorado to Florida. The ABS were number one, 241 shots on the power play. So, you’re thinking, okay, they’re generating chances. At the same time, they’re not generating particularly good chances. That again, this is playoffs alone. The ABS had three power play goals for those 241 shots. the rest of the top 10, nobody had fewer than five. And that was Florida with five on 157 shots. The ABS had had almost 90 more shots and still had two fewer goals. So the ABS obviously derailed it. It was less about uh I think to your point too, it was production was part of it, but you’re also playing the Dallas Stars, one of the best PK teams in the league. You’re playing against Shayinger, a really good uh goalender in the playoffs. you’re playing against a Pete Dore team that they, you know, they’re disciplined. So, that has to factor into it. But you’re right, it is it was the inconsistency in game seven. Uh the ABS had six minutes of power play and walked away with three shots in the first period of the game. H if they cash in even one of those, now we’re talking about maybe a three zero lead in this game and maybe the ABS are playing again. So, it’s unfortunate. Obviously, you hate seeing people lose their jobs, but in this case, it feels like the ABS had to make a move. And I give them credit for not do going too far and saying, “All right, well, that’s Bednar’s guy, Bednar’s staff.” Um, so that means that it’s probably worth noting though when coaches are letting go of assistance after a season. Um, that there stops becoming a certain number of people who can take the blame. And so, next season obviously will be a big one for the Avalanche. Uh Bednar has been outstanding by virtually every measurement. There have been three coaches in the ABS history that have won a cup. Bedar’s one. Mark uh Hartley is the other. Mark Crawford’s the other one and Bob Hartley is the third. Uh Hartley and Crawford are the only two coaches in Avalanche history that have a higher point percentage in the regular season and playoffs than Bedar. So by any measurement, you’re talking about one of the three best coaches, the three coaches that won the cup that the organization has ever had. And we talk about the calm demeanor of David Adelman and how that might be an advantage. Well, that says Jared Bettard to a te. Oh, absolutely. Um and and he is like like there’s so many times that I’d be watching games and I’m like, how is Bedard not just like losing his mind? Um now maybe that’s because of the contrast to Patrick Wah um for the seasons ahead of that because everybody looks calm. Yeah, because everybody looks calm compared to compared to St. Patrick trying to knock walls down. um you know but yeah I think um I think that there is sort of this interesting uh balance between those uh those two personalities right of Jared Bednar and of David Adelman uh both being very calm um kinds of figures but look I I said it before I didn’t believe that the ABS were going to make a change. Um I didn’t feel at this point that they needed to. Um I stand by what I said yesterday. If this team gets into if this team takes care of business here in the offseason, and we’re going to talk about that as these next couple of weeks go on, but if they take care of the business side of things here in the offseason, um, and they get into next October, November, December, if they are still feeling the same frustrations that they did here in this first 11 and 11 start, yeah. Mhm. Then I think it will be time. Um, and we said it yesterday on the show, the NHL is one of the leagues that will make coaching changes like that. You don’t got to wait, you know, you don’t you don’t wait till you’re at least halfway or 3/4 of the way through the season. Ednar is the second longest tenure coach in the league. You just you just do it. Um, so with all of that in mind, let’s get ourselves into next season. Let’s see what happens. And if at that point there is still deemed to be a change necessary, then that will be Bednar. But I I my gut says that’s actually not going to be the case. I I agree with you. I don’t think Benar is the problem, just like I quite frankly don’t think Michael Malone was the problem with the Nuggets either. But I do understand that after a while messages can get stale. And and maybe there is a similarity here. You have the reigning MVP in the NHL, the reigning MVP in the NBA. Uh in in Jookicer’s case, he is a guy that is uh can appear at times to be aloof, but as we see, he actually is passionate. He cares. You watch him on the court, you watch him on the sideline, you you can’t say he doesn’t care. Nathan McKinnon, as we know, runs pretty darn hot. So maybe when when your best players and your MVP candidates are guys that they can they can handle the locker room for you. They can run the locker room. They can set the expectations. Um Nathan McKinnon does not wear the captain. Gabe Landiskog does, but we’ve talked to players in the past who have said, “Look, Nathan McKinnon does set a standard. He’s out there watching everything he eats. He’s he’s work he’s a workout fiend. He does all that. And if your best player is doing that, it puts pressure on the rest of the team like, “Well, keep up or maybe we don’t need you.” Nicole Joic obviously has the entire Nuggets uh on on one page. Uh the folks over at the Ringer today called it a hive mind where it’s just they all function the way Jokic has them functioning. And so maybe in that case, you don’t need a coach that runs hot. You need a coach who can step in and say, “Hey, almost play oddly maybe good cop to the star players bad cop at times maybe.” So that’s where Bednar is already successful and Adelman’s having early returns that are positive. Yeah, that could very well be the case. It’s just the balance between those two particular personalities and how some of the players react to it and who your superstars are. Right. Right. And that matters a lot. The wrong different kind of superstar if you have a guy that’s pretty casual. I mean, look, it it was it was um it was across social media and everything yesterday. It’s been talked about a lot. Um, look at how perfectly matched the personalities were of Greg Papovic and Tim Duncan, right? Just look like they just they they just matched each other. They aligned very well. And that there’s a reason that Tim and Manu were there at his press conference yesterday um as well as a lot of the other players including players former Spurs that were there um to support him. There’s just there was something about those two personalities together. Maybe that is the sort of thing we need to pay attention to at Ball Arena. Could be. We will find out more about it, of course, in the off season. They do have a lot of free agents. The Trades acquired some some free agents as well, and they have just about 8.7 million under the cap, which doesn’t sound like very much, and it’s not, but things aren’t as dire as you think. There are things the ABS could do. We’ll talk more about that as the off season uh goes along a little earlier than any of us wanted to, but obviously it’s a it’s a rainy day out there, so you’re not uh you’re not going out playing a little golf today, but uh enjoy the free car washes. I mean, there’s that at least, right? So, you get a nice fresh car, you load the clubs up in there, you go play a little bit of golf, and we out the spot for you. Denver golf, eight unique and distinctive courses. That’s what you get when you have courses in Colorado. Urban, mountain settings, everything in between, outstanding course conditions. It’ll be even a little better this weekend with the rain and affordable prices. Denver Golf’s courses are scattered throughout the metro area. So, no matter where you are in the metro area, there’s probably one conveniently located near you. And there’s professional and friendly customer service. Everyone’s welcome at all of Denver’s courses. So book your tea time today at cityofdenvergolf.com. That’s cityofdenvergolf.com. Come home to play. denvergolf is your neighborhood course. I told him I’d only go there with him and I knew it was a lie as soon as I said it. We like to watch. My parents don’t understand. I’m definitely a screamer. It used to be just me and her. But more people makes it more fun. Football at Hooters. All the games all season. Crazy good wings, ice cold beer, and the best fans on the planet. Hooters. Joining us now is our friend Doug Ottawa, the editor-inchief of Mile High Sports and Mile Sports Magazine. Of course, uh you know, um you might have seen uh this gentleman on uh shelves around the metro area of late. Uh Aaron Gordon. You know, you might be familiar with him if you’re a Nuggets fan. you might be familiar with what he did last night. Gets the game winner for the Nuggets. Uh I I’ll start with with that, Doug. Nate mentioned it when he was on. We’re kind of still buzzing after this. That comeback was was so quick uh so shocking. So I pointed out ESPN’s analytics with six minutes left had the uh the Thunder’s chances of winning at 98%. And here we are watching the Nuggets walk away with a one zero lead in this series and just taking the air completely out of the stadium. And even it looked like some of the players and coaching staff of the Thunder after game one. I mean, the number of times that I said, “Oh, it’s over.” I mean, it it was it was pretty much all night. I mean, they they just look like a team that threw a real big haymaker right out of the gates, looked great for about five minutes, and then you’re kind of like, “Yeah, no, this looks like a tired team that that that played a game seven less than 48 hours ago.” You know, the funny thing was is that it seemed like that 11 point difference was just this barrier they could not overcome. All of a sudden, you look up and they win the game. And you know, it was like when did it go from 11 down to being up one? And you know, it was it was just the um it was the stick tuitiveness I think that impressed me more than anything. I mean, you could talk about any any one guy’s performance. Um, but I think just the the the team’s ability to not give up was was really really impressive last night. Yeah. And that’s part of that championship pedigree, right? I mean, Aaron Gordon talked about it after the game mentioning that we’ve we’ve been in these situations before. We we know how to handle it. And that’s I think one of the major differences that I think that the national media sort of more or less missed out on. I talked about it yesterday as well, but the idea that the Nuggets have been there and done that. Uh the Thunder will get there, but we watched in the the Golden State Houston series. Houston is really good, everybody. They’re not going away anytime soon. But guess what? They don’t have that that knowledge of how different the NBA playoffs is. I I’ve covered the NBA for a long time, and I remember talking to players uh early on in my career and said, you know, what’s the difference? They said basically for a young player, one series of of NBA playoff basketball is the equivalent of about two months of a regular season’s worth of learning. I mean, that’s how different the game is. And so, you can understand when a when a team like the Rockets can’t get past a team like the Warriors because late in the game, the Warriors execute. They’re calm, cool, collected. The the the Rockets hadn’t been there before. And we saw that last night with the Thunder. The the the Nuggets could have been nervous. They could have made, you know, quick decisions. They were sensible. They were smart. They continued to just cut nibble back one at a time and then they end up blitzing them at the very very end. And the part I thought was really shocking about it is that in the endo David Adelan out coached Mark Daniel by the end. Out coached him in the final six minutes with the substitutions with the way they went for offense and defense with uh SGA trying to get Daniel not to review uh a foul because he knew they weren’t going to get it and they didn’t want them to use that last uh that last challenge. I mean, when’s the last time you seen a star player try to tell his coach, “Do not challenge.” Coach does it anyway? And he did so because he was so intent on seeing if they could get Nicole Joic out of the game. That’s why he did it. He was kind of hoping that maybe they could win something out of the replay. We saw that with Hartinstein. We saw that with Homegrren when Joic got in foul trouble. The the Thunder almost put themselves a little bit offkilter. So, desperately trying to get him to foul out of the game. And again, that is one of those things, not I’m not saying anything about uh the just the nature of the NBA. It’s the nature of any any sports league, right? MVPs, superstars, they don’t foul out of games unless it is pretty obvious. And it’s going to be hard to foul Nicole Joic out. Not only because Joic will play smart, but uh referees are not going to be keen to throw him out. They didn’t like throwing out Michael Jordan. They don’t like throwing out LeBron James. They don’t like throwing out Steph Curry’s. Uh they don’t like doing it. And the fact that the Thunder basically leaned in in the final five minutes, they could they could foul Yokicow showed to me a massive amount of inexperience on display. Yeah. And I think if you look back at, you know, you think back to quite a few of the recent NBA champions, whether it’s Boston, whether it was Denver, um, Milwaukee or Toronto, they all have to kind of climb that hill and get knocked down to the bottom before they actually win it. And it’s just it is the way of the modern NBA. I mean, and and this is I say modern NBA because yeah, there are the Spurs, there are the Bulls, there are the Lakers, where teams that are, for lack of a better term, dynasties or at least always in contention. Those teams have the experience and they know how to win and they stayed together. In the modern NBA, I feel like you have a lot of these teams that have really young stars. The Celtics being a great example. I mean, they have a great core, but it took them getting upset by the Heat in the 2023 playoffs to to get to the top. And I think, you know, Oklahoma City is a very talented team. I mean, obviously SGA is a great player, but he’s got a supporting cast that’s really second to none in the league. And, you know, if you think about it, they haven’t really gotten that far in the playoffs. And I think I I’m not sure if they’re ready to take sort of that two-step leap. I think Denver represents a major hurdle for them. If they get past Denver, I think they can win it. Um but I also think that they they’ve got some demons. They they they’ve got to figure out their lumps and and figure out how to get to the top of that mountain even though they’re talented. and they are talented, but like you said, the a playoff series is worth whatever you want to, you know, two months of a regular season to a guy. I mean, they got a lot of really good young players and they have been together, but I I’m not so convinced that they’re ready to make that leap. I mean, winning a lot of games in the regular season is not the same as winning 16 in the postseason. It’s just a different game. These are the best players on the world and and you know guys like Nicole Joic and even Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon I mean they know what it took to win and so that’s why you see a team like Denver just hang in there wait for their chance take their punches and they got the job done. Yeah, a very a very impressive win. And it’s worth noting, I mentioned this yesterday, you know, as well, but but 22 teams have won 65 or more regular season games in a season and then the Thunder won 68. 68% of those teams, 15 won the title. But if you do look at the teams that didn’t, a lot of them were teams that had those big years the first time and didn’t come out and get it. And you look at the Golden State Warriors won even with their championship pedigree. They didn’t get it when they had uh their 73 that broke the the Bulls record. So when you look at this now, what do you look at going forward? A couple things for the Nuggets went really well that have to keep going well. They were outstanding at the free throw line. It felt like they could even have been better, but they were they were better than they were in the regular season. And what shocked me is is for a player in Shay Gildas Alexander’s uh area code in which, you know, obviously he draws an awful lot of fouls, that the Nuggets actually had more free throw shots than the Thunder. And that’s because I think the Nuggets did something the Thunder simply don’t have the ability to compete with. Chad Homegrren cannot guard Nicole Joic. He’s just, sorry to think, he’s too small. And Aaron Gordon basically went right through him on a dunk earlier in the game. The Nuggets have a physicality. And if they can play bully ball and keep going to the rack, they’re going to be able to match uh shot forshot from the Charity Stripe. And that is one of the things that’s differentiated both Gildas Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder. If they’re within the same number of shots roughly at the free throw line at the end of every game, you’re going to see the Nuggets with a lot of chances to win and they can control that narrative and control that by simply working the ball inside and forcing the Thunder to stop them. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that we learned last night is that this is probably not going to be Jamal Murray’s series. as much of an X factor as he is and can be and he’ll have his moment for sure, but the strength of of Oklahoma City is their perimeter defense. Um they’ve got waves of guys that can that can guard Murray, but they really don’t have an answer for Nicole Joic. And and I think, you know, if I’m Oklahoma City, I got real concerns about, you know, the mindset of Chad Holgren right now. I mean, not only did he miss the game’s biggest free throws, but he got dunked on in in grand fashion by Aaron Gordon, and he got pushed around by Nicole Joic. I mean, he’s a really good young player. Um, obviously very instrumental to what they did as a team this year, but I got to think that a guy like that, a young guy like that has has some major doubts when he wakes up this morning, given how that game played out. I mean, really, really good player, but Nicole Joic is is in a different league. And not just in a different league, but in a different weight class, and that shows up big time. I mean, you know, there’s not a lot that Chad Homegrren can do to to stop him. And, you know, I think they have some other bigs, but it’s going to create a weight and size problem mismatch for them somewhere. And yeah, as Gordon, right? and Hartstein is is just not as as he’s a very good player and obviously Nuggets fans are thinking boy wouldn’t he’d be nice to have as your backup center right now. They had him for a while and didn’t quite see what the Thunder saw, but he is not Jokic’s equal and so he’s going to draw fouls because he doesn’t have the same uh footwork and skills. Obviously, both those guys had five fouls and in Homegr’s case, yeah, size is a problem. Now, you wonder, this is a guy that thinks like, hey, if I would have uh hit both my free throws, it’s an overtime game at at worst. if I had even hit, you know, one of them, who knows? Because uh may maybe there’s the way it sets up, if he missed, if he had hit a second, the defense could have set up better. It would have made it harder for the Nuggets to get the game-winning shot. And so, you’re right. You do wonder about a youngster uh like Homegrren. But you bring up the idea of Aaron Gordon. And and here’s the part that I think is fascinating. Aaron Gordon had 22 points at 14 boards last night. If you’re thinking, “Boy, that that is a lot of rebounds for Aaron Gordon.” Yeah, you’d be right. The last time Aaron Gordon had more, he had 15 rebounds in a g game against the Kings on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day 2024 never reached 14 at any point this season. He didn’t reach 14 at any point in the postseason last year. It’s been over. It’s a calendar year since Aaron Gordon had that kind of rebound numbers. And it’s simply because they don’t have guys that are big enough to stop Gordon from getting the rebounds. usually he’s the undersized guy having to battle for it. Now he’s actually one of the bigger guys down there certainly in strength uh who who can go grab him and that changes things dramatically for the Nuggets as well if they’re getting additional possessions on the offensive glass or if they’re making sure that they’re getting a higher percentage of the defensive rebounds. Yeah. And I would throw Christian Brown in there too. I mean, you know, just in a general sense, I didn’t think the Nuggets were the better team for most of that game, but I did think that they became the more physical team when the when the moments were big. And I thought Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, obviously Joic, um, they all played a role in that. Hey, we are we are going to bully you around and we are going to crash the glass and and you know, all of those guys had huge numbers rebounding wise. And I it it there’s no no denying the impact of that on the final score. And you know, getting back to Aaron Gordon, I mean, there there aren’t many guys that you could be more happy for. Um, this guy just has reinvented himself. I mean, he’s become an outstanding perimeter shooter. You know, he’s he he doesn’t have to have the the high-flying acrobatic dunk. I mean, he just does the little things. I mean, he is the most selfish player. selfless player um that I can think of. I mean, he just does whatever this team asks of him. And I I would say through the through the postseason, you know, you can make the argument he’s been their most important player. I don’t know if you could say best ever on a team with Nicole Yic, but he’s been their best player at least a few games. Um but but man, has he been critical in in them advancing and especially obviously last night. And that has honestly really not much to do with the very last shot. Although that was sort of the capper, you know, right? But, you know, and if he misses it and we’re talking about a game one loss or it was close, he still gets 19 points and 14 boards. It’s it’s not nothing. And you bring up Christian Brown. 13 rebounds for Brown. The leader in rebounds for the Thunder wasn’t Homegr. It wasn’t Hartstein. It wasn’t Jaylen Williams. It was SGAA. He had 10. The Nuggets had three guys with 13 or more. They outrebounded the Thunder by 20. That is a major difference maker. The Nuggets way to win this series is very straightforward. And everybody now, only one game knows it. The Nuggets can bully the Thunder around. They can they can play them with physical basketball. And now it’s the playoffs. The little hand checks and all that nonsense. Those aren’t called anymore. That that’s the kind of stuff where a lot of the finesse teams that run into the playoffs, Nuggets have done it before in their past and wondering, gee, what’s happening? That’s because they don’t they let them play. And the Nuggets have an opportunity to do something the Thunder haven’t seen this year because in the regular season you can’t do it. They can simply take the ball down the court and bully him. If they tighten up the the uh turnovers a little bit, they had double the turnovers. 18 turnovers uh to nine for the for the Thunder who really can’t probably do much better than that. They took great care of the ball. The Nuggets were sloppy. Yokic had more turnovers than assists. Westbrook had more turnovers than assists. Uh Jamal Murray had six assists to four turnovers. uh they weren’t very good with the ball and they still come away with a win. That part is is really really exciting for this team. Now the fatigue is a concern. Obviously you only played three guys off the bench, but I thought it was interesting that one of them was Julian Strawther in the early going. That shows that that David Adelman is willing to do some things differently than Michael Malone does, especially in the early going. And that’s something that that is a shift for Nuggets fans to learn about as well. Yeah, I think Strawler is an interesting one. Um, you know, it it gives Oklahoma City some more things to think about on the perimeter. I mean, as good as they are on the perimeter, if you can have more guys that can shoot an outside shot, and obviously MPJ looked really off last night. I mean, I don’t know if it’s the injury, I don’t know if it’s just MPJ being MPJ, but more guys you can put out there to give them something to think about. I think that’s that’s important when a team depth defensively on the perimeter as Oklahoma City does. But I think, you know, you look at Peyton Watson. I mean, I think his impact on the game was really big mostly on the defensive end. I mean, again, you you’ve got guys that can play. Um, I don’t necessarily want Peyton Watson taking too many shots, but if he can give those guys fits, especially if they’re doubling on the outside and and switching on the outside, I mean, he plays a big role, too. So yeah, I think Adam has, you know, I I’m not ready to give him the job, but his his game plan and his especially his final quarter or final five minutes. Um really really good audition and I think like you said he’s doing things differently. I don’t think all these guys, whether you’re a booth guy or a Malone guy, I don’t think none of these guys can play. I think it’s a matter of a coach finding situations that he’s confident in their abilities in that moment. And I think you saw last night. Yeah. And and uh in the Porter Jr. case, I took a look at the game again this morning. I do think that the shoulder is bothering him. And I think that right now Porter Jr. doesn’t have a ton of confidence in it. And when there were other guys, at least Murray in the early going making his shots, uh he was kind of seating that and and you hope it continues to get better with a little rest. But the Strawther thing is interesting when you talk about size because Julian Strawther is uh 66 about 210, right? And you think about the physicality of of some of the defensive players on the Thunder. You think of Lou Dort, he’s 6’4, 220. Straw’s basically that size. Jaylen Williams is 6’5 211. Strawther is basically almost exactly that size. Kenri Kenri Williams coming off the bench, physical defender, 66, 210. Julian Strawler is a is a two guard or a three coming off the bench that would actually be one of the bigger players on the Thunder. It gets masked because of Hartinstein and Homegrren, but this team for the for the uh the Thunder is not only not very tall, it’s also very light. It they don’t have a lot of guys that weigh a lot. And of course, you know, you make whatever joke you make about Homegrren and and those skinny little calves, and we know he’s talented, but look, you have to take it to him. And I think Adelman did the right thing with it. I think the Nuggets kept their cool in this going forward. Now, we know they’ll be better taking care of the ball. We don’t know if they’ll be as good uh shooting from the the charity stripe. We don’t know how much better they’ll get from three-point. I know they were a little under their average, but we’ve talked about it. Uh we’re talking about a Oklahoma City Thunder that had the best three-point defense in the league. So, maybe this is just what the Nuggets are going to get. What do you expect to see different from the Thunder? Is it just all SGA all the time? or if you were looking at it, what are you doing? I think defensively you’re gonna see something that’s a little more like what LA did. And obviously I think Zubox is a different he’s a different kind of they don’t have a Zubox. He he gave Nicole Joic all he wanted. And I think that’s a that’s something you can’t replace. But I think one of the things that you saw the Clippers do was they ran a lot of guys at Nicole Joic and and they were constantly, you know, doubling from his blind side and and, you know, they just didn’t give him room to do much. Um, I thought Jamal Murray actually had a lot of good looks. I think he just was cold last night. So, you know, do I think that if they make those adjustments, Jamal Murray will be a non-factor? No, I think it’ll be a big factor. Um, and I do think that that the Thunder’s going to have to do something like that because I mean, regardless of what the stats say of Nicole Joic, if he scores a lot, the Nuggets lose. If he, you know, if he’s not getting assists, the Nuggets don’t play well. I mean, I thought he did exactly what he needed to do last night. And I think it’s going to cause those adjustments. And I would expect that his assist will go up next game. and his um points will go down because Oklahoma City has no other choice but to try to figure out some way to slow him down. You you can’t have situations where he gets a match in the high post and just his guy down the lane and and takes up. I mean, you just can’t let that happen to him and you’re the Thunder. So I think see Brown, Murray, but maybe even Strawler open looks because they’re going to have to come from somewhere. Yeah. And and then now it’s a little challenging because you don’t have like a Zubox. You have some smaller guys or Hartinson is a little too slow. And in Joic’s case, yeah, you can you can try to flood Joic and and force the turnovers or cut off. We saw them try to cut off the passing lanes and maybe you can flood Joic and knock his shooting down, but he’ll just adjust to that. And what I really like seeing was Joic deciding that a large part of this game, he said 29 shots last night and I appreciated that because you got a Jokic who was engaged and decided, all right, you know, I I’ve got to put the team on my back tonight and and that’s what I’ve got to do. And as the game went along, you saw Joic almost have an increasing you could almost see it. The the desire to win, he was starting to get pissed off quite frankly. Uh you know, Lou Dort caught a caught a stray elbow to the back of the head. Joker didn’t mean to get him in the back of the head, but he absolutely meant to thump him after the reachin foul by Dort. It was absolutely meant as a message. He’s like, “Hey, you’re going to get in my face. Uh, yeah, you’re going to get hit. I I don’t care. I’ll take the flagrant.” Because he knew what was coming and he walked right back to the bench. They’re reviewing it. Jokic knew what it was. He knew he knew exactly what it was. The plan was I’m going to let this guy know like you’re going to get my grill. You’re going to catch an elbow. You’re going to catch some strays here. and seeing Jokic basically just decide uh going a little bit of you know borrowing it from Marshall Lynch a little bit of beast mode here. Um as good as as Shay Gills just Alexander is when Nicole Joic goes like that there is no player on the planet earth currently playing basketball that can do anything to stop him. The catch for Adelman and for the Denver Nuggets is to make sure that Jokic stays in that mode. The best Nicole Joic can do is stay in that attack mode. stay in that. The first thing you have to do is stop me. If you can’t stop me, I’m just going to keep doing this all game. But the second you have to add more help, I’m just going to hit open guys because again, the diversified scoring of the Nuggets, three guys in in 20 points or more. Westbrook was just short at 18 and uh only two players at 20 or more and one of them was just odd with Al Caruso who just could not miss last night. Probably won’t do that again. The Nuggets are not in good shape. They are not the favorites, nor should they be. But boy, give you this one, Doug. If they managed to go in and and the approach for game two matters a lot. You could look at it and say, “We did what we needed to do. We reclaimed homecourt advantage. Win or lose this game. We come back to five game series with three in Denver.” You could do that. Or you could put the pedal to the metal while the Thunder are a little bit wobbly because how about this? teams since in the NBA playoffs history that are road teams that take the first two games presume they’ll win a lot of series. Yeah, it’s 12 and two, 86%. And I think everything changes if the Nuggets win game two. I don’t think the Nuggets should relax a bit. I think they should come out there and play more bully ball on tomorrow night and make the Thunder stop them. Yeah, and I think that’s where that experience we talked about right off the bat comes into play because I think the Nuggets understand they are mismatched. They they do not have the depth that Oklahoma City has. They don’t have the talent top to bottom that Oklahoma City has. But what they do have is a one lead and the greatest player in the world. And they’ve got a lot of sides. And and I think this is where I really like David Alman. I I I think David Alman understands that, hey, one game doesn’t mean any they don’t want to come home with a split all the ABS in Dallas. You know, they don’t they don’t want that. they they want to step on their throats because they know that’s might be what it takes to win this series. Um I just think that they’re they’re a team that understands their lot in life right now, which is hey got some high miles and they’ve got a really short bench and care of business while they can. I mean even in 2023 when we saw that Michael Malone shortened the bench they were very good at taking care of business. I mean, not home court throughout the whole playoffs, but you know, they around much with any single opponent in that in that championship run. And I think there’s lessons to be learned. They all will remember and when you talk about that and that most of these guys are on that team, the advantage of that is, okay, your bench is short, you don’t have as many guys, but guess what? You don’t have to find synergy with new guys. Everybody knows the six guys that are going to be on on the on the court for the most part and with but some Payton Watson here and there. And Westbrook is new, but he’s the only one that’s new. And Westbrook is sort of his own weird creature as he described that after game seven. Uh his job is to go out there and bleep bleep up. I mean, that’s what he said his job is. And he get everyone understands that. And he did that again in game one. So everyone, even if your bench is short, everyone that’s on the floor for the Nuggets knows everyone else and knows what their job is. And more than anything else, I think that’s what carried the day. So the Nuggets have to play just a little bit better, a little more careful with the basketball. And tomorrow night, they probably find themselves in a dog fight in the fourth quarter. You just have to out execute again. And and I think too that the thing that I that I’ve kind of noticed about Adelman’s substitutions and even just sort of that surprise um you know insert Julian Strather, I think he’s been very smart with how his lineups and his rotations are going. I think when you think about, you know, sort of vintage Michael Malone, it’s oh, it’s it’s 10 minutes, this guy’s going in, this guy’s coming out. Oh, it’s 15 minutes, this guy’s going in, this guy’s going out. And it was it was very very systematic and it hey look it worked for him for a lot of wins. So I’m not completely critical of it but I think you know in some of those times and you think back especially regular season games you could look at that Nuggets team and god I hate this lineup. Who in the heck’s going to score? I I don’t really remember saying that last night. Um there there was times when you’re like man that you know and the announcers especially you know the the TNT crew is very familiar with the term nonic minutes. Um and but I did think that even when he was out they had guys that were capable of scoring and I think you know some of that is sets some of that’s uh you know the offensive scheme when he’s not in there. And and I’ve, you know, I’m I’m I’m short of saying I’m impressed with Alamman, but it looks different to me. And I think different in this instance is good. Yeah. And obviously the Nuggets walk away with a a shocking win. Uh maybe even maybe even better in some ways than a game in which it was just back and forth and Nuggets came out on top because the Thunder have to do some soularching and you like being able to put another team on that. If the Nuggets, you look at it and say, “We didn’t even play that well and we rolled into the top seated team that had six rest days to R1 and we beat them anyway.” and and confidence is real. Momentum is real. It does happen. So, we’ll find out more about it tomorrow night. He is Doug Otawill, the editor-in chief of Mile High Sports Magazine. You see all of those uh all over uh behind him, behind us here at the number 38 studios. And yeah, you know, we grab uh we grab covers with guys like this, you know. What a guy. What a guy. And you know what? It was it was really I thought about it, Doug, before you go. uh seeing him with his nephews uh at at the podium after the game and in this magazine with them then we had the interview with Aaron Gordon about uh his life and the way he lives his life now especially after the passing of of his brother Drew. Um, it was really heartening to see that because, you know, I knew the backstory of that intimately because, uh, we had talked about it with Aaron Gordon in Mile High Sports magazine. And so, you want to add some depth to your knowledge, not just the stats, not the other stuff, but find out what makes the players behind the game tick. You want to grab those and they’re still available, of course, and you catch them online at milehighports.com. Doug, uh, exciting game one. Excited to get to talk to you about it. We’ll find out more this week. Appreciate the time. Hey, hope we’re talking after another win here soon. Yes, indeed. Thanks so much, Doug. Otterill joins us. Uh, so so great to talk to Doug, a long time Nugget season ticket holder that he knows that from the get-go, uh, he’s been through all the Nug Life, good, bad, and indifferent. So, great to talk to him about it about this as well. Great to talk to you about it. What a tremendous win. Uh, Nate Money, who was here with us earlier, is right. The whole town is still kind of buzzing over that just rockus comeback for the Nuggets that sucked the air out of the building in Oklahoma City. just delightful to see if you’re a Nuggets fan and all of a sudden you wonder h all things become possible again and maybe after game two we’re talking about something vastly vastly different here’s hoping so Danny Bailey’s the man the booth he makes all of it work thanks to N Lundy for joining us earlier a Doug Otter will right there we’ll have an opportunity you saw the video we we borrowed from Troy Rank as he sent that to us from Oklahoma City Troy Rank will join us tomorrow to talk more about that we’ll have the opportunity to talk to Troy as well so don’t miss that’ll do it for us today. The Nuggets with a big win. Jared Benar returning as the coach of the Avalanche for a record 10th season next year. We’re looking forward to breaking it all down with you tomorrow as well. For all of us here at My Life Sports, I’m Sean Droar. Thanks for watching Mile High Sports today. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
