CLINCHED: Nuggets Are In Playoffs | MVP Debate | Playoff Scenarios

0:00Hey everyone, this is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of The Lockdown Podcast Network. Thank you for being here, because your support means everything. And if you're looking for another way to support the show that you love, while getting something awesome in return, check out the Every Day or Club. You get ad free episodes of your favorite lockdown show, access to a member's only group chat for fans of your team, and you can even jump into the national chats and talk about whatever's happening across the league. Tap the Every Day or Club link in the show notes to learn more. When I said the nuggets would not miss the playoffs, they would not be in the play-in. I was told that if I was wrong, I would have to wear a clown makeup on the show. No red notes for you folks, the nuggets clinch a play-off spot. What the nuggets fans should be rooting for the rest of the way?

1:01Practice notes? Jazz preview? A little MVP talk. It's Lockdown Nuggets. You are Lockdown Nuggets, your daily Denver Nuggets podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Lockdown Nuggets, your daily Denver Nuggets podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks for joining us and making us part of your day being an everyday and making us your first listen. We appreciate each and every one of you joining us, whether you're on podcasts or you can get this show for free wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you're joining us at youtube.com slash Lockdown Nuggets, we do appreciate each and every one of you. You can join up to be a part of our Every Day or Club. You get access to us in the discord, answering questions, posting content, extra stuff. I'll have a jazz scouting report up tomorrow. It would help me. I will do the scouting report for the jazz game. We will do that tomorrow in depth stuff for the playoffs, extra bonus content, lots of stuff for you on the Everydayers Club, site of it, lockdownnuggets.supercast.com, right

2:06now. Well, okay, on today's show, we'll talk a little bit of MVP, Ryan's got some thoughts on that. We're going to talk about the jazz game. We're going to talk about what we heard at practice and what we, I mean, Ryan because I got there late because life and we'll tell you what the nuggets fans need to be rooting for as we go along. Right now, in the comments at youtube.com slash lockdownnuggets, drop the clown emoji. And call her, he says, why the clown emoji is here's why, here's why, call her because I said there was comments about, like, when things were going bad, when February, with the month of February. No, no, no, it's even before this, honestly, because it's when Joker went down. When Joker went down, everyone was like, we're going to be in the play and I was like, you're not going to be in the play. And then they were like, you're crazy. They can't win a game without Joker. And I said, no, like, it's probability, you're probably going to be okay. They went much better than that. They went 10 and 6 because probability can swing the other way. Then when things went bad in February, I was like, you guys, you're not going to be in the play and turn me. You're going to be fine. And everyone was like, we're going to be in the play. And it's all bad. And I was like, okay, if they're in the play in tournament based off of what I've seen,

3:09I will wear clown makeup on this show. I will put my, I will paint my face as a clown. I will be Pagliacci and about, but I said, if, if, if I'm right and they don't miss the playoffs, they are, in fact, they're not in the play in. I want the clown emojis to fill up the chat. That is why everyone is responding with the clown emojis. For once Ryan, people are putting clown emojis in response to me and it's not calling me that. One time, man, it's a first time for everything, man. First time for everything. Sometimes it goes that way. No, now, now you guys instead have to subscribe to Locked on Nuggets.supercast.com. That's the, the only possible retribution here. It's the only way that we're going to be able to be happy about so much, so much. So much. I'm so proud of you turning this moment of content into an opportunity for you to profit off of it. The only way I know, man, no, I mean, so here's the thing, like Nuggets fans have

4:13been so stressed for this season, right? This has been a very stressful year. You get off to the good start. Everybody's excited. Everybody's looking for it. And I'm like, I don't know, their defense is pretty bad, like it's not, it's not the second ranked defense of the entire NBA, lo and behold, it obviously wasn't. But it was, in fact, like way worse because of the injuries that they then sustained and Nuggets fans having to figure, look, how are we going to get healthy? What is this going to be? Like, how is this even going to work? And now you're at the end of it, like through all of this, through all the context, you've had six games remaining in the entire season. And the Nuggets are the foreseed. The Nuggets have clinched a playoff birth. They are in line. It's not a guarantee, but they are in line to host a first round playoff series. And beyond that, they're probably not as good as the teams above them or at least two of the teams above them from a talent standpoint, from a impacted and what they have already done in the regular season standpoint.

5:13But as we saw last year, that can kind of go out the window if you hit a team in the mouth a little bit early, and then you can turn it into a pretty exciting playoff series that could have gone Denver's way if things go like one direction or the other. So I'll be very curious to see whether that translates, but Nuggets fans take a sigh of relief. This team is going to be in the playoffs. It's not all disaster zone. Didn't have to be three, two, three, four, five, two, three. Is that eight years now? Eight straight playoff appearances for the ever Nuggets? Yeah, they missed the first three with Yokech. And this is year 11 for Yokech. So yes, that's a real, I don't know. I understand how people feel about it with like 50 wins is easy and making the playoffs is easy because half the league gets in. I get it. I don't know, man. I think it's an accomplishment to make the playoffs eight years in a row. I think that's something to be proud of. You're almost like you've never been lower than a six seed in that conversation. Yeah, they have been at the top half of the league and then some. Yeah. Yeah. So it's an accomplishment.

6:15We will, we'll start this conversation now, a comprehension to the second segment. Here's what you probably want to root for the rest of the way. Lakers lead Cavaliers by a lot last time I checked, yeah, it's 15 mid-third. Cavs can obviously come back, but it's likely that the Lakers win this game. Given that their magic number for the three seed will be down to four versus the nuggets, that would mean that like let's assume the nuggets lose at least one more game. That's reasonable, right? They probably lose more than that because they have spurs twice at OKC. One more game. So that gets you down to three. That means that the Lakers and their six remaining games just have to go 500. Yeah. So I'm not willing to call it a lock yet because OK, because the Lakers do have OKC twice and the Sons. There's a phrase I started using when I started tracking playoff stuff, which is near lock. It's a near lock. The Lakers are going to be third. Yeah. Oh. Now your number for your magic number for a to be in the four five is five after the

7:20rockets win tonight. So if the nuggets and their remaining six games go four and two, they just need one more loss from either Minnesota or Houston for you to lock the four five matchup. Yeah. I don't think the four five matters a pun. The four five four versus five. I'm OK. If Denver has to go on the road, it's better if you're home because you got the game seven insurance. It's something that Adam and actually talked about it at practice today. They're like, hey, you would prefer to be the four than the five because you don't have to travel that you don't have to start that first initial. The leg of your travel, like as soon you get to have 10 straight days in Denver, kind of leading up to that and then, then you travel after that. Yeah. So it's going to be the four five. So now here's a question that you really going into, which is whether the nuggets fans want to root for. If you're going to be in the four five, then obviously what you want is you want OK

8:21seat to lose because you now want them in the two three. Your objective here is to get the Lakers that is the thunder to have to go through the winner of preferably you want Lakers wolves. That's the bracket you are now rooting for is you want, if you're going to be locked into the four, you can't get three. You want spurs to catch thunder possible. You get thunder into Lakers in three wolves and six. That means you get Houston and San Antonio is your side of the bracket. That is what you are rooting for. So from here on out, you are rooting for Houston because you could still, like, they have to catch you and pass you by one in order to steal the five from you because you have tiebreaker over Houston. You are rooting for them. You are rooting for you and you're rooting against OKC, which you should always probably be rooting against OKC, but now especially because you don't have to worry about the bracket implications and you're rooting for San Antonio. Yeah. You with me on this? Of course. You got to be the biggest Lakers fans possible, like that's the thing yet you got a root

9:22for the Lakers that got a couple of games, couple narrative games coming up between Lakers Thunder. Luca Donchech has an opportunity to make us a sterling MVP case in that situation. You got to be a big Luca MVP fan, excited for him to put his best foot forward for the Lakers to dominate in those couple of games. And then what that does if the Lakers were to be the Thunder twice is it gives the spurs an opportunity. Now, if you're Denver Saturday's coming up, we talked about this at the arena. There's a Nugget Spurs game and then there's another Nugget Spurs game in game 82. How much like you I assume you're not throwing games, but in terms of, hey, don't necessarily have to play Jamal Murray 40 minutes in this game in order to make sure that you get that win. You don't you don't factor this into your decision making at all. When they were young and they were trying to figure out like just how to like have a good playoff run, I advocated for them to duck Houston because he used a message about matchup

10:25for them at that time in 2019. This is not that like they're a playoff tested better in team like they they should feel confident beating anybody. You don't want to miss the basketball gods. You just don't want to do it. Um, so snow. If I want to walk through this one more time and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit about the rest of the scenarios and the rest of the bracket and then we'll talk a little bit about what happened to practice day. So snow will fast. I thought we want the Lakers to lose so the Nuggets can get the third seed. So again, I want to run through this. The Lakers magic number to get the third seed is going to be four after they beat the Cavaliers tonight. They have, uh, they will have six games remaining. They face three tanking teams thunder twice and sons. So it's three week opponents. Thunder twice sons. I have that right. Right? Uh, yes. And the other thing is that the Lakers have 26 losses. The nuggets of 28 nuggets do not have the tie breaker there. So they would have to have the Lakers have more losses than they incurred. Right. So the whole thing with this is if you can't, if you can't reasonably catch it, what

11:28you don't want to have happen is the thunder beat the Lakers twice. It's close Denver is close enough. They have to keep playing and competing because it's like, well, if we win, we could get what if we win and the Lakers were to lose to whoever we could get the three seed. Wouldn't that be great? We could avoid the thunder. You don't do it. And then all you've done is you've pushed yourself all the way through the end of the season. You haven't gotten rest and you still wind up with the thunder in the one seed facing you in the second round in the bracket. So like that, that is the scenario that you kind of have to look at here. Uh, they don't take care of business, but the, the schedule that the Lakers have for the rest of the season, they're going to get to win tonight. OK, see Dallas, OK, see Golden State Phoenix, Utah. So it's going to get easier for them down the stretch. Yeah. That's when the phase games at home, if they just win Utah, Golden State, Dallas, they're probably in given the Denver's likely going to lose one more.

12:30Yeah. So that's how that goes. Um, coming up, we'll talk a little bit more about this. There's practice today. Ryan's got notes from what the, what Peyton Watson came Johnson and David Adelman said today. We'll talk about the jazz game and the injury updates on all the guys. We'll get into the jazz game as a preview. And we'll talk a little bit about the MVP coming up as well. Lots more to come on locked on nuggets. Spring is a natural reset point. And there's one thing that can quietly cost business money. And that's messy communication. Miss calls, scatter text, no clear thread of who said what? That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. Spell Q.U.O. The smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews trusted by more than 90,000 businesses. It lets your entire team share one business number so you never miss a call, text, or opportunity. What you're going to love is everything's in one clean thread. Calls, texts, and voicemails. The whole team sees a conversation. So nothing falls through the cracks. You've got redundancies, which is huge in business.

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14:32now to begin. Futures and cleared swaps trading involve significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Many contracts are offered by Robinhood derivatives LLC, a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. We'll be right back on Lockdown Nuggets. Back here on Lockdown Nuggets. Thanks for joining us and making this part of your day. Appreciate you guys being with us. Okay. Ryan, let's go to practice today. Let's start the injury updates. What do we know about where the Niver Nuggets are at, including one very important person practice today? One very important, what a practice today person. Oh, person, a human being. Yes, I believe Josh Kronke is the one that you are mentioning a practice. No, I'm saying Aaron Gordon was the one that practiced a practice today. Oh, yeah, no, Aaron Gordon practiced. That was, that's the important thing for Nuggets from, yeah, when you think about important people, I was like, oh crap, what is he referring to? Typical that you don't think Aaron's important, Ryan.

15:33Yeah, you know, that's cool. He's got me in an arm bar right now. It's great. That's work. Super cool. No, Aaron Gordon practiced today. Cam Johnson also practiced today. Cam Johnson didn't even show up on the injury report in this afternoon. And like, it wasn't even a conversation as to whether he was going to play be available. It sounded like he could have gone into Sunday's game, a back into Sunday's game despite missing with back spasms initially. The Nuggets just decided, hey, he is. In a situation right now where the Nuggets were up by 20 by the end of that game. So I didn't really need to bring him back into it. But he practiced Aaron Gordon practice, Aaron Gordon is probable on the injury report for Wednesday. The guys who did not practice were Spencer Jones, who was a hamstring injury and Ziknaji, who I believe it was an ankle injury if I'm not mistaken. So, yeah, not super encouraging for Spencer Jones to accumulate a hamstring injury at this

16:33point of the season, he even mentioned potentially Peyton Watson playing the five in the Utah game. Okay. Okay. I think he's screwing with you. Just. He didn't tell me. He didn't tell me. All right. I met you in the, yeah. The media sense. Yeah. Yeah. The people that, so here's the thing, here's the thing Ryan is like, he's talking about this to the media and the only person in the media that cares about rotations is you. So it's like, it is, it is talking to you, even if he's not talking at you. Martin asks the important question, Ryan, why are you mugging Matt so hard, though? I don't even know what this is in context to, but I'm putting it on the screen because you, you are trying to, you're trying to make fun of me. I don't know what these words mean. I'm too old for this. So yeah, A.G. is fine. They held him as precaution. They knew they could win without him. Yeah. Cam was precautionary. Everything's good.

17:33Do we get an update on Spencer? He did not practice. There was no like additional update beyond that. I don't know what the severity of the injury is. That was something that, at least not that I, like, I might have missed this in the segment in the, in the scrum, scrumb, but it's like, I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything in particular about Spencer's, like, the severity of the hamstring injury. Okay. So he's out and Zeke's out. Aaron's probable. So this is probably a Val game, then. It should be like, I don't think that they should play Peyton Watson at the five, but honestly, it would not surprise me if they did. I genuinely believe that. Well, I think you can do both honestly, like, if you want to, if you want to try this in saying concept, if you want to dabble in this insanity, you can, by the way, you've consistently said that you think Peyton Watson can play four, yes?

18:34Yeah. Well, if he can play four for you, then he should be able to play five for you. Yeah, it's a bridge too far. It's, now, to be fair, it's something that they used last year next to Michael Porter, Jr., where, yeah, you have him as a role man in the middle of the floor. He can be your short role or he could be somebody that makes a decision on the move. But, like, it involves a lot of finishing for him around the rim, and it's something that I'm not necessarily sure that he's super comfortable with right now. So, like, now, to be fair, in the stretch in January where he and Jamal Murray were playing really well together, he would set, like, slip screens for Jamal. And Jamal would hit him, and he would make plays on the move, and he would get to the free-throw line, and he would make passes, and he would finish some lay-ups. So, like, that, to me, is, like, it's a good way to take advantage of a skill set while being able to play small and quick, but I don't know if there's a real need for it. Joanne Philly says, I'm older than you, Matt. I get my mastery of the latest lingo is on fleek, with fleek, baby.

19:37Which means it was fleek nine years ago. Perez says, mauging is to outclass or dominate others in looks, physical appearance, or confidence. Oh, my God. There ain't no way I'm mauging Matt then. Let me tell you that. So Matt's been killing me at working out. So let's talk about what else happened and what else we got from practice today. What did you hear? What were the things that really casted out to you? Listen to practice today. Some of the important stuff, I would say, there's a lot of talk about connectivity on defense still. There's a lot of talk about, hey, even if, like, things were good overall in Golden State, there was a lot of talk about the previous Utah game, which happened right before the Golden State game, where they allowed 93, where they just were not connected at all defensively. The things did not go well in that particular matchup. They won late because they amped up the pressure at the end and Utah amped up the tanking. But like, their approach has to be much better than that and they know it's, Cam Johnson,

20:42when I asked him, actually, yeah, I asked him about directly what steps he thinks that they've taken forward defensively and he said, quote, it's hard to say where we have. I think we know where we need to and that's because we've had some bad defensive performances over the past week or so. We just need to get better at picking up and transitioning, communicating. We've had some silly, cheap mistakes by getting back cut, messing up communications, things like that. So it's details. It's focus. I don't remember if this was you I was talking to this about, there's a certain level of physical and mental execution and engagement that you have to have and there are different things. Effort is different. You can have good mental effort. It means you are doing the things and understanding where to be and very focused on the game plan. And there's also the physical effort, which is, oh crap, I didn't do that. So I have to make up for it and be really and work really hard on things like that and run that.

21:43You can be great. But yeah, they're not. Yeah, so a good example of this is one of the problems that they've had recently because I'm I am doing a big thing on their defense at the Vicka Lombardi's request is this has stood out to me a lot because I pulled the last six games to kind of see where they've been at. Teams are basically running a mid transition, empty side, pick and roll at Joker. But you don't get back and load up into your positions. You've got no help. You've got no crowding. You've got and you can't do anything with that because it's so high. Joker standing below the free throw line and they are executing a basically a logo, space, pick and roll and getting the guard downhill and then the big rolling and so Joker's having to cover not just like the normal amount of space, but a huge amount of space and there's no help there and it's buckets every single time. So it's a deep drop like why don't they start that drop up higher than like because it's

22:43in mid transition. So Joker's just running back like Joker's not like up hot like Joker's just like running back to get back. Joker would have to go back down and then run back up and then run all the way back. So so Joker needs to stop running to the cylinder like you need to run into that's like that's like that's got to be his assignment, you know, because it's like you're not going to be regard you can't be guard and pick and roll. You can't have Joker guard and pick and rolls out that that far. I will say like that's going to have to be a concern for the nuggets in the playoffs is like, hey, when they start back in this pick up, when they start back in that screen action out with how they're playing drop, the question is just going to be like, do the nuggets play drop then? That's going to be the question. To me, it's like there's just no need for him to drop all the way into the paint before the action is even started. If it's mid, if it's in transition, you got to make sure there's somebody at the room. Do you theoretically, theoretically, the center should be at the room, theoretically, because I think that's one of the game plans for against Denver in all likelihood is that you want to get Yochitch moving as much as possible. So they start those actions immediately and draw him back out and then have him yo yo

23:46back into the paint and then he won't come back out again after that. So I just think like this, this will be something that they solve a little bit in the playoffs. This will be something that like the details are going to be, hey, you do not need to get all the way down initially, just like pick up your guy, understand where he's at and then don't allow a wide open cut to the rim. So coming up, we'll talk some more about the jazz game and we'll talk a little bit on the MVP race as well. That's all next unlocked on nuggets. There's nothing like being in an NBA arena, the crowd, the energy, the moment, getting tickets though. Well, that part hasn't always been so simple. That's why game time has become the go-to app for scoring tickets fast without the hassle. It puts the advantage back rip along with the fans. You are one month away from your Denver Nuggets and your Colorado Avalanche, both in the playoffs again. This is a special time to be a fan of the spring playoff teams in Denver. It is an incredible time and you should be getting in and enjoying these greater atmospheres at ball arena. You can pull up the game time app.

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25:47You get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. That means 10 chances to stay involved throughout the entire tournament. You can mix it up however you want, game picks, futures, or even same game parlays for bigger potential payouts. It's perfect for the tournament because every day there's something new, different matchups, new storylines, and more ways to get involved as a bracket than folds. Visit Fandall.com to sign up today. That's Fandall.com to get in on the action. We'll be right back on Lockdown Nuggets. Back here on Lockdown Nuggets, thanks for joining us and making this part of your day. So you want them in mid-transition to be guarding pick and roll at the level, up high? Mid-transition, yeah, and the only way is that if you're going to get, if you have another low-man, then yes, if you don't have another low-man, then I can understand that. The thing is that their hustle on defense just has to be better from everybody. It's got to be a five person across the board where everybody's getting back into the picture. And you're not having guys just jog back and transition all the time.

26:49It's not just a yokach problem, he's probably the biggest offender in that, but it hasn't just been a yokach problem in that where guys are jogging back rather than getting into a position where they could be helpful in some of these situations. Joe's asking teams are running pick and roll in transition. Mid-transition is like, all right, you got either a loose ball turn over or a long rebound, and everybody's rushing up, and the Nuggets are not all the way back, and so it's kind of scrambled, and you're not everybody's in their positions, and you're running this action to get downhill immediately before the Nuggets defense can set up their help principles. That's kind of the idea here. There's transition, there's mid-transition, there's half court. Mid-transition is like, everybody's still in, like, it's not a fast break downhill, right? It's not a fast break, but it's not a half court set either. It's that weird mid-transition set. I don't really want to spend a lot of time on the jazz game, Kyle Filipowski, maybe get a hand up. Joe was not going to, because he's playing drop right now, and he's not going to guard that, so Filipowski hits threes.

27:49I am just kind of of the position, though, of just like, look, whatever the jazz have to do, to lose this game down the stretch they will, so the bar is literally just like, don't let the team that is actively working to lose out, perform you. That's it. Don't be down at halftime against this darn team. It is not hard, and Denver, I think, coming off of two days of rest, Aaron Gordon potentially coming back here, everybody understands the drill, you have certain things you want to work on and improve upon, so why not use this as an opportunity to do that? You have six more chances before the end of the season. This is not a strong ask. Get them big early, hold the line with the bench, finish the half, kill them in the third called a night. That's what this game should be a blowout. It may not be because the, like, I like a lot of these jazz guys, like I just genuinely do. You should not need to get bailed out by their fourth quarter antics, but the ones that

28:52are playing, by the way, but big honey's right, don't overact, and they don't show up until the fourth quarter. Try not to overact at the end of the game, because all you're really going to care about is if they lose this game. Until it's over, don't forget about it, because this is not a game that they're going to be able to get up for. MVP, a lot of thoughts on this, a lot of talk about it, I do a lot of this stuff all the time. Your article was amazing. You have amazing thoughts, and are the one person that I trust in this mark, like not just this market, but like in this space to have actually done the work on the thing. There are other people that do, but you do the best. Thank you. So I wrote an article for my sub-stack that basically goes over, it's more about what the questions are that you should ask yourself. One of the things I want to just kind of say, and I just have to get this out of my chest. Again, and I'm trying not to get involved on Twitter anymore about it, because I'm just

29:54like, everyone is like, how is it not Luca Doncic? He is scoring 40 points in March, and everyone knows that your points for game in March is what decides the MVP? My only thing is just, it is okay for other people to think that other guys are going to, like, there's four great candidates. It's Nicola, Luca, Shay, and Wendy. I'm okay if you don't think that one of those guys should be in the conversation. You can't say that three of them shouldn't be in its only one guy. That like, I can tell you in depth the reasons and arguments for and against these guys, and any strong argument that you have, I will guarantee you, I have a way to position it where at least you have to accept that's a reasonable response. Like someone in the comments was like, I thought it was the person that's most valuable to their team. Wrong. There is no definition of valuable in the award. The NBA wants it that way. Is it most valuable to your team?

30:55Is it most valuable to the league? Is it most valuable night to night? Is it most valuable across the calendar year? You get to decide that however you decide, just like the voters do. You get to define that however you do. But what you don't get to do is you don't get to say what it is. You can say what you think it is, but you can't say what it is and what it isn't. What are your thoughts on it, Ryan? There's just so many bad faith arguments. Right. And that to me is the one that gets really rough. I put out a kind of a joking tweet earlier that was like, okay, my goal is to make fun of every fan base and to make everybody mad. So at the top spot, I put Shagel just Alexander slash Scott Foster was the best. The MVP candidacy that you have, it's unequivocal. There's no doubt in my mind that that is the best combination in the entire NBA. Obviously, I'm tongue in cheek here, folks. But like, I think that Shay has the best case for MVP this year. I think that Shay probably deserves it again.

31:57I don't know if he earned it over Yokech last year. I think that there was a strong amount of momentum for that. But like, I would have voted for Yokech last year over Shay. And I would vote for Shay this year over Yokech, I think. It's tough. There are no right answers here. I think my order would have been like for this year, Shay, Yokech, Wembee, Luka. And then I guess I can throw Jalen Brown into that, but probably not even. That's, that's what I think where I would go. I'm well known as the biggest Kauai Leonard critic. I'm the only person on the internet that's actually like, you know, he's actually not. That's good of a lockdown clutch guy. I just take years and like, I think he's terrible at leadership and all the, like I have been very vocal in my criticism of Kauai Leonard. I still have him fifth for MVP. He has been better than every other candidate. He has been better than every other candidate. I don't, and if it's like, yeah, they have one games. I don't care if they have one games. We're talking about the fifth guy for MVP. Um, I, I will just tell you I have Nikola third.

32:57Okay. And the problem is that the spurs win their minutes with Victor, women Yama on the floor by 17.4 points per game. It's crazy. I will go back and check. I am pretty confident that is more than Nikola has ever beaten teams by when he's been on the court for Denver. That's insane. That is a ridiculous. It is, it is three points more than, than Shay with this thunder team. That's nuts. And if you want to say like, yeah, but minutes and games, totally, totally fair, completely reasonable. That's why I can't have him number one. Um, this is the deal with, with, with Yoke, basically, okay? The first two and a half months of the season, I think Nikola was playing his best basketball of his career and was incredible. And if he had played like that, you would see me here stumping for him. And on, I would be nationally like, I'm sorry, he has been the most outstanding player. He had, my definition of valuable is always you as, how much do you impact winning?

33:59Yeah. I would have been at, I would be advocating for Nikola based off of his performance in those first two and a half months. He got hurt. That's okay. All the other guys have missed time too. Like that is okay. They, he missed time. Then going ten and six without him doesn't phase me. I don't care what you do when you're off, when they do it, they went, what your team does when you're off the court. I only care about what happens when you're on the court. February killed him. Yeah. It just did. He had, he had a down month from a shooting perspective. He had a down month from a defensive perspective. He had a down month from a winning perspective. He had a down month from an impact perspective. And if you're like, it's one month, Shay has not had a bad month, guys. Like I, you can go back and look, Shay hasn't had a bad month. He is a metronome every single night. It is clockwork. It is 30 to 35 points on high efficiency and no turnovers every single night, just every single night. Yeah. I don't like giving it to Shay because I don't think Shay, I don't think giving it to a scoring guard who doesn't make his teammates better is like what I want to reward.

35:02But I can't get there on Nicola's defensive effort this year. Nicola made that choice. That's a choice that Nicola has made when with regards to his defensive effort. Yeah. And that's okay. He has a reason. No. That's the thing here is that he does have the capability for this map. And I think that's what we both see in this conversation. We have seen what it looks like when Yoke is fully engaged and fully impactful at that level. But counter to the February aspect, it was only 11 games in February total. And unfortunately, he played like one game in January. He played a limited number of games in October, November, December, and honestly, March, like March, I think he's been really great. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. So like three of the months, you're talking about the best player in the world. And the other smaller stretches, they matter. And unfortunately, a lot of the narrative building has been built into that kind of leading into and going out of the all-star break.

36:04There's a lot of people that are paying attention to a lot of things. And Yoke, which is return, was not as good as it probably could have been. And it just happened that you had to play OKC a couple of times in that and Shay had some really great moments there too. And I know you're not really thinking about like individual moments. I think about them a little bit more in value than a little bit more than you do. And Shay and the Thunder are 3 and 0 against the Nuggets. And Shay's been awesome in those games and had a game winner in the last one. So. Objectively, it's the wrong way to look. This is the one that makes me mad. It is such a, we're just inventing a blood sport scenario. It's like, this is not how it's works. Shay and Yoke, don't guard each other. This isn't like, to me, it is how you deal with the best of the best. Yeah, and how he's dealing with it, like the Nuggets, that was, I think, considered second in most people's odds at the beginning of the season. I think he's handled that really well. And I don't think Yoke just handled it as well, although Yoke was great in that final OKC game.

37:07I just want to say this. Jay Cycle says, these are the kind of exaggerations media people do all the time. Shay has off nights all the time. Look at the last five games. It just rarely leads to Thunder losing. I have done an analysis on consistency. Like, I pulled the Game by Game data, Cycle, and he's got the highest consistency score. I looked at their worst 10 games based off a game score at basketball reference, and Shay's are better than the other guys. Like, when I say these things, I'm not making it up, man. I care enough to actually go back and do the stuff. And so I don't like, I think Nikola not winning 2023 was an abject crime. I think 2023 is one of the worst MVP decisions we have ever seen ever. It was atrocious. Last year, he was so much better than everybody else, but his coach and his GM got fired. Like, how do you weigh that dichotomy? Yeah, it's tough. Yeah. And it's like, MVP's have off nights all the time. That's true.

38:07It's about the consistency over 82, though, man. And there have been more games where Yoke just had what I would call not good games compared to Shay and the standard that you set. Are Jokers games still better than 90% of the league? Yeah, but that's not what we're talking about here. Like, you're just being selected against these guys. And I can't sit here and say that the defense matters for Luca, which it should. There's this idea now that he's been okay defensively all season locked on Lakers, was trying to pedal that nonsense. It was atrocious the first three months of the season and it had a good month. Good for him, he's trying. No, but also I do care about defense and Joker hasn't played it. When Joker just like tries, I don't care how good he is, but he hasn't tried this year. In the, except versus these games versus the elite teams. And that's okay. That's like, there's a reason that only two guys over the age of 30 have won it in the last 30 years. Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant are the only two over the age of 29 that have won this award over the age of 30. It's, it's a great point. Like, Yoke has to compartmentalize. Like he has to not go all out in a lot of these cases and you're 100% correct.

39:12They're like, he's just not in his prime for winning MVP's anymore. I think that he's probably won his last MVP. And that's that. That's too bad. Like because he had one of those taken away from him by some atrocities of votes. I think this is true by Big Honey. I still think Yoke is a better player. I am not giving anybody else best in the world. Sure. Nobody gets it from him for me. I'm just like, Joker's going to have to fall off like a cliff in order for me to get there. The man just creates too much. Like he's a better player. The MVP's a resume award. It's given every year annually based off of the regular season performance. It's what did you do in the regular season? It's not about how good you can be. It's not about how good you are at your best. It's about how good were you over the course of these 82? And Joker has been, I don't, look, I thought when I got asked for the straw poll. And so like, I almost had him second. I went back and forth. I was like, I think it's Wendy and then shit. No, it's Shane and then Wendy.

40:12No, it's Joker. And then no, it's Shane and then Joker and then went, no, and look, it was always for it. But like, this is, it's a really tough year, man. It's a really, it's a really tough year just because I still have the, I have, there are big problems with the Shay argument that I have. The Thunder win because of their defense. I still believe that. That's why they win. I'll have their half-court offense is good. You know why? Because they get turnovers. So they're playing half-court offense into transit in transition like we talked about situations because of the turnovers and defense that they force. All of the defense boost their opportunity to do this is Shay, Clutch player of the year. Absolutely. He's been insane in the clutch. Do I think he makes everybody better? No. Is his off, is his impact on offense as greater as Nicole is? No. So like, that's where I start being like, maybe it is Nicole. I do this like five times a day. But I just think that it's okay for people. And if you have an opinion, if you're a nuggets, if you're a nuggets person on this show or DMVR or whoever, and you don't think that Nicole is not the MVP, you are not being

41:14a traitor. It is not a biased perspective. It is trying to have the right answer to a pretty important question. This award tells the history of the league. And as much as I think, I can't sit here and be like, Nicole is going to go unappreciated. He has three of the things. So I think it's one of those where you would love for him to get a fourth because then he would be on the level of like LeBron and MJ and Kareem and some of those guys. But that may not happen and that may not be his story. But the most important aspect of the story is not the MVP is it's how many more championships he and the nuggets can win. So we'll see whether you can. We'll see. This is true. The nuggets one more games and we're in first place. Joker will be MVP. Correct. On you. Jay Cycle says it reminds me of the discussion over Yoke arguing the officials. He was doing it a lot the first couple of months in the season. He was just missing less shots and getting more free throws. That's wrong. He was not arguing with officials as much. Like you literally saw like we commented on it sitting at the game in the arena.

42:15Oh, watch him. He just like he started to get mad at the officials and was like, no, I'm just going back to do my job. So like, no, that is not that is not the action. Yeah. Like, well, we'll see where it goes from here, but there's six games remaining. I don't think anything's going to really change between now and those final six games on this conversation. Who knows if if when B like has a 50 point game against Yoke and the nuggets on Saturday, maybe he jumps into this conversation. That would be a pretty crazy one. Also, Luca and the Lakers versus S.J. and the Thunder twice. If Luca wins both of those games, the Lakers win both of those games, man, that'll that'll cause some ripples, I think. I hate this timeline. Why do we care about these? This is not how we should decide MVP. Anyway, that's going to do it for a lot of time, nuggets. Appreciate you guys being with us. Do you see what you start when you start valedine that kind of review? Appreciate you guys being with us. Thanks for hanging with us. One more time, driving those clown emojis, nuggets, climps the playoff spot. We will see you guys again. I will have an episode for you tomorrow morning around noon, breaking down some more on

43:19the jazz game. You'll have a scouting report for the Evergayers Club. Sign up at lockdownnuggets.supercast.com. Check out Ryan's work of mile high sports. Check out swipe up over at swipe of cam. We'll see you guys again tomorrow for another episode and then tomorrow night's post game. I guess Utah Jazz. We'll see you guys again this time on, lot on nuggets, clowns, clowns. They're never going to win another game again, never again. It's tax time. And for a lot of us, the old way of doing taxes is just a lot. But this year, you're getting an upgrade into it TurboTax now has in-person locations where you can meet face to face with a real tax expert. Get your documents uploaded and just like that, you're done. Your expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real time updates and go about your day. Head to TurboTax.com slash local to book your appointment.