Nuggets CRUSH Sixers, get back on track

0:00It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Nick Gangsta with the Lockdown Mavericks Podcast. This message is a paid partnership with AppleCard. I love that I can run up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase of my AppleCard, which can be automatically sent to my high yield savings account through AppleCard right in the wallet app. With my iPhone, I can use AppleCard with ApplePay basically everywhere I go. You can buy for AppleCard too, right in the wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval, savings is available to AppleCard owners, subject to eligibility, savings in AppleCard by Goldman Sachsbank, USA Salt Lake City Branch member FDIC, terms and more at AppleCard.com. Hey everyone, this is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Lockdown Podcast Network. If your group chats been a little quiet lately, I want to invite you to come and join ours. If you sign up for the everydayer club, you get access to the members' only group chats for your favorite teams, plus national chats for every sport. Personally, I love watching folks talk a little smack in the NFC South Trash Talk Chat.

1:01You also get an ad free version of your favorite Lockdown show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the everydayer club link in the show notes. The Nuggets made absolute cheese steak out of the sixers, this is 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. I'm Matt Moore, credential reporter covering the Denver Nuggets, at the Denver Day and other places. Join the Ryan Blackburn and Mile High Sports and the Pick Action Role podcast on today's show. The Nuggets win over the Philadelphia 76ers as they absolutely annihilate, destroy, dominate, eviscerate, decimate, and other mates eradicate the Philadelphia 76ers in a game that I was

2:11left a little wistful after Ryan Blackburn. I'll tell you why it made me just like a little sad coming up right away. Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way. They annihilated, they just killed this team. And the poor sixers, it was like, no, Maxi, no, and feed, no, Paul, George, they did not have a real, no, no, Kelly, Ubrei, even, no, no, no chance. And this is always a bad spot for East Coast teams, usually Andre Drummond in particular does not play well here. He's never played well. He's seen, I've seen Andre foul out, get ejected or get benched almost every single time. And he actually couldn't get it done tonight and had to play and you could tell he's miserable doing it because he's got a long thing that makes the, the altitude really difficult. He's one where the 5,283 feet actually does make a difference with him. They couldn't hit from three, they missed everything, but the Nuggets flew around.

3:14This was a complete effort from start to finish by your Denver Nuggets, Ryan. It was good to see every time you're in this situation and I'm not going to put any like longstanding, like, oh, the nuggets are back, the nuggets are doing, like this was just a part of the steps, a part of the process in terms of, hey, you go through a couple of tough losses, now you're back on the grind, now you're back on figuring out, okay, what is the most important way to win in situations like these? It is purely play hard, play hard, play with efforts, get back to the basics, do everything you need to do in order to excel in these kinds of situations, especially for a team like the Philadelphia 76 or so, we're at a very clear talent disadvantage in this one. The Nuggets did a lot of great things, I was very impressed with their approach and their execution. Nicole Yogurge with eight points tonight, I'm sure that there are probably some people who aren't happy about that.

4:14I'm not sure who or why, as Jover only had to play 27 minutes, as he finishes with eight points, seven rebounds, 14 assists to five turnovers, had 14 dimes, guy out in transition, that was something that David Adelman kind of singled out as like a really positive thing that he was able to contribute, Joker did all the Joker things without having to score, that's always a good thing. Always a good thing. We thought it might be an early night for Joker with the technical that he racked up right at the end of the first quarter there, but if I'm not mistaken, that is his first technical of the season, if not the first, then it's very, very short in terms of the number of technicals that he's actually had, but he did a nice job, he didn't have to score in any way, shape or form, he was just diving up, he was very happy doing exactly that, thought he played well on both ends of the floor and was a nice quarterback for what the nuggets needed in this particular game, while everybody else had it going, and they just wanted to

5:15get off and to go to the races. So I've talked before about like, well, you know, the nuggets, like loss and clutch time, but they actually lost it in this first quarter when they came out blah, blah, blah. The nuggets won this game in the first quarter. It was a 140.7 offensive rating in the first quarter to an 84.6 defensive rating. Good. That's it. You know, they got to the hot start and I was like, okay, we'll see what happens when the bench comes in, and then the bench carried it through and expanded the lead. And that was when I was like, okay, all right. Here we go. I heard a percent agree with that, by the way, it wasn't just the fact that they got off to the great start. It was that it continued and the bench then had that first great stint. They also had a great second quarter overall, but it started with that bench unit that we can certainly talk about, but Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway, Jr., Cam Johnson, Staggering, Spencer Jones, Jonas Fowl, Jr., all five of them, I thought it excellent games. Yeah. And we've talked a lot about the stagger, which I think that's like a small note that I looked over and told you in many bed out of this.

6:16I think that's maybe the key here is, Jamal doesn't have to stagger when they face teams that they are going to beat, right? Like if it's an outmatched opponent, you can play Cam with the bench and be fine. Yeah. If you're facing a quality opponent, you'll have Jamal Stagger. Now, I don't think Jamal Stagger makes the big of a difference versus the elite squads that stagger their best players. I don't think it really helps, but you're not going to stagger Joker and you can't let it get too bad. So you can do what you did tonight and it worked out great. Christian Brown, 22 points tonight to lead the way for the Nuggets, plus 21 in his minutes, 22, 5 and 3, 7 and 9 from the field, two of three from three point range, knocked down that first corner, three and that was a really positive sign for him. 18 points for Cam Johnson, his ego is six of eight from the field and three of three from three point range. Cam had two rebounds, he was involved in about seven different important rebounds situations. Cam was just very active tonight.

7:16It's why you, and I think this is a correct opinion to have, it's not necessarily about the number. It's about whether your team gets the actual board itself. That's the most important thing, rebound within your area, box out your guy, make sure that you're following principles and things like that. I think it's a very salient point and it's one of the reasons why Cam Johnson is such a helpful basketball player and he's not just doing it as a score. He's doing it in a variety of different ways. I thought he had a couple of other great defensive slides tonight, some really good possessions, just keeping his man in front of him, which is such an underrated thing in defense, especially when you're trying to protect the rim and yoke itches the back line center, so keep your man in front of you and everything turns out to be really easy. And Cam after the game, kind of talked about, Adam and talked about not over thinking things and just making the play. But Cam, I'm like, I'll just continue to tell you as much as like that seems to be how he's playing.

8:17Cam after the game was still kind of like, look, it's about, it's, you know, yes, it's about making the decision and not overthinking it. He was like, but it's also about just knowing where I need to be, so I'm not unsure. It's about understanding the windows and how to play with these guys. He's like, it does take time, take time for me. He's like, you know, and he was, I just think Cam's really thoughtful and insightful after games. And so like he talked about the windows, I talked to him a little bit about, he was making such quick decisions, especially on what's called the L pass, let's, how I've learned it is. Okay, so if they're fronting, you kick it to the side and then you got a different entry pass angle. And it was like immediate. It wasn't like they passed it to Cam and then Cam looks and then passes. It was boom, boom, two trigger. And then the ball was into the yogurt slip into the basket. And that breaks that, that's a good way to break that. They tried a lot of stuff tonight. That is like, hey, what does this look like if we do this? Like they were pressing a little bit, they were doing, they were running some modifications

9:17of full court press. Yeah. And the six was eviscerated and broke it and scored on Yoke each every time. But it really worked on it. It wasn't just Yoke. I will say the first possession was Aaron Gordon raising his hand because he was, he got himself out of position and then obviously it would be a little bit different if you have her to go bear back there and then rotating over on the weak side, but you don't have her to go bear back there. No, you do not have her to go bear back there. Yoke, I didn't, I didn't not think that Yoke just like had fun tonight. Jover, Jover seemed very much like a guy that like was like, I'm here to do the work. I just want to do the work and go home. I mean, this is, this is the game to feel that way, right? Like you were going to potentially play against Joel and bead. You have another game tomorrow in which that one you have to be very much ready for. You want to get done with this one so that you can be good for the next one and I can understand that mentality, even if it's not like super endearing for the joy of it and the fun of it all. I don't, I'm not, it's not Chris isn't I just like that was just like an observation

10:17of what it is. No, I just, I think you're completely right. Jover had 14 assists to do whatever he wants. They were plus 14 in those minutes. So yeah, I, you know, solid game by pretty much everybody. My favorite pastor and I was actually, I was actually Jamal. Jamal had four assists, but had a lot of passes that two Joker that wound up leading to other pet like that was, it was trigger mechanism. He was a great pass by Jamal, Tuna Kola, who then made a pass to someone else. Yeah. And he had a couple of absolutely just slick passes like go back and watch the clips and you're just going to find so many great passes that Jamal was able to make and then Joker made his usual array of amazing passes. So I just thought Jamal's passing tonight was phenomenal. Jamal only 12 points like Joker and Jamal combined for 20 points and they absolutely blew out the six years. That's a great win. Great sign. One pass I, I know that I have him ahead tonight from Jamal. There was a, it was a bounce pass that he had on the left, like left elbow, left wing

11:20area that he threads through needle like through two different Sixers defenders. It gets to Joker and obviously there's a backline defender that has to rotate and it turns into a three like that's, it's exactly what you want. That's a pass that Jamal may not have been able to make before that as he continues to get better in his overall game, like he's making it regularly now and it's really cool to see. Really cool to see. Okay. We'll talk more about this when and we'll get into some more of the details including some of the bench minutes and what we saw from the rest of the nuggets when we come back on locked on nuggets. They shows brought to you by Robin Hood with sports for trade like markets. Now you can put your sports IQ to work in real time with Robin Hood prediction markets. It's not you against the house. It's you participating in a live market. You can buy or sell your positions live all game long. Use your sports knowledge in the moments that matter Robin Hood prediction markets changes

12:22the game. It's people moving the action. So in the momentum shifts, you can move with it. I always need a game but never had dynamic way to apply that knowledge. Now I can actually take part live in a market powered by people. You're no longer the spectator play by play. You decide trade every play with Robin Hood. Now I'll be able to cross the U.S. download the Robin Hood app now to begin futures and cleared swaps trading involve significant risk is not appropriate for everyone event contracts are offered by Robin Hood derivatives LLC a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. Ross and Rocky today by Fandall college basketball is non stop big games tight spreads momentum swings every single night from early tip offs to late night west coast shootouts. There's always action on the board. I've got a lot of bets I put in on the opening. I love Thursday and Friday. It's one of my favorite sporting days of the years Thursday and Friday this the opening two days of the tournament so good Missouri mile monitor am I Z I think is going to win. I think they're going to pull off an upset.

13:22I think Christian Brown's Kansas might be a little bit of trouble. Just a little bit of trouble. I think it might be a little bit of trouble whether you're doing the upsets or the favorites whatever you're doing you can get and you can apply a profit boost and instantly pump out the payout at Fandall go save go bold right with the team you've been following all seasons. You're partly your style now with more upside behind it head to fandall.com to get started that's fandall.com fandall play your game well right back on locked on nuggets. Back here on locked on nuggets and you're joining us and making this part of your day Ryan do you think Jamal shoulder is a problem right now he's obviously wearing that tape on it. I thought he looked fine in night everyone's like because he went three to seven I guess everyone's like oh no I don't care about that like he was messing with it which I that's what I was watching there were a couple of times where he was actually like like doing doing a little bit of this throughout the game grab and so campaign comes back and campaign is not paying attention it wasn't intentional campaign is not paying attention and cam nails

14:24him right in that shoulder okay so not not super endearing that Jamal's in active pain when he gets that shoulder hit so that's that's not super exciting is it a problem no like he has played through much worse than this the hope is that it is not something that develops into something a little bit more serious as he continues to wear it out a little bit but I it's it's tough because everybody has gone through their injury issues throughout the season and I don't really feel like the nuggets think they have the luxury to be able to rest him I think that certainly like with him like he he doesn't necessarily feel like he has the luxury to rest it because he knows that this team needs to develop the chemistry needs to develop the the connection for the rest of this season and it just it would not surprise me if he's actively campaigning to play every single night despite the fact that like he probably could this could sit a couple games here I mean I'll just

15:28I'll say this I don't know enough to be able to say if it's safer not for him to play right yeah I have no idea it could be like hey there's a high level of risk for re-injury but we're going to risk it anyway and if so then if I knew that I would be like no no he should sit like you can't risk this I don't know it could just be one of the things he has to play through if there's no further risk of injury like I don't know right and it's I you I can't look at as much as I have criticized the nuggets training staff I can't like look at this decision tree with what I know which is nothing and be able to say what they're doing is smart or wrong you should make an accurate assessment with the information you don't have Matt yeah you know in a G played 18 minutes and now like everyone's concerned that he's going to play on the back to back I've been so concerned like this was not a hard game for a G well I don't think he's going to play is my thing yeah I think they're going to do

16:28I think they're going to be like no like under no circumstances are you playing on the back to back I don't care if you played five minutes no yeah well think about it the answer is no that's yeah I'm with you there Adam and said he wanted him he was like if it was up to me he played because Adam and wants you know needs a guy he wants to be a coach that's that's he wants the the best opportune opportunities and options at his disposal but he also understands that Denver needs to be thinking long term here Bruce Brown pretty good minutes tonight thought he was good Spencer Jones really good minutes three or four from the field including a nice turnaround floater which that's big yeah five rebounds for him which that's big he needs to start working on being about a rebounder and I felt like he was really swooping in I love the way that the nuggets compete on the glass tonight not a lot of competition from Philly who was kind of like you could have it but I just like the way that they approached the defensive glass tonight what

17:28did you see from the bench units tonight you want to take a wild guess at what Bruce Brown's 3.1 percentages post-all start break I was holding last three games it's 43% 39 45 45% post-all line that's a lot that's that's pretty impressive like that's a that's a pretty impressive number but it feels like he has developed a lot of consistency from those corners that was where he hit both of those shots in this particular game one from the left corner in front of the Sixers Benchware tip the cap and they were wondering what the heck was that was all about that he hit one on the other side of the court on the right side so he is developing a little bit more comfort in terms of those are the shots that he's going to be getting those are the shots that he has to hit and he's been delivering on it pretty consistently I've been really impressed with Bruce it isn't just the shooting he just seems more comfortable he just seems more comfortable since like January 15th I would say they want to get Val going night and I

18:29didn't love it I just did not like the way that it was executed because it just seemed very obvious of like hey we're going to run Bruce and Val two-man game into post-ups and then Val is going to get the and like the Sixers were just like yeah we know he's getting the ball like we are aware and part of that is like because the rest of the nuggets were just like yeah I'm just going to stand here because I know I'm not getting the ball and Val is just going to post up like it was just very obvious to everyone what the plan was and as you've complained about all year rightfully so Val's ball skills are not great yeah I mean to me like you mentioned this before you just got like one of the highest points for a hundred possessions in the entire Bench in the in the entire NBA like yeah it's one of the reasons is because he's pretty efficient but the other is that he has such a high usage with that group that when he is out there the nuggets do a very very they have a concerted effort in terms of featuring him on a consistent basis in

19:30many of the same ways that they feature Nicole Yokic it's a little bit different because it is just traditional post-ups with him and then the occasional like all right we're going to do the pick and pop baseline jumper kind of thing but I thought the some of the shots that he had like he had a couple late shot clock shots he had that that late first quarter or if yeah first quarter running floater from behind the three-point line that I just I don't care that he missed that shot but overall like I thought he played reasonably well it just like again he's plus 15 in 19 minutes I thought he had good minutes but the the shooting efficiency clearly wasn't there I just thought he controlled a lot of things he had some big boy rebounds tonight there was one of put back attempt that he had where he just grabbed it right out of a damn bonus hands while bono was falling down and he can do that he has the capability of doing that but kind of like your concern with the cam johnson versus jimalmary stagger I think it might be a very similar

20:32conversation with Jonas Valentino's versus going smaller with Spencer Jones and Aaron Gordon in a four five kind of situation for this team I wonder if they decide to do that when the other playoff opponents come to town yeah for sure um is it as amazing to you as it is to me what a difference a g mix like I know how great a g is but it just stands out so much that just Adam was raving about in the last game after the game about how great he is at all these little things that help is it is it apparent to you does it like does that translate to you yeah of course it does I mean I I wasn't wowed by his individual game tonight but that I think is sort of where the problem is and and where the where the evaluation has to end and you have to start to understand what he does to the rest of the team holistically think about how wide open Christian shots were cam shots were how easy it was for yokeach and murry to go about their business tonight a lot of that is the connection with Aaron and his ability to just take attention away from so much of those

21:37guys it's just different when he is down there and he also does a great job of like taking up real estate in the right places so that you balance the floor out really well yeah yeah cam was very complimentary of aram being like you know Aaron makes it so much easier for the guys in the wing and it's not something that's that's a obvious but it's such a big deal for us coming up uh ask about some rotation decisions and then we'll turn our attention to what is going to be well another rough back to back we'll talk about that coming up on lockdown nuggets workplace chaos deadline stacking up the inbox overflowing and the one position you have to fill still sitting open when the pressure is on you need the right hire this is a job for sponsor jobs indeed sponsor jobs helps you reach the people who actually fit where you're looking for skills experience and locations you're not just hoping the right candidate stumbles across your post and here's a step that says it all in the minute i've been talking companies like yours made

22:3827 hires on indeed corn indeed data worldwide so if you're hiring spend less time searching and more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes with indeed sponsor jobs listeners of this show will get seventy five dollars sponsor job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed dot com slash podcast just go to indeed dot com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash podcast terms and conditions apply need to hire this is a job for indeed sponsor jobs we'll be right back on locked on nuggets welcome back to locked on nuggets one let you know you can join the everyday or club now with code march and get your first month free if you sign up before the incident of a tournament tips off this Thursday you can compete against me i'm ready to get my bracket in it's already in it's in there there's a bunch of nonsensical picks because that's what i like to do it's very fun i have duke winning it all because camboosers awesome the winner in each we'll get

23:41one hundred dollars and locked on merge the rest of us can commit great in the members only chats are brackets blow up and as a member of the club you can get an ad free version of this show again it's all free for a month with code march at locked on nuggets dot supercast dot com you also get exclusive content i'm doing these morning mile high morning shows where he's kind of talking about what's every my brain you get from Ryan i do i do the scouting reports i didn't do one a day because i didn't know who the i didn't know who's playing i did not know how to scout the six years i was like i have i don't know i don't know i don't know damn bonus pretty good i love vj hcomb that's what i got um so make sure to sign up at locked on august us supercast dot com ryan's people have noticed that jalen that ties jones have gotten the jalen picket minutes my official position on this is look they signed him to the buyout contract to evaluate his fit and they need to see they know what they have with jalen and they don't need to play jalen

24:47and they need to play tias to be like does he can he get valentine is the ball how do he embrace play together what does this look like like all of those mechanisms i think are are worth them exploring so i don't necessarily take it as like they like tias over jalen i take it as they want to get a look on tape of what tias looks like with this group yeah every every time that they've had an opportunity to play tias versus jalen over the course of the last few weeks they have gone with tias like there hasn't been there hasn't really been any controversy there like it tias is leap frog temo in the rotation right now it doesn't necessarily mean that that will continue it doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to mean anything for the playoffs uh for what it's worth i don't think either of those guys play when the playoffs roll around i think Denver is very much going to go all defense as much as they can around yokech mary uh and whoever else ends up making it from an

25:48offensive standpoint but i think that it's interesting and one of the things i posited with tias was are they also trying to get a look at him for next season like if there's another potential opening for a backup point guard spot going forward at least you have more information on a guy who has been a great backup point guard in this league for a long time now looks like he is frozen i don't know if he is actually frozen or not um kind of i i don't know if if you guys see the same thing or if it's just me um i wonder if he's actually talking oh there he goes i think he crashed i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and guess the mac crash so okay uh i will carry the burden until matze able to get back in here if not uh but yeah i think that's right now the the most important thing that the nuggets god

26:52from this particular game was that they they got out of it pretty quickly like do you think about the maximum number of minutes that they played in this uh jamaul marie played 26 christian brown played 27 and kallioca played 25 spencer jones he was forced to close in this game because the nuggets only had 13 available players tonight uh so he actually closed in this one and played 24 off the bench but he's still in a pretty relatively good place from a minute's perspective so that's gonna be a big deal for this next game that the nuggets end up having against menthas they traveled tonight it does look to me like denver they obviously flew out tonight it's gonna be a really really rough flights uh because you're traveling two time zones over uh but fortunately the nuggets are in a place where like they they had a relatively easy game in this one

27:54but i wouldn't expect denver to be in bed and like a sleep in menthas until at least like four or five in the morning uh it's gonna be a tough one so i'm curious to see what their efforts actually look like there but the long and short of it is that their schedule has been rough this was actually meant to be a relatively easy part of their schedule if you guys remember the most important thing like with with denver was that this this was going to be a three game homestand that the nuggets are now at but this menthas game which was postponed initially in January and then shifted to march it has turned what was going to be a three game homestand with plenty of rest plenty of recovery opportunities into a home and then a back-to-back traveling two time zones over into menthas and then you come back for another two games on friday and sunday i believe it's against toronto and portland so not an easy schedule now but the good thing for denver is that

29:02menthas is not really trying that hard uh over the course of their last few games they have not exactly played a sterling amount of competition uh tonight they did not play they actually last played on march 16th against and that was monday against the chicago bulls they traveled to chicago and lost by 25 where they give up 29 points to matas buzelis and josh giddy goes for a big triple double trade zones is playing well for them rob dilly ham's playing well for the chicago bulls but menthas isn't exactly starting a a murderous row of players ryan repair walter clinton juneer jalen welles cedric coward and ellivier max sense prosper they do not have healthy biggs like they actually sign taj gibson to a uh two-way contract and oh shapalicious is in here jake is in here menthas is central i thought they

30:06were east man maybe nashville is on the east coast that actually wouldn't surprise me if that was the differentiator but all right well hey menthas is central maybe denver will get into bed at by three to four as opposed to four to five um still not an easy uh potential back to back so we'll be interesting to see what happens with it but i don't expect denver to really struggle that much with menthas really it's about denver it's about who they are and what they're going to bring to the table in this particular matchup i'm not expecting menthas to go crazy but as tobo says in the comments we made menthas look like a tough matchup last game though a hundred percent they were actually starting i believe the same front line in that particular game which was uh alleviate max ed's prosper and cedric coward i could be raw actually no they may have started tailor hendrix oh no they well i think they started gg jackson actually that's that's right so

31:09what we'll see whether uh we'll see whether gg jackson continues to play he he was out in this last game so we'll be interesting to see how that goes matt just sent me a text let's see uh oh he got a internet outage oh he says uh an internet outage for his actual internet provider so he's going to be sending in some very negative reviews to the internet provider because at one thirty in the morning it absolutely failed him so uh yeah we'll be interesting to see how denver responds if they win that game there's one a couple in a row they'll be able to come back to denver have another couple of games at home this was always the idea this was always the idea for sure that denver is able to um take advantage of these final fourteen games this was the start of it this is not the end of it i i was i was saying earlier in the show i do think that denver like

32:15they haven't earned enough credit to just assume that they are going to do this i think that you have to watch them go through the process because every time this season it has felt like they have gone two steps forward and one step back one step forward and two steps back to the point where over the course of these last couple months feels like they haven't really done much of anything so it'll be interesting to see whether they're able to take care of it but i'm looking forward to watching it with you folks so we'll be fun we'll be interesting uh snow asks about patent Watson um if yeah asked about patent Watson he is not going to be back tomorrow from what i understand i actually don't think like well we'll see whether he's able to make it back by Friday or Sunday i think that there's a lot of folks that were hoping that they would get him back over the course of this week we'll see but we'll see at this point a timeline might have pushed out just a little bit so don't expect them back tomorrow expect the the group that denver has right now

33:18and we'll see whether they're able to get that done so should be interesting but i'm looking forward to seeing what denver provides hopefully they bring a better effort in a second out of a back-to-back against a team that they're favored against uh then they have in the past so we will see all right folks that is going to do it for locked on nuggets thank you so much for tuning into the show late night show obviously uh very appreciative for the love and support make sure to check out the everydayer club in the description lock down nuggets dot supercast dot com always appreciate it hit that like button hit that subscribe button on the way out talk to you guys version