Neal Romer
05-20-2025, 02:59 PM
There's a lot of "Murray sucks" "Jokic sucks" narrative being passed around like a philly blunt, but people arent looking at the whole picture, bc thats not typically a thing a lot of people do.
The Nuggets plan was to not rely on either of those guys going off, and they really didnt play in a way designed to get them off. By efficiency the Nuggets were THE the most accurate three point shooting team in the league this season (albeit on below average volume). All five players in their starting lineup shot 39% or better on the season.
So that was their game plan. Their predetermined approach was to make the right pass in each situation, and rely on what got them there. As opposed to having Jokic and Murray force the issue, which also has been successful in the past. Both of these guys have mentioned in interviews (before they were eliminated, after both wins and losses) that the team has a game plan and it's to make the right play and trust the team.
The shots just didnt fall. They stuck with the game plan, and it didnt work. People are saying Murray and Jokic choked, but the game plan was literally in place to use them as decoys depending on what OKC did. Murray in particular is a hugely rhythm dependent guy, and when he's in the zone he can be unstoppable. There were times you could see he wanted to put a shot up when he had his man on an island, but he hesitated and instead made the 'right' play to swing it to someone more open. So he really never got a chance to get into his famous groove. Jokic also was passive at times because he was committed to systematically making the correct pass based on the game plan. If they win Game 7 nobody's complaining about any of it.
I know this is detail that most of you dont consider, but it's the reason why things went down like they did. I'm not even arguing it was a BAD game plan, that's easy to do in hindsight but they had good reason to believe it would work. Gordon, Braun, and MPJ all shot like studs throughout the season, even Westbrook had particular spots he was shooting a high percentage from. The idea was "hey, lets not just ignore these guys and put it all in Joker and Jamal's hands." And their two stars accepted that.
What I would argue is maybe they should have tweaked that for the road games and in fact PUT more on their two stars in those situations. But I feel like people think these two guys just chose to play passive or couldnt figure out how to score more effectively. It's simply not true, if you actually paid attention to the team at all or listened to any interviews, youd know they put their eggs in the 'team' basket and were going to live with the result. It just didnt go their way.
Now you may return to your simpleton ways of screeching "this guy sucks, his legacy is shit now!" "nah uh, his teammate sucksed!!" "nah UHHH!!! He didnt score the points hahahah hes trash" "bro, he was awesome he carried but his teammate SUCKSED!!!!!!"
The Nuggets plan was to not rely on either of those guys going off, and they really didnt play in a way designed to get them off. By efficiency the Nuggets were THE the most accurate three point shooting team in the league this season (albeit on below average volume). All five players in their starting lineup shot 39% or better on the season.
So that was their game plan. Their predetermined approach was to make the right pass in each situation, and rely on what got them there. As opposed to having Jokic and Murray force the issue, which also has been successful in the past. Both of these guys have mentioned in interviews (before they were eliminated, after both wins and losses) that the team has a game plan and it's to make the right play and trust the team.
The shots just didnt fall. They stuck with the game plan, and it didnt work. People are saying Murray and Jokic choked, but the game plan was literally in place to use them as decoys depending on what OKC did. Murray in particular is a hugely rhythm dependent guy, and when he's in the zone he can be unstoppable. There were times you could see he wanted to put a shot up when he had his man on an island, but he hesitated and instead made the 'right' play to swing it to someone more open. So he really never got a chance to get into his famous groove. Jokic also was passive at times because he was committed to systematically making the correct pass based on the game plan. If they win Game 7 nobody's complaining about any of it.
I know this is detail that most of you dont consider, but it's the reason why things went down like they did. I'm not even arguing it was a BAD game plan, that's easy to do in hindsight but they had good reason to believe it would work. Gordon, Braun, and MPJ all shot like studs throughout the season, even Westbrook had particular spots he was shooting a high percentage from. The idea was "hey, lets not just ignore these guys and put it all in Joker and Jamal's hands." And their two stars accepted that.
What I would argue is maybe they should have tweaked that for the road games and in fact PUT more on their two stars in those situations. But I feel like people think these two guys just chose to play passive or couldnt figure out how to score more effectively. It's simply not true, if you actually paid attention to the team at all or listened to any interviews, youd know they put their eggs in the 'team' basket and were going to live with the result. It just didnt go their way.
Now you may return to your simpleton ways of screeching "this guy sucks, his legacy is shit now!" "nah uh, his teammate sucksed!!" "nah UHHH!!! He didnt score the points hahahah hes trash" "bro, he was awesome he carried but his teammate SUCKSED!!!!!!"