Luka Doncic Discussion: "Championship Shape"?

btw, okc just killing jokic's lack of mobility on defense right now, but we'll hear crickets about it.

 

And they lost

 

Playoff basketball

 

yeah, okc thoroughly outplayed denver and couldn't win at home in game 1. i know the feeling.

 

yeah, that's what i meant above. not sure what it is about denver that makes everyone s*** their pants down the stretch of games, but it's real.

i will say the refs put denver on the line A LOT during the comeback--even before the bizarre intentional fouling. it almost felt like they were trying to make it a game when it kind of hadn't been for most of the night. still, though, just mindbogglingly bad mental game from okc to close the game.

 

Denver should treat the next game like it's game 7. Winning it = series over. OKC will fold like a cheap lawn chair.

 

@abeer3 Denver has a system and dominates the glass while OKC and Clippers are playing what Kobe described as "accidental basketball" at its finest .

 

yeah, i suppose. i felt like okc went away from their offense a bit because they got tight. they weren't trusting the ball movement anymore, and then they even stopped trusting their own abilities. like...SGA was shying away from isos against braun. they were trying to get additional screens to get braun off him. i was like...just take him...you're supposed to be the mvp! he would try, and denver would collapse as predicted, but the wasted seconds looking for better matchups was weird to me.

anyway, beyond that, i'm going to revisit yesterday's topic in the other thread and say that gordon and braun just played outstanding in this game on both ends. when you talked about denver dominating the glass, yes, jokic gobbles up boards, but braun and gordon were just bullying the okc guys, as was russ, tbh. imagine if braun and gordon were on our team instead of DFS and gabe.

 

Braun was my MIP and as I said before , Gordon is one of the latest true PF in the game . I like the physicality he brings to the table , his outside shooting improvement being a great bonus .

Lakers brains only see the game through offense and boxscores , this is why we can't advance in the playoffs .

They probably think Rui is better than Gordon LMAO

 

Gordon is what you hope Rui could be. He has the shooting and hops but the level of tenacity particularly on the glass is such a huge difference with Gordon. He's going to try to punish you

 

Yeah but Braun is on a great rookie contract, and Gordon makes 23M heading to 31M in 26. I don't think Rob would be willing to cough out that much cash for a 31 year old Gordon.

 

Lol...still....Jokic>Luka. A ray of hope here though....I do believe that Jokic had some conditioning concerns at 26 too.

 

not for long. if they don't come to an agreement this summer, i think he goes into RFA next year. some guys are really balling out these playoffs looking for contracts (see reid, naz and randle, julius).

i think we'd totally pay gordon. our problem is that he plays the same position as lebron. we need a wing version of gordon. my pick is still keon ellis, but i think there are others that fit the bill.

yeah, just not by a tremendous margin. again, recency bias. watch last year, when jokic was sent home early and luka was dominating on the way to the finals at this time. yes, yes, luka's career ended in the nba finals at age 25, i know...fat, lazy, bad defender, etc.

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJUMhoLt2qg/
But he's not playing for Lakers so who cares

 

I'll be surprised if OKC makes it out of this round. When things get tight they don't know how to react.

They can only take the blows for so long. It gets tight and shots stop falling. Fans get all excited about the regular season dominance. Doesn't matter if you don't have a closer. Dallas figured out last year that if you keep the games close until the end you can close them out.