CSG Podcast

CSG #744: The Good and the Bad from the Nuggets win over the Pistons

On the latest Mortcast Jeff talks about the Nuggets victory over the Pistons. What the Nuggets did much better and what they will struggle to improve. In the second half Jeff discusses how difficult the NBA Western Conference is and how that his hurt the Nuggets aims of developing.

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 30 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

Enjoy the show!

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But we need to talk about the Detroit game and how we talk about things. Because we can't get into this habit of them losing against a really bad game and where they never really had a chance after the second quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers. And then immediately have another the next day, think everything is right. It's not that way. The Nuggets want you to think that way. But Jim All Murray, particularly. But we can't do that. We need to have a balanced view. I'm going to talk about in the first half. In the second half, I'm kind of going to talk about how the West has kind of worked against the Nuggets approach to this year. So, before I get started, I need to talk to you. Nice transition, Jeff. Before I get started, I need to talk to you about BetOnline. BetOnline continues to be the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for online betting. From the earliest odds to in-game live betting, BetOnline provides you with all the action and the ability to watch the games as they happen. They have everything you could bet on basically. So, college basketball, UFC, NHL, NBA, NFL football. You got some bowl games left to maybe bet on if you were into that. Or the college football playoffs, anything you want. One stop shop, you don't have to go anywhere else. They really have everything there at your fingertips and available for you to look at. It's really amazing. Head to BetOnline today. And don't forget to use promo code BLEAV for your welcome bonus on your first deposit. That is BLEAV, promo code BLEAV for your welcome bonus and your first deposit. BetOnline, the game starts here. So, the Nuggets beat the Detroit Pistons. And they played significantly better than they had the previous night against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Now, there could be a reflection of the Pistons not being a tremendous team, improving, albeit improving, but not a tremendous team. And the Cavaliers being arguably the best team in professional basketball right now. So, there's a little bit of that. But there was something that I think we've kind of not really noticed or really concentrated on too much that it was happening in this game. Yes, Jamal had a better game. Yes, Yokic had a quiet 37 if that's possible. Yes, Michael Porter Jr. had a better game. And they made up over, you know, what was it, 90... 97 points of the Nuggets... So, it was like two-thirds of the Nuggets points came from three people. But the Nuggets' issues with defense is still there. And I think this is how we need to talk about this. We need to acknowledge that they did better. And Jamal looked better. I'm going to ignore Jamal's bitchy post-game presser there because it's typical Jamal. What he said there didn't matter because Jamal always thinks that. So, I'm not going to take that into account. I'm going to concentrate on how we talk about this game. Jumal has, as far as points goes, really increasingly done better. The Cleveland game accepted. And that is something every Nuggets fan should be encouraged about. At the same time, every single team attacks Jamal very specifically. And the Nuggets are left kind of hanging in that department. By that, I mean... The Nuggets are able to sometimes overcome Jamal being attacked on defense. By the way that they are able to do offense occasionally. Now, that used to be more consistent two seasons ago when they won the championship. But they're not able to get away with that now because they lost their... As I keep pointing out, they lost their primary screen navigator who both helped, primarily helped Yokitch, particularly when he has to play up. And secondarily, it also helps Jamal not have to... When he's attacked, Jamal can actually compensate a little. You had a great team defensive player. And when they brought Chris Brownin or Bruce Brownin or any of those guys in to help out, they also were able to do different things with different skill sets. And Bruce Brown, of course, had the dog in them. And then, you know, Russell Westbrook as we saw against the Pistons. And I'm going to get to this in the second half for the first half. And I'm talking his little thing in the third quarter sort of spurred this team on to do... And it did something that Bruce Brown used to do. But this Nuggets team really truly... The issues is that they don't shoot a lot of threes and they give up a ton. And if you're not going to shoot a lot of threes, you've got to be damn sure you're great defensively on the perimeter, and the Nuggets are not. It's a tribute to Nicola Yochich, primarily as far as I'm concerned, and secondarily some of the other guys, I would say Mike and, you know, Aaron Gordon when he's there, but he's been unhealthy most of this year, but it's been primarily Yochich that the Nuggets offense operates at such an efficient and really high motor way that they've been able to overcome that sort of thing. Gemal's rounding into shape. But the defense is just going to be an issue. And in order for the Nuggets to, like I said, their roster is what it is. They lost one of their three-point shooters, and they were... Even when KCP was there, they didn't take a ton. And you have to adjust accordingly. And in order for the Nuggets to make up the math game, they need to get better at perimeter defense. And unfortunately, they do not have a single good screen navigator in the bunch. And Gemal is constantly attacked. I mean, you saw what Donovan Mitchell did to him. Cade Cunningham was doing the same thing in the Detroit game. He just wasn't able to take advantage of it as much as Mitchell was. So the Nuggets are at a deficiency there. I don't see unless they make a trade in season, which I don't... If anyone's listening to this podcast, you know that I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think the Nuggets are going to trade anyone. I don't think the conditions in the front office are conducive to them training someone right now. And to be quite honest with you, I don't think they should because their options are extremely limited. And you don't want to move out, say, Mike, and then lose what little shooting you have for an unknown. You don't want that to do that right now. I think the Nuggets are kind of stuck with their roster until the offseason. They really don't have a ton of options. So in that sense, you know, since Calvin Booth's future is really up in the air. And you don't have a lot of options to do during the season. You're kind of needing these guys to get better at screen navigation. And that is one of the hardest skills in the NBA. I will tell you that beyond a shadow of a doubt, getting over screens is you would think that it wouldn't be as not common as it is. But trust me, one of the hardest things to do in the NBA is screen navigation. And that goes through all of its history. And they happen to have with KCP one of the best. And what you lost KCP, you lost that guy. And you also the little bit of three-point shooting he gave you. So this Nuggets team's margin for errors basically gone. So with Jamal getting better, with the Nuggets kind of sort of getting in a better place. Although that Phoenix loss was a little disheartening and they obviously are not in the league of the Cleveland Cavaliers right now. You take what you can get and the Detroit win on the second night of a back-to-back in Denver was good. It is really hard to do a Denver back-to-back. It is one of the hardest things to do in the NBA. And the Nuggets doing it two games in Denver on consecutive nights is difficult. And giving Nuggets kudos for doing that. There were good things in that game. Christian Brown seemed to start to break out of his funk. Paton Watson was good. Paton is another issue, though. Paton is supposedly the defensive specialist and he just is not good at screen navigation. And he's just long. Christian is probably one of the primary issues on the perimeter defense. Because as I've told people before, Christian Brown is built like a... He is very stout. And his body build is very different from... KCP is very live, very skinny, and he was able to just... And he also had the skill. Christian Brown is completely different. And in order for him to get through scrims like that, it ups the risk for offensive fouls because you are trying to get through a narrow space. So, the screen navigation and all of that stuff has been his big issue. Obviously, Peyton Watson II, which is why you have Russ Westbrook in there. Now, Westbrook did something against the Pistons, which I was very encouraged about. And him kind of getting into it with Kate Cunningham and Beef Stew, Isaiah Stewart, is something that I think the nuggets needed and they have missed since Bruce Brown left. Because this is a very quiet, calm team. This is except for Jamal being a jerk at times. And that is more towards other people than it is to the team. But it is about getting guys pumped up, and Bruce Brown was great at that. I mean, think about just the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers, when he single-handedly made it his point to destroy D'Angelo Russell. Like, think about that and how the team responded to that, right? Well, last year they missed that, and certainly up until this point they've missed that. And that moment with Russell Westbrook getting into it with both of those guys, really sort of, I would say, got the team's blood pumping in a way that it hasn't been all year. This nuggets team does tend to get on the calm side, as we all know. And I think that Westwork doing that, everyone responded to. And you saw the rest of that third quarter, until the fourth quarter, where the bench lit gave up that lead. You saw how everyone was pumped up, and just the nuggets could put the pedal to the metal, and did something that they hadn't done all year, you know? And they'd built up this 23-point lead, which they lost. But it was, you know, the nuggets were able to keep it together and win comfortably by over ten. So, I think in the grand scheme of things, you take what you can get. You take the little signs of progress, because the nuggets don't have a lot of avenues to improve. They are sort of stuck. The hope is that they take advantage of this stretch of basketball that they're going to be on. To stabilize and hopefully build a functional perimeter defense. That is the hope. I am dubious that they can get there due to their personnel. They are just not constructed in that way, that is the fault of Calvin Booth. I am not sure they can get there this year. And they may be in a holding pattern until then. But I'm going to be curious to see what kind of offense they forge, and how they look, going forward through the rest of this year, if they were able to kind of at least get some defensive consistency. And that is the hope. All right, in the second and half of the podcast, I'm going to be kind of talking about the state of the Western Conference, and how that really has worked against the Denver Nuggets this year, and how that kind of is something that the Nuggets need to put into their calculus going forward. We'll be talking about that after the break. ♪♪ This episode brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there, hoping it all works out? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can get a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill, too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it today at progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, pricing coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. Bombus makes the most comfortable socks, underwear, and t-shirts. Warning, Bombus are so absurdly comfortable you may throw out all your other clothes. Sorry, do we legally have to say that? No, this is just how I talk and I really love my Bombus. They do feel that good, and they do good, too. One item purchased equals one item donated. To feel good and do good, go to Bombus.com/listen and use code "listen" for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com/listen, and use code "listen" at checkout. So Western Conference is a bloodbath this year. It's just incredible the amount of teams over 500 and the nuggets, I forget what seed they are in now. With their 17 and 13 and the AEs that would put them towards the top. And in the West, it's not. Just teams are very, very good out West. We need to kind of look at how this has affected the nuggets, lack of ability to develop guys like Peyton Watson. And now I'm going to diverge with my colleagues in the media and say that my belief in Peyton Watson as a prospect is confined to his ability to be a defensive player. I don't trust his ability to be a great offensive player, particularly because his decision making is poor on that end. But he can be an elite defender, and that is really where the nuggets need to be focusing their development. And my issue with that is that I don't sense any sort of consistency in that area. You need to get really good on that area for the nuggets very specifically to have that sort of thing in the nuggets. And Watson, I don't think to his detriment, I don't think he's been able to get that. But it hurts because the West Crawford is so competitive. So if this was a less competitive conference like the East, the nuggets would actually have a little more leeway to get guys like Peyton Watson. And Christian Brown, Ann Hunter Tyson, and other guys, Julie Stradler, a lot more minutes than they are now because of the conditions that are set. I wouldn't call it a margin for error, but your leeway is a lot bigger. You're not thinking that every night you could lose. And that is important because this nuggets team really, truly because of the decisions that were made or kind of stuck in this need to have these guys develop. I think the dye is cast on their particular skill set, but you want them to just get better in general. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you do not ever enter into a situation, particularly after you've won a title where you want to say we are punting on this year. Because in order to get young guys development, sometimes you just got to do that and just get them as much development as possible because this is the way the NBA works. There is no true setup for a minor league in the NBA. With due respect to the G League, it's still not treated that way. Players who are top prospects do not go to the G League. They are largely, unless you're like Houston, which has duplicate skill set and all that stuff. You don't necessarily get guys going down to the G League who are top draft picks. So it's not a true minor league like other leagues. So you need to develop in season through the year. One of my big disappointments is the Nuggets had a ton of time off in the early part of December. And the last part of November, they had a ton of time to just kind of practice. I don't know what the Nuggets practiced on, but none of it happened to reflect in their defensive approach. And that has been kind of my disappointment going forward. Obviously, Aaron Gordon being out and his injury issues going through this season has actually hurt this team a lot. I don't necessarily think Aaron Gordon solves their fundamental problem, which is their screen navigation and their guard defense, basically. You know, my poor junior is not a good defender, but if you had good screen navigation from your guards, at least one of them, a lot of that would be mitigated because the teams are just able to pick and roll and bomb threes. So the Dias cast for the Denver Nuggets, people know who they are, particularly this version, and they know that they're not as good. Because if you talk to anyone in the league going into this year, the two things that they would tell you or the problem are the Nuggets are primarily one. They lost KCP who was their best screen navigator and provided additional three-point shooting. And two, they would say that the West has got a lot better. And the improvement in the West has worked against the Nuggets not just in a standings place, but in a they don't have time to develop. If you are fighting for every win, you do not have time to spend time going through the ups and downs of players who need time, essentially. And that has worked against this team. The West is brutal, and it's not going to get any better. The Nuggets are certainly, they have proven that they can beat the likes of the Lakers and the Kings, and the Kings aren't even the top of the West, and they just fired their coach. They have got multiple teams in front of them that are just simply playing at a high level right now, and all of whom have a book of scouting on the Denver Nuggets. The featured at the top of that book scouting book is bomb threes, they're not going to take enough threes to make up the difference. That's it. And if that is the book, then the Nuggets are going to have to find a way to counteract that. And because the Nuggets don't have three-point shooters, as I discussed in the first half, they have to improve their defense to make up the gap. They're Nuggets have a serious personnel issue, and that is not going to be solved this year. So when you look at the way this lead, this West kind of plays out, I predicted the Nuggets would win 49 games and be a fifth seed. I am not as confident at 49 wins as I was. This team just needs a lot, and I do believe that this season is heading in a, I wouldn't say negative trajectory, but it's not heading in a championship trajectory right now. You never say never, but it just doesn't look like that. And a lot of that has to do with the Nuggets' issues, but a lot of that has to do with the way how difficult the West is. Now the West will have issues too. The Oklahoma City is not going to be able to keep this team together that they have for very long. And I'm sure Sam Presti is very aware of that. So I and also Han with Houston, how long is Fred Landley going to be there? It's thing after thing after thing that you look to in the future and say, okay, these are things that are going to change the landscape of the West. And I think we need to take a holistic approach to this Nuggets season. The Nuggets need to, during this season, they need to decide whether Calvin Booth is going to lead the team through the future or not. That literally the clock is ticking. We are now into January with no, almost into January with no clear indication of who's going to be leading this team. That is priority number one. And I would argue that some of the Nuggets larger issues have come from the fact that once again KSC let this happen again. GEM go into their final season with no indication, no clear indication of who's going to be leading the team. Also they need to have new organizational unity from the front office, Stan Josh, whoever's running the team, below them, and Michael Malone down to the players. You need 100% absolute unanimity and I don't think that's there yet. A lot of decisions need to be made through this year. And I'm hoping that the Nuggets start to get those aligned as the rest of this season goes on. The Dominoes need to be set into place. Before this team to kind of, I wouldn't say correct things, but to improve their lot with this landscape that we're in right now in the NBA. You just can't have teams beat you by knowing that they can bomb you out in threes. That can't be sustainable. This cannot happen if you are a team in the National Basketball Association, where one thing teams do, and they know exactly how they can achieve it. All right. The West will eventually ease up. It's always going to be better than the East for at least for a while until we get expansion. But until then, things will adjust. And as I discussed previously, the cap going up 10% is going to help a lot of teams in this league. It's going to help the next year when it goes up again another 10%. It's going to help the next year when it goes up again. The cap continuing to go up is going to help things. So, help is on the way next year. In the meantime, the Nuggets just need to kind of in through this next stretch of games through the early part of January. The Nuggets just need to concentrate on winning games. And this might come at the sacrifice of developing guys like Peyton Watson. And I hate putting it that way, but it's winning time. And you need to be able to understand that you will have that consistency of winning. Because the Nuggets first part of the year left them with zero margin, they are now in crunch time. And piling up some wins in this next stretch of like four or five games is going to help if they are able to do that. Because that will actually allow them to coast a bit through certain sections of the last part of the year. And the Nuggets just at this, as of this point, their trajectory is not that. They need to start getting wins piled up here to where they can get some of that essential breathing room that we've all hope that they get. And hopefully this happens in this next stretch of games. They play the jazz tonight, just get that win, guys, get that win. And hopefully this will get them some of that breathing room that they want. I'm hoping I'm praying that this is part of it. So we can talk about some other things rather than this thing that we talk about all the fucking time. It gets boring talking about how many issues this team has. I would like to talk about some positives for a change. I don't know about you guys, I'm sure you would like to hear some positives too. All right, thank you all for joining me on the latest broadcast. I'm going to be back, let's see, probably Wednesday for another episode. Goodbye. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Bombus makes the most comfortable socks, underwear and t-shirts. Warning, Bombus are so absurdly comfortable you may throw out all your other clothes. Sorry, do we legally have to say that? No, this is just how I talk and I really love my Bombus. They do feel that good, and they do good too. One item purchased equals one item donated. To feel good and do good, go to bombus.com/listen and use code "listen" for 20% off your first purchase. That's b-o-m-b-a-s.com/listen and use code "listen" at checkout.