It's World's Finest on the Olympics and more! Nikola Jokic balls out in Serbia's win over Puerto Rico. The numbers don't do his brilliance justice, and Jokic continues to play with verve and intensity even after such a prolonged stretch of intensity in competition. What fuels that? Plus, Team Serbia plays a style that Adam adores. Can the Nuggets find a way to play that way? Plus, Jamal Murray still looks rough for Team Canada. Matt Moore gives a DEFCON update on his concern level with the Nuggets' second star. All this plus a look at preseason and what a trip overseas means for an already exhausted Nuggets team, on Locked On Nuggets.
Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
eBay Motors
From brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.
Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.
FanDuel
FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM and add a big win to your summer bucket list!
FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)
It's the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. Nicole Yogich and team Serbia dominate Puerto Rico. We'll talk about what we saw in that game. Plus, what do you want to see from Jamal Murray this season? What's the big key this season? And also in these Olympics as Team Canada continues their run. And Denver's head overseas for preseason, what's the impact of that going to be on the Nuggets as they start the 2024-25 revenge tour? All that and more on 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. Today's show is brought to you by Fandal. Make every moment more as the playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to, but this summer Fandal is hooking up all customers with a boost or bonus daily. That's right, there's something for everyone every day all summer long, visit Fandal.com to get started. My name's Matt Moore. I'm the Senior NBA Writer for the Action Network. I'm joined by Adam Marrez, Director of Content for DMVR. This is World's Finest for you on a Wednesday. On today's show, we'll talk about the Nuggets pre-season trip to Abu Dhabi and what that's going to mean for them in the Abu Dhabi games as they take on the Boston Celtics in that matchup, what's the kind of impact going to be on training camp, et cetera. We'll talk about Jamal Murray and what we're hoping to see from him in Team Canada after what was labeled a little bit of a bounce back, but I didn't see it that way in the previous game. 14 Canada as they continue their run for hopefully a metal performance, but we start at them with Nicole Yolkich and Team Serbia, who get the win 107-66 versus Puerto Rico. Quite the difference in facing Team USA and Puerto Rico, Nicole Yolkich does get the win in this one in dominant fashion, or your big takeaways from Yolk and Team Serbia. Well, the first takeaway is that Team USA is really good. Serbia, they looked like they had some real weaknesses in the last one going up against Team USA, and then you see him tonight and you go, "Oh, yeah, this is a, you know, Puerto Rico probably, you know, not about an average." I would say a little maybe slightly below average team in this tournament, so you get to see them against the average and you just saw how dominant Serbia was. They played an incredibly beautiful brand of basketball like they did against Team USA. I thought transition is unbelievable how quickly they play. Ball movement in the half court is unbelievable. How many guys are willing and capable of making the extra pass? And then Yolkich is just a man on a mission. This is probably my top takeaway is that Yolkich is playing these games, even the exhibition games which we don't always see him do. He's just playing them with a seriousness and an intensity that we don't see out of him all the time. And it's, I'm really curious to hear what you think about that, because this is a game that you can have a letdown coming off the USA, then you play this one, wasn't the case. They came out here knowing they needed to win by as many as they could, and they won by 41 points. 14 points, 15 boards for Yolk, nine assists, just one shy of what Harrison Win found would have been the fourth triple double in Olympic history, 23 minutes, and a plus 16 in those minutes. The question of him playing hard, I think it's really interesting because we had some comments in the chat here at youtube.com/lockedonnuggets about it. Cedric is saying he's playing hard, he says, and we need that, but hope the offseason gives him some time to relax. I continue to kind of marvel at the fact that, and you know so much more about the Serbian kind of mindset and pride and that kind of cultural mindset that's built in than I do, that of, it just seems like every time there's this idea of man, Yolk has to be tired, Yolk's like, I will show you, I will show you, I'm not tired, I will play harder, like no matter how, like how tough it seems, he just always kind of pushes, pushes that much harder. And I think it is kind of like pretty awesome just to see there is such a level of pride and like, Yolk loves Serbia, like he loves Serbia, and that's very apparent in everything with him that he has so much national pride, and so the ability to kind of do that, and it doesn't, one of the things is cool about the Olympics and the shines through with Olympic basketball when it's not Team USA is how much that love of country drives performances and how emotional that is for them. Team USA, I think it is emotional, it's just different because of the legacy and the professionalism and the money, and everything else that kind of plays into it. It's a different type of dynamic, there's a lot of that, but there is a little bit of a different dynamic of it. And so, look, I think it's amazing to watch Nicole doing this, it's part of the tapestry of his career. At the same time, I am like, regardless of how he had played, I was going to be concerned, like I'm concerned for him, I'm concerned for Jamal, I'm concerned for Shégois Alexander, I'm concerned for every NBA player that is doing late playoff run into May, July training camp for national teams, August heavy basketball schedule, three weeks off, and then they're going to be right back in the gyms. That to me is like very concerning, but this is how it is, and you have to choose, and this is definitely worth it for these athletes, and I think it's especially worth it for Nicole. 100%. I mean, you could tell it means a lot to him. The concern part of this, this is about the time when Yoke, you know, he's over his like athletic pride. I know it's funny to say, because he's not the most athletic guy, and it's not like he is on it's, it's, it's a, it's not a steep drop off from here. It's a slow drop off, but nonetheless, it is a drop off where you expect the guys he enters his 30s to need rest a little bit more than he needed it in his 20s, and for fatigue to add up more than it did before. But that being said, this was light work. Yoke is playing really hard today. I mean, he was going all out and given it his effort, but he played 23 minutes, Matt, and the reason he played 23 minutes is because he dominated those 23 minutes, and it's funny, like you just read the stat line. It doesn't, again, stats never tell the story of him anymore. 14 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists. Is it admittedly awesome stat line? But it's also not that crazy. But when you say, oh, it happened in 23 minutes, and oh, by the way, he only missed two shots, and those two shots, by the way, were a shocker. They were both little buddies. So he easily could have had even more points than that. But he was just dominant, man. And he does everything. Obviously, this is a level below NBA basketball in terms of talent, different style. But the way he's able to just dominate every single possession is something that is really incredible to watch. But I also wanted to ask you this thing about Yoke Serbia, while less talented than, you know, Team USA, or probably even the Denver Nuggets, just when you go through like, okay, are these talent, you know, checking boxes. The way they play together is really special, man. And it's something that, as I'm watching them, and some of this is, look, cultural, they've known each other for so long. They're playing for pride and, and this is an important and they're not playing 82 games. They're playing like six. It's easy. Like this, you have to compare this version of Serbia to the, like, finals version of the Nuggets. In the finals version, the Nuggets were on point. They were making great passes and moving the ball. But the speed and transition just jumps off the screen. And by the way, Yoke seems to be loving it. He's grabbing every rebound and immediately getting it out of his hands. Whoever he outlets it to, if there is a pass to be made, they quickly make the pass. It's just bang, bang, bang. And I watched that and I go, it's such a start contrast to how Denver plays transition. And then when you get to the half court, the ball pop in, it's such a start contrast to how Denver gets the ball pop in. The only thing that's similar is neither team can make a three pointer. I think it's how it's starting to how Denver plays now. Like I can remember when like they were like an incredible transition team. And that really carried over like year over year at like a character, the Gary Harris years and even really into the, the non. Like I think it started to kind of kind of erode the year after the bubble and I think it was the year of the bubble, which is funny because that was their start of their success. So it has the most things. Yeah. And like play style, I think is part of it. Because like, look, when I, when I watch, um, when I watch Germany and I watch like these other teams, like I noticed I've, I've made like so many notes in my, my note file of just like not, like another backdoor cut, another backdoor. Like there's so, and it feels like there's a lot of spacing and that cuts are different. And I just, I so wonder about what it is about the dynamics, whether it's the court dynamics or just like the more, the more passing more egalitarian play style, um, all these types of things. It also, I will say this, um, to your kind of point, when we see Nicole Yochich in the NBA get frustrated with how the nuggets are playing, a very good thing to do is kind of think about the last possession and not think about whether it was a turnover or a bad shot, but think about how they played and compare that possession to any possession with team Serbia and think about the way that they played because it's just very apparent to me that like, I think Yochich does love this style of play and look like I've really come around on this where I do firmly believe this and this has to do with a lot of players in the NBA and players that have played in the NBA and then left that we can try and stack everybody on skills, but it also, there's a level of how do you want to play international basketball is a fundamentally, in my opinion, different, almost sport than the NBA because of how the NBA has evolved for a lot of reasons and you asked like, well, why did it evolve that way? And most smart people will tell you the money and then, well, also, evolutions happen slowly. It's not like, oh, we want more of this. It's like, oh, this rule changed in that and then this cultural shift in this and things just happen and they evolve over time and you arrive at this point. Yeah, that's a really great point because it's like the erosion. And I think about that a lot with the NBA too, where a lot of players like Russell Westbrook is actually a great example of this where Russ used to be so unpredictable and so creative and then and was a monster on defense and like over time playing so many games. I think just like a Rhodes, you just, you do the same things that get you through the games. Well, I think the Houston, Dan Tony's rockets and James Harden's rockets, I think had a profound impact on the league because in a lot of ways they game the system. They learned, hey, it's actually simple if we just spread the court and shoot threes and get the well and I think everybody's taking that. So even the creativity of a Westbrook as the league sees success somewhere else and says, oh, we can do that, it happens. But nonetheless, again, this is more about stylistically, there are similarities between Denver and Serbia and that Yokech is clearly better. It's not like this is a one A one B situation, clearly the best player. And then there's a bunch of guys below that same as with Denver and also not great shooting. So they have, you look at how do you find success when that is your identity in Serbia's finding success with this insane ball movement that they have that at its best is like really fun to watch. There were possessions and they missed the threes on half of them, but it was like pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, wide open three brick. But nonetheless, you still watch it and go, wow, that was eight really good passes in a row. Play with joy, freedom and pace. And the nuggets, I think honestly did that. And you know, one of the reasons they stopped doing that was because they knew their half court offense was so good. A hundred percent. It wasn't worth the risk, but you do lose something, I think. This is a great I don't see think that is the real conundrum of the nuggets is they're good enough to get by without doing those things. But at some point, the bill comes due. So how do you balance that? On Sunday, let's talk a little more about that. That'll be a great show. On the other side, Jamal Murray and Canada will play on Friday. We'll talk about what's next for Jamal and what we want to see from him. Plus, I've got a DEF CON update on my Jamal Murray concern. We'll do that next here on lockdown nuggets. Sports are obviously awesome. Lots of them going on right now. And you can get in on all the action at Fandall plus NFL is right around the corner. I spent most of my vacation looking over NFL magazines and going over the things that I want to bet. I'm very good at a parlay on the Detroit Lions and your poor wife. That was the vacation. No, I meant like at the Airbnb when the kids were resting. No, you picked your spot. You picked your spot. I got it. That's that's the meat on that's the mat. I'm Adam. This summer Fandall is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day all summer long. Head on over to Fandall dot com and start making the most out of your summer. Fandall official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. We'll be right back on locked on nuggets. Hi, I'm Jake from locked on. There's a lot to say when buying a new home or car, but really the first words you want to say are like a good neighbor, state farm is there and trust me as someone named Jake, that is a fact. That's the phrase that will help you feel good knowing that you have people who could help you find the right coverage for the things you want to protect. Insurance doesn't need to be complicated with a state farm agent with so many coverage options. It feels good knowing you can find what fits you because your situation is unique and state farm is there to help you feel supported with the coverage you need for your car, your home and even boats, motorcycles, RVs and other things that matter to you. And when you need ways to get help, don't yell or be angry because state farm gives you options there too. In person or on the phone with your local agent or on state farm dot com or their award winning app, state farm lets you do things your way. So when you need help protecting the things that matter most, remember to say like a good neighbor, state farm is there. Back here on locked on nuggets, thanks for joining us Megan this part of your day. I appreciate you guys being with us. It's world's finest with you on a Wednesday. All right, so let's talk about Jamal Murray. Adam Defcon is a system used by the US military to describe their concern and the alert level over an impending nuclear attack. Defcon five is when everything's fine and cool and Defcon one is you should hold on to your but things are about to get nasty. I am at somewhere between because I get to do a two and a half here. I'm at like a two and a half on Jamal Murray at this point. I'm very concerned here with the fact that Jamal doesn't look physically right and he doesn't look able to compensate for that whatever physically is going on and still be able to make impacts and like I have a lot of concerns about what this means with a very short off season. 2021 sticks out in my mind not for what wound up happening later on, which God forbid a serious injury happens. Definitely don't want that but that's like you know some of that stuff is just that's how life goes in the NBA. But more of like Jamal struggled a lot from the start of that season because he never got any time off didn't get to ramp up. I have a lot of concerns. What have you seen from Jamal in Olympic play and how concerned are you? I mean what we're seeing from him is two games and they've both been you know below the standard that you would hope for him. In the first one I thought he was pretty terrible you know outside of maybe one or two possessions. In the second one I thought he floated a lot and had a couple moments like the second one definitely had more moments that you could look at and say like okay all right there's something let's get that going a little more. So maybe you could make the case that he had to leave the team for a certain amount of time he's ramping up and maybe allowing the rest of the team to sort of carry the load coming off the bench and even when he's out there he's not being super aggressive all the time. Although again in game two I thought he was more aggressive than in game one. His shot hasn't been falling which is obviously a major weapon for him. But that's the fluff. The real part of this is I am looking at it and I'm not with you with Def Con 2. I probably at like Def Con three and a half I would say. So I'm like one it's definitely not five but probably not even four but it is like all right. What I'll say is I just want to see him look explosive confident and aggressive at some point in this tournament and hopefully for an extended period not like oh the last game but hopefully there's a handful of games to end the tournament where you look at it and go okay there he is. He looks like the second best player on Canada which is what he should be because right now he looks like one of the guys. Yeah that see that's a really good point that not only for the nuggets right I think it's very easy for us as a nuggets podcast to kind of parlay this into what we want to see from Jamal from a nuggets perspective. But as somebody that has covered the duration of Jamal's career no matter what he looks at on his phone and press conferences like I know how much this moment means to him. I know the excitement that he and it had to have taken a lot for honestly with the fact that he had to leave the team and come back and he was not participating and then like he's trying to force his way through this which is an indication of how difficult it is and you're only doing that if it really means a lot to you and you can tell that this like this should be a great moment for Jamal Murray. If you'd asked us a year ago after the title like what's next summer going to be like for Jamal Murray with Team Canada we'd be like oh him and Shay it's going to be those guys running those. Well I was even saying like it'll be interesting if Murray is like the alpha you know like maybe shade is the best player but Murray in the clutch and right now you're going is it should Murray be in in the clutch like yeah it might not be one of the top five you know yeah and like some of that will say that when I've watched him Canada it has stood out to me that the rest of the team looks very comfortable playing around Shay now some of that's because like they've they've played together before like they've been at camp and they've played in these games so that they're not trying to integrate but it just feels very much like Jamal doesn't really and like doesn't know how to play next to Shay at all and it doesn't feel and like to Jamal's you know defense I don't think that necessarily like she's never played next to a player like Jamal either so it's not like she's ever been in a position where it's like hey you need to get you need to get him going. Shay's not that type of point guard you know as much as as much of a Shay guy as I am and I'm one of the bigger ones he is not the type of like CP3 like oh I got to get this guy going tonight like that's not how how his game is wired and so it always kind of look you know what versus you know Brooks one of the things I love about Brooks is like you're going to know Delon Brooks is there good or bad or the other it's oftentimes going to be bad but you're going to know that Brooks is there and Lou Dort's kind of the same way where he's able to really make an impact without ever you know Lou Dort's on the floor regardless of what he's doing in the box floor and with Jamal you're not really sensing that you're not really feeling that and that to me I think is is concerning on top of everything else and I think well the other part and you kind of referenced around this is alright Russell Westbrook joins the team now it's clear that he's going to need shooting which means he probably needs to share the court with Jamal for some period of time but to your point Jamal never has really shown the ability to play off of a lead guard and that to me is as concerning as the I mean not not quite the sluggishness like his inability to beat guys down off the dribble that part is concerning because that's what makes the nuggets the nuggets is his counter punch to the to that you know his part of the two main game but just you would love to see like alright this is good practice Shay Gildes Alexander this is his team he's really good he's playing awesome play off of the move around run around the court like move get yourself open knock down open shots find the seams and he hasn't done that so far he didn't do that obviously all of last year playing off of Reggie Jackson so that's the thing I think more than anything else that I would love to see Murray's secondary play making and scoring playing off of a lead guard if we saw that at some point in this playoffs I think it would give us reason to be right back on because here's the thing about Jamal because I see people saying Jamal was bad last year they won a title and he hasn't been good since the finals not true Jamal is very good last year when he was healthy unfortunately he was injured several different times with my nagging injuries that I think were probably preventable but who knows but the point was when he was healthy he was actually very good so this idea of oh he's cooked he's not hasn't been good for a year and a half I just don't think it's true needs to be consistent and I see you know I also saw comments of like well he's got other guys to carry that's the point he had last year that was the perspective oh other guys will carry the regular season playoffs get here and I'll be ready Murray has to become a guy that you can count on for 82 and 16 man that's such a like I think a good distillation of like what you're looking for from Jamal is that you can you want to feel like you can count on him not like oh hey everything is awesome yeah it's the big one yeah it's it's you know what you're getting from him some more asset what point do we start the conversation about Jamal being a yokech merchant so I would advise you in defense of if you want to if you want to be fair to Jamal I would say probably don't go down that road because Jamal has had to meld his game from the day that he arrived he is more and more and more it started slowly but more and more and more had to tailor his game around a cola and he should right but if Jamal had gone somewhere else maybe he looks entirely different maybe his career path maybe it's better maybe it's worse worse but I don't think it's fair to kind of like to to look at I do think that we're maybe under rating a little bit how much everybody molds around yokech which is for the best but what that does to their games I think is is part of the equation here well the other thing is Murray does make winning plays I mean he's a great screen center that's that's a selfless thing to do to set a good screen he does those types of things even in the game the other day made some defensive plays made me just did a few things that you go okay not every player does that the problem is like you said he needs to pop he needs to look more athletic he needs a little quicker he needs to look more aggressive on offense and I hope we see it I mean the gap the loop he made from game one to game two while both games I would consider like bad by his standards the gap he made between those two if he makes that same gap in the game three I think it would be probably like an average game that's how that's how big of a gap it is and how far he has to go you make two of those steps by game four you might be going all right good game Jamal so hopefully that means he is getting his legs under him as he gets acclimated to playing again on the other side the nuggets are headed Abu Dhabi for preseason and that's going to change a lot of what they're going to do in terms of their preseason and training camp schedule we'll talk about the impacts of that what it means for Denver and their season up here on locked on nuggets you know we love talking stats here at locked on and here's one that's super simple to remember discover automatically doubles the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match that means with discover you could turn a hundred and fifty bucks cash back to three hundred dollars that's right you could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network you earn and discover double c terms at discover dot com slash credit card back here on locked on nuggets thanks for joining us making this part of your day appreciate you guys being with us here on a Wednesday world's finest with you at Amara's and that more so the nuggets are headed Abu Dhabi for preseason they've been selected for the Abu Dhabi games at the NBA continues to make sure that they can make lots and lots of money as much as they can they will play the boss and Celtics which is a fascinating match up last year the Minnesota timber wolves and the Dallas Mavericks met in the Abu Dhabi games you might remember those two teams made the conference final so no real way to argue that it that there's a like sign that going there the reason I bring that up actually Adam is because I have to do so much work on win totals for action network if you go to China for preseason there is a consistent trend that you go under and the reason I started noticing it was the Warriors talked about how much it screwed with their training camp because China do to both its geographical size and the intensity of their love of basketball there meant that those tours are not short it's not like oh you go over you play a preseason game and you come back that's more akin to this which is like the nuggets and Celtics are gonna go to Abu Dhabi they'll do like a week of press they'll play two games they'll come home that's it China's like three weeks of intense running around a million a million on top of if you're a Nike athlete the whole other thing on top of that and so it and it really does disrupt things however the nuggets are going to have training camp in Denver the nuggets are going to have a shortened training camp they will have to leave early for those games and they're gonna all that time that they will spend traveling or doing media and other things our days the other teams will be spending in camp in practice working on things the nuggets will be behind when they start the 2024-25 season compared to the other teams because the other teams will have had more time to schedule well not only that I mean the Denver nuggets training camp I believe will be in Denver this year not in San Diego in large part because of this trip so you're gonna have to be in Denver where we already know they only have the one court the reason you go to San Diego or one of the major reasons every year you go out of state is because that gives you the opportunity to do you know more to have more courts have work on different things and spread out and Denver you're just not able to do that to the same degree because of that tiny training camp but also it will be a stunted one because they had to get on the plane go all the way across and throw off their biological calendar you know clocks so that they have to acclimate to a new time play a couple games avoid injury out there and then come all the way back so I do think that this is actually a storyline because we're already talking about Murray and Yokech playing into the summer we're already talking about fatigue and now you're bringing in this is the least continuity the team has had in a while bringing in Russell Westbrook bringing in so many young players now that need to step up bringing in Dario Sarge there's major things they need to work on and they're just going to have less time than typical to work on him so I actually think this is I don't want to say significant but it is a storyline yeah there's that there's that part of me that wants to be like and so the nuggets will start slow and then it's like no man like they if they get a favorable start to the schedule they might rip off 15 and 2 and be fine yeah like last year they had it was really funny the way the schedule worked out last year because the early part of their season was so easy in terms of opponent but it was so difficult in terms of schedule density and that's what Malone complained about night after night after night while saying no complaints he does say hey there's no excuses but if you look at the schedule and like if the opposite of injury would have said the same he'd be like you know we've been home a lot and that's great but look who we've played they've I think we've played nothing but playoff team you know every coach he's good at it he's good at it every coach wants the first 20 games to be against the Washington Wizards after at rest at home with three days rest but that's kind of the key here I'll say that I'm going to be very curious to see what this looks like in two weeks from the schedule drops yeah oh yeah it'll be interesting but Matt here's the thing because Denver was physically exhausted last year but I think they were equally mentally exhausted and you talk about I think they were frustrated like this has been a weird summer because I think players more so than ever kind of went their separate ways for the summer and again this you almost could put the last two years as one because of how it feels and I just think there was a level of everybody get away but that also tells you that there was a mental in emotional fatigue that happened and when you talk about guess what training camp which is usually like we all go to San Diego and hang out on the beach and do this or that now it's we're going to fly across the globe then we're going to fly back and it's going to be condensed I just think it starts the season off with a little mental fatigue so maybe it's a good thing maybe it's one of those things where Denver needs it it's going to be a kick in the pants it's going to be hey this is hard remember how hard it is this is what September looks like this year well I said this on Twitter because there's a reply to something about CAM that Swipa said and I think it is really important and like it's okay for smart reasonable people to disagree on these things I am just very big on I don't care how many minutes the starters play I care about how many games the starters play I just I think it's right there and I'm really worried about yoga in this regard well you wrote you care in terms of like if it was 39 40 minutes but 34 to 32 is the same deal yeah you'll have to count minutes in like bunches of 5 or something yeah where it's like if you play 29 minutes and you play 34 minutes I'm not meaning I'm not I just from talking to the players and the sense I've kind of gotten is you really because people we see the game we talk about the game we experience the games that that's the whole thing is the games it's sport it's games you get to the arena in the morning you have to do you have to like you have to warm up so you have to have some treatment done in the morning two hours it's basically two hours you have to go home you have to take a nap you do whatever then you have to come back then you have treatment then you have to get then you have to get dressed then you have to do warm up then you have to do then you have to come back in game plan warm up again lay up line play the game post game treatment then go home you know and and with flights on top of it so a lot of this for me is just about you can play them if yoke plays 29 minutes but if he plays 77 games again I would be concerned I would just I would be and you have to find and this is what's really concerning to me about the changes with with CB going in the starting lineup and everything else which is like this better work man and you better find some ways to win games without yoke itch and you better find some some game ways to win games when you're missing two starters like and you will that's the thing of the NBA is like it's we everyone acts like oh well you you're missing three starters and I'm like I you know how many nights I see teens when they're missing three it's crazy because the NBA schedule is that long and that messy but you better be able to do it and that's where this gets really dicey but you also just have to accept hey if we don't if we don't win 50 games that's okay if we don't get a three seed or a one seed especially that's okay because that was the mistake that was made last year was like they they caught themselves in while we're this close I do think that was a lot of it Adam was like what it's a month we can get through this it's a it were it's March 1st we just got to make it to April 1st and then the last two weeks are usually nothing it wasn't this year because that's how tough it was but like you talk yourself into like we can push for a couple more weeks and you have to be like no like I have to get I've got to miss games in February March and April so that I'm ready when the playoffs start you have to do that and you got to do that with not only yoke but you got to do that with Aaron and like SWIPA said that he was like well I think that Jamal needs to play more and I'm like he needs to play more games so that's I kind of argued against it and I play 59 games I get your assertion of the only way for him to get in shape is is like it has nothing to do with that it's responsibility to the team like this is the thing like this is where we really disagree Matt there's a responsibility that you owe to your teammates of like hey this is why I think the meme that went around outside of whatever toxicity or what have you it was so damning was because it actually observed what was the biggest thing about Murray he's resting while his teammates are running themselves ragged throughout the course of the year and eventually out of steam and that's just not fair it would be it's the same as you know obviously working with colleagues we all have worked with colleagues who don't pull their own weight and it's draining in addition to like now you have to pick up their weight but now it's also draining emotionally of well that guy like why isn't he doing it and then when you're making a max contract and you're the guy that gets the accolades alongside a yokech for all those things it's a responsibility that you owe and yes does it optimize for human performance no but this isn't a marathon part of it is marathons don't optimize for human performance it's a lot about wheel it's a lot about what you owe your teammates and he owes them in my opinion so I don't disagree on that actually I do really believe in the what you owe to the team like I really do believe in that stuff I think the question you have to kind of balance there is like what's your what is the risk allowance for you of because it feels almost like a double-edged sword like a can't win where it's like you better play 60 65 games 70 70 games you better play 70 games you owe it to the team to play 70 games so everybody doesn't have to have to pick up your slack and then you get to the end it's like yeah he's worn down and banged up and not able to be himself because he played 70 games this is how I know you don't really believe this because we always argue about Kawhi Leonard and how like well he'll his teams ever win because he doesn't he feels the way you feel like well I shouldn't have I gotta take care of my body so what's the matter we got guys that can do that you want a what you want a compounding interest to this and the difference the difference for me is that Kawhi's one a that that's really is the difference is that but Denver kid the difference is Denver can't win without Murray being as good as he was in 2023 and I don't think he can be as good as he was you know without carrying this team and getting him to that spot I don't and look I am with you on the what this will ultimately come down to is a very simple of like yeah it's gonna be hard that's life I don't think that championship is so hard yeah yeah I think it's I think it's I am just simply at the point now where because they won the title that does change the dynamics for me where I'm like if the if the theory is if these guys are healthy they're the best team in basketball then you have to take that as like the number one priority over all the subsequent things like yes team chemistry matters but not as much as making sure they're healthy well well but Murray resting games will make other people not healthy and that and that's what I'm saying is Aaron Gordon wasn't healthy last year Yokech was tired more than he was at any point in 2023 and KCP even was sluggish so to me that's that's why I just don't agree with that I agree all right that's got to do it for locked on nuggets appreciate you guys being with us make sure to check out the show tomorrow swipe and I will talk about all things going on the Olympics team USA everything on locked on nuggets tomorrow make sure to check out the MVR we'll see you guys again next time here on locked on nuggets a prime members you can listen to this locked on podcast add free on Amazon music download the Amazon music app today [MUSIC PLAYING]
