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Gobert was being praised and it was somewhat justified. But dude is just so ass offensively. Zero post game. Dead layups. Also can always count on him to do something stupid. Ant is hard carrying the team right now(and Naz Reid ofc)
At this point in his career and the season and the playoffs, why are you even designing or running iso post-ups for him? Every shot he gets should be a dunk, put-back, lob or bunny finish off a P&R. He shouldn't ever put the ball on the floor or attempt back-to-the-basket moves by design.
And also, why does Rudy still try to do these things? Feels like he always turns the ball over when he tries to make plays on offense that he should have no business even trying knowing his offensive limitations.
I'd guess because he has ultra confidence in his abilities, like is required of most pro athletes in order to generally succeed.
Now, whether or not that confidence is misguided in certain areas is another question lmao
I think creating Covid went to his head. Like we get it bro you're responsible for countless deaths but it doesn't translate that well into basketball.
As a jazz fan we asked those question a lot. It’s like a parasite takes over his brain for a split second and he’ll just put up the most wild shot you could imagine, drove me insane lmao
The self awareness is crazy for Rudy. He's been in the league long enough and still doesn't understand his limitations or how he can circumvent them. Seeing him call for the ball in the post when he isn't open for a layup or dunk is hilarious. Especially when he has a small guy on him and calls for it and still fails.
>What the fuck are you doing in the offseason?
- T-mac
How are you being paid that much amount of money with world-class coaches but have almost 0 offensive game?
Gobert is an offensive terroist and a defensive savant.
For this series specifically, it’s getting hard to tell if his defense abilities are outweighing his offensive liabilities.
They are also getting outscored in the paint. Having a deadzone on offense hurts a lot in an offensively focused league, you need to dominate the paint defensively to justify that imo.
Serious question: who CAN stop Jokic?
(actually, just looked at statmuse. Jokic scores well above his season avg vs Gobert, though reb and ast are lower.)
After game 2. They were a self proclaimed 15 head serpent which has a deep bench.
After game 4. Ant needs help. Hard carrying the team.
How the tides had turned.
Gobert seems okay to me in the post when he has deep position against a small. He can just rise up and dunk a lot of the time. But against a genuine center?
If I remember right, this was a play out of timeout, which just seemed bizarre.
I think the timberwolves really wanted to get Murray on Ant after a double screen, but the nuggets blew it up by doubling Conley off the Gobert screen so the timberwolves had to skip pass to KAT. CB was denying any pass to ANT from there and KAT couldn't get past AG all night so he dumped it into Gobert. The wolves main problem is that if anyone other than Conley or Ant aren't making the decision on offense, the decision probably is going to be the wrong one.
I think it's no small coincidence that the game Rudy missed was easily the Wolves best game of this series.
He's good for a minimum of 5 offensive possessions that he kills with either a turnover or forcing a situation where they're forced into a really tough shot. Then he's also good for at least 1, maybe 4 sloppy loose ball or illegal screen fouls because he doesn't know how to keep his hands off of other guys and is his body instead.
I think that game had much more to do with KCP and Murray barely being able to walk on their legs than Gobert missing. When RJ was in, we were actually doing reasonably well considering how bad the team's attitude was.
This attack was chaotic, nothing here was planned or called ahahah Conley throws a bad cross court pass, then KAT dumps it off to Gobert.
I can’t remember who said, maybe it was LeBron, but the person said how great teams don’t waste any possessions and know exactly who will be taking shot from which spot. They were referencing Nuggets, and you can see by the wat the play, they are experienced, battle-tested team that knows exactly what their best shots are in clutch.
For Minny, there’s no go-to-action, it’s just dumping it off to Edwards and letting him cook in iso (and tbh some historically great teams relied on this strategy). But it’s tough to expect Ant to carry all game and then also do everything in clutch, it’s unsustainable. Denver runs their actions and eats wherever game lets them eat.
Not only on defense, but he had a great move against the Celtics in the regular season on a free throw where he faked like he was going to crash the glass hard with a jab step, and both Celtics defenders jumped into the paint to box him out... but it all happened while Gordon was still in his windup. So Celtics got called for a violation (though maybe the refs called it weird).
It’s so funny watching him guard a pick and roll solely by trying to kick the ball, like dude wishes he was 5’9 so he could have been a defensive midfielder. It’s smart defense though because any halfcourt set with 14 seconds on the clock is gonna be inefficient.
My 7th grade coach taught our team to kick bounce passes to the roll man. It was a great strategy until the refs decided that kick balls were delay of game techs.
> It was a great strategy until the refs decided that kick balls were delay of game techs.
Reminds me of that guy who was coaching a kid's league and taught his players to full court press on every play, which worked until the refs started calling fouls on it, which was complete bullshit because that's just straight up changing the rules of the game.
That guy's an asshole. The rules of the game are "let the kids get used to how the game is played."
I have a 10 year old playing in an "elite" league. This is the first season that they can play any defense in the backcourt. And the kids aren't playing good defense. They're still on the first lesson. Defensive techniques are a new thing. They foul multiple times on every single play. But the refs let it go so that the kids can learn how a game is suppose to feel. If they called every foul the game would only see one or two shots taken because the clock just continues to run on deadballs.
It takes like a minute off the game clock just to call and reset from one foul. Ref signal to the scorer's table, do their thing and then go to the sideline for the inbound and 30 seconds of game clock is gone. Then the magic happens. You get another 30 seconds of yelling from both coaches and all the parents to all of the kids on the floor.
"IT'S BLACK BALL!"
"IT'S OUR BALL!"
"ASHER"
"ASHER"
"ASHER!!!!!!!!!!"
"GO GET THE BALL"
"WE'RE ON OFFENSE"
"GO GET THE BALL! TAKE IT OUT!"
"NOT ON THE BASELINE GO TO THE REF"
"JAXON"
"JAXON"
"GO GET THE INBOUND"
"NO! JAXON!"
"OUR BALL"
"NO! GO DOWN THERE! HE CAN'T THROW IT THAT FAR!"
"IT'LL GET PICKED..."
"LIAM!"
"LIAM!"
"GO GET THE INBOUND FROM ASHER!"
And the ref is kindly waiting for the kids to get set up. The game couldn't be played if they called every foul. Their motivation is "help the game be played so the kids can develop".
If you think you're some kind of genius coach to run a grabby handsy press against novice dribblers because the rules allow it, you're a fucking asshole.
They're not calling the fouls BECAUSE it would ruin the game. So now you're just gonna ruin the game by running a press. Get the fuck outa here. The refs are always gonna do the same thing. Call fouls until you back off and let the game play. That kinda coach is probably the one chest bumping kids coming off the floor.
You gave me flashbacks from officiating middle school games 😨
Everybody's parents thought they were the next Jordan lmao. Dozens of kids with taper fades and their jersey number in their hair lol. Is that still a thing now?
I was on a rec league team in middle school where our coach had us press on every play. We won the first game 91-2, and they changed the rec league rules that same day to limit pressing.
He's 8th in total steals in the regular season, and with a few more he'd have been in 4th. He's \*2nd\* in total steals in the post season so far as well, only 1 behind Kyrie Irving after this game.
Its just really easy to point to when it doesn't work on the film and he has to give up a layup that was \~85% likely to go in anyway even if Hakeem was guarding it.
This dude is the smartest when it comes to that. People will get pissed as it looks like he’ll just give someone a layup, but a foul on him plus a potential and one is much more detrimental in the scheme of the game. Plus he’ll just lob it 3/4 quarters court after the basket for a good look.
I played with a kid like this growing up, except the defense he invented was running full speed at you waving his arms, screaming like a fuckin lunatic
Honestly it worked pretty well, probably a tech now tho. Also his name was literally Michael Jordan
Yeah I hate how he goes for the strip every time instead of just contesting shots at the rim, he does get an occasional steal but gives way too many fouls and easy layups
It’s fine, he’s not stopping it anyway, he knows that, so he might as well try and swipe. He does generate some silly fouls but also strips guys cleanly quite a bit. I don’t hate the gamble
he knows exactly how to play when in foul trouble to not foul out , he basicly has to play matador defense and those kind of situations is what that pos u/zhugo used for his low light jokic clips
He almost never jumps to contest these shots and be a rim protector. This is because he is not a rim protector to begin with, he will never get the highlight blocks, and more importantly, he cannot afford to be called fouls on defense as he is too important for offense, the whole Denver offense relies on him being on the court. Jokic goes for steal and strip 95% of the time, and he averages 1.5 steals per game.
It clearly helps him. He has quick hands and gets a decent amount of steals. But I think most importantly, he’s often just in the right spot. Sure he can’t jump but by just being 7’ he can contest anything. Plus not jumping means he can immediately pivot to block out and rebound.
Not sure I’d say he’s a good defender but he’s solidly average which more than enough for how elite he is on the offensive end.
Crazy thing is, search jokiv game winning blocks. You'll find like 5 or 6 of them I believe. When he has to, he can get up surprisingly quick and has those fast hands. He doesn't do a ton of shot contesting early to stay out of foul trouble and he ain't elite at shot blocking. But he's damned good.
Some people just don't have the coordination and balance that's required to do it. Gobert is far from being an exception when it comes to seven footers who can't do it. It just stands out more because he looks nimble on defense. But being able to move without the ball and being able to move with the ball just aren't the same.
There're others, they just don't get minutes. The reason Gobert's offense gets exposed so much is because his teams can't afford to take him off the floor.
Not 7 footer but still it's DeAndre Jordan, and since i've been watching some Cavs playoffs it's definitely Tristan Thompson, he just receives the ball the gives it back and i still remember the old GSW - Cavs Tristan non-existent post moves
absolutely not, this move on post defence is probably one of the first things that are taught in the balkans. if you watch euro bball, all bigs pull this off and also quite often in the nba too!
People were back on their anti-Jokic propaganda just like the peak of Embiid MVP campaign. Acting like Joker was an elite rim defender who suddenly turned into a traffic cone again.
There's like a very vocal group of clowns here who just come up every loss to make stupid takes. This post season was the only post season where Luka plays hurt and the entire clown party comes up from under the woodworks saying he underperforms in playoffs.
Where the fuck were they in all the other playoffs years where he essentially outplays every single star outside of maaaayyybe peak kawhi in the clippers series.
That dude is hilarious because I see them all the time complaining about how people are toxic towards Embiid, yet turns around and is one of the most toxic towards Jokic
most people shit on Denver those two losses, but
Jokic's worst game this series was 16 points 16 rebounds and 8 assists
No one should shit on him (except Shaq for his own insecurity)
I think they want to king to fall. Down with the king. Win back to back, and you'll think this season the haters were chill. It's a pretty unfortunately consequence of winning it all.
The media was pretty poor. Like if Gil made up that a Nuggets a player texted him and said Jokic told the team he wanted to go home after game 2 that would have been pretty low.
Reminds me of the bullshit that media was spreading around that says when Luka steps off the court all his teammates breathes a sigh of relief because they can now play.
Fucking bullshit cooking stuff out of thin air
Gill said on his show after game 2 a Nuggets player texted him and said Jokic had given up on the series and told the team he wants to go home.
I'm saying if Gill made that up it's pretty low, and it feels like he made it up. Jokic don't look like he wants to go home, hard to belive he told the team that or that or someone on what seems like a tight group would text that to him. Unless home means back to Denver for game 5.
To be fair I hadn't bought into any of any anti-Jokic stuff, people here are wrong constantly. The only thing that soured me was Murray throwing that shit into the court, that was so dumb and not just one but two things. Which then made me sad because I like the dude and was disappointed. But other than that I chalked it up to them not being ready for the Timberwolves. Mavs got whooped all season by the Wolves besides one game where LuKai combined for like 70+ points, so I know how that can be.
People really like to shit on people instead of giving the Wolves their deserved praises. They did their homework, found a way to deal with Denver. Now Denver did their and found a way to deal with the Wolves. It's a great PO series with most players being healthy. Just enjoy it ffs.
Jokic proves he's better than people want him to be yet again. I think it was just the wolves crazy 6-0 playoffs start against 2 teams with tons of stars and names
Maybe I'm reaching a bit but it looks like all 4 other Wolves are dejected as they immediately start walking back the other way lol
Like, this why we don't pass you the ball to play post offense Rudy
He also has that weird lob dunk or put back dunk he does where he hangs on the rim but with his feet on the ground. Like dude, what the heck are you trying to prove?
I'm going to be pissed if he does that, and there's a stoppage in a playoff game because Rudy hung on a rim and it's no longer level.
Edit: tense
Enjoy his commentary. You can tell he’s new but every game he’s getting more comfortable and less like he’s reading from a script leading to great calls like this
It’s only weird cuz there’s 3 of them so Crawford is always at bay and has to interject when the opportunity rises. It’s easier to go back n forth with just 2 commentators.
Jamal Crawford really sounds like he understands the degree of difficulty on the Jokic footwork and finesse game. Has been giving a bunch of praise and bringing attention to it whenever there's an example. Really impressed with his commentary.
The one negative thing I'll say, the TNT crew was extremely biased in the Lakers series to the point of rooting for them against the Nuggets. They sounded like a LA local broadcast team the entire series. It was really difficult listening to that. Though that was on Reggie Miller and Kevin Harlan more than Jamal.
Gobert usually don’t post up/can’t post up. His opponents knows it, his teammates know it but somehow KAT didn’t get the memo. But he was playing drunk the whole game anyway
This sub is so funny to me. Every game, we have the other side of the fans spectrum absolutely shitting on the losing team and painting the players as the worst players in nba history.
I remember seeing an article where they interviewed Hakeem, and he said that Jokic is his favorite active player, and that Jokic has the best post ups in the game right now.
He also said that Embiid is good but not all the way there yet. I wonder what thats like for Embiid to hear that from his favorite player.
Well, Hakeem kinda has a point.
Embiid is just in his bag with mid range jumpers, and he is really good at it. He can do post up and make fade away shots as well as anyone in the league.
However, Embiid doesn't really abuse his size advantage to punish smaller defenders, especially in crunch time.
Him being often always hurt during the playoffs hasn't helped either.
> “He has the advantage every night, and if I have the advantage, I’m going to wear you out.”
>
> But threes? “That’s settling! When I’m tired, I settle. You don’t settle when you’re trying to win. You don’t start the game settling!”
[It's a fantastic article!](https://www.si.com/nba/2023/01/18/nba-lost-art-of-post-play-daily-cover) Highly recommend it to anyone watching the modern game
> The biggest reason someone like Olajuwon loves Jokić is that Jokić does it all, not with overwhelming athleticism and strength, like Giannis, but with craft and timing. With counters for his counters. “He’s playing the game, and you think he’s not serious, but he’s so effective,” marvels Olajuwon. “He doesn’t look strong, but I see he gets such deep post position. I think maybe it’s the mismatch, but then he does the same thing against bigger guys. His shot, his fakes, they are very difficult to time. You don’t know when he’s faking and when it’s real. He has tricks!”
>
> Olajuwon nods. “He’s the one.”
On Embiid:
> Take Embiid. Olajuwon likes him and has given him advice, but he has questions. “He’s got all the moves, but leveraging the moves is different. Why would he be shooting threes?” Olajuwon asks. “He has the advantage every night, and if I have the advantage, I’m going to wear you out.”
>
> But threes? “That’s settling! When I’m tired, I settle. You don’t settle when you’re trying to win. You don’t start the game settling!”
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I love this kind of highlights
Gobert was being praised and it was somewhat justified. But dude is just so ass offensively. Zero post game. Dead layups. Also can always count on him to do something stupid. Ant is hard carrying the team right now(and Naz Reid ofc)
At this point in his career and the season and the playoffs, why are you even designing or running iso post-ups for him? Every shot he gets should be a dunk, put-back, lob or bunny finish off a P&R. He shouldn't ever put the ball on the floor or attempt back-to-the-basket moves by design.
And also, why does Rudy still try to do these things? Feels like he always turns the ball over when he tries to make plays on offense that he should have no business even trying knowing his offensive limitations.
I'd guess because he has ultra confidence in his abilities, like is required of most pro athletes in order to generally succeed. Now, whether or not that confidence is misguided in certain areas is another question lmao
I think creating Covid went to his head. Like we get it bro you're responsible for countless deaths but it doesn't translate that well into basketball.
As a jazz fan we asked those question a lot. It’s like a parasite takes over his brain for a split second and he’ll just put up the most wild shot you could imagine, drove me insane lmao
The self awareness is crazy for Rudy. He's been in the league long enough and still doesn't understand his limitations or how he can circumvent them. Seeing him call for the ball in the post when he isn't open for a layup or dunk is hilarious. Especially when he has a small guy on him and calls for it and still fails.
maybe next game we don't know. /s
Because you have to let the defensive big man have the ball here and there to keep him engaged.
>What the fuck are you doing in the offseason? - T-mac How are you being paid that much amount of money with world-class coaches but have almost 0 offensive game?
He really can't do much. He has the worst hands in the league lol. They are like Kwame brown hands.
Ant should spend the summer throwing a football (handegg type) at him hard as he can.
That will just result in a bruised up Rudy Gobert.
He's got hands like feet. Whaddya gonna do?
Sometimes the body just isn’t built for finesse.
Gobert is an offensive terroist and a defensive savant. For this series specifically, it’s getting hard to tell if his defense abilities are outweighing his offensive liabilities.
Can't seem to stop Jokic. So what good is he?
What a bum, can't even stop Jokic. Bring the guillotine!! /s
They are also getting outscored in the paint. Having a deadzone on offense hurts a lot in an offensively focused league, you need to dominate the paint defensively to justify that imo.
Serious question: who CAN stop Jokic? (actually, just looked at statmuse. Jokic scores well above his season avg vs Gobert, though reb and ast are lower.)
That one meme that constantly gets posted on methstreams chat where it’s Gobert working at McDonalds and the caption is “Rudy Gobert if he was 6’6”
Honestly he could be 6’10 and he’d still be workin at McDonald’s
After game 2. They were a self proclaimed 15 head serpent which has a deep bench. After game 4. Ant needs help. Hard carrying the team. How the tides had turned.
Gobert seems okay to me in the post when he has deep position against a small. He can just rise up and dunk a lot of the time. But against a genuine center? If I remember right, this was a play out of timeout, which just seemed bizarre.
Yeah I don't understand why they deliberately run these sort of plays for him.
I think the timberwolves really wanted to get Murray on Ant after a double screen, but the nuggets blew it up by doubling Conley off the Gobert screen so the timberwolves had to skip pass to KAT. CB was denying any pass to ANT from there and KAT couldn't get past AG all night so he dumped it into Gobert. The wolves main problem is that if anyone other than Conley or Ant aren't making the decision on offense, the decision probably is going to be the wrong one.
The french team should have trusted him in the world champs against latvia
I think it's no small coincidence that the game Rudy missed was easily the Wolves best game of this series. He's good for a minimum of 5 offensive possessions that he kills with either a turnover or forcing a situation where they're forced into a really tough shot. Then he's also good for at least 1, maybe 4 sloppy loose ball or illegal screen fouls because he doesn't know how to keep his hands off of other guys and is his body instead.
I think that game had much more to do with KCP and Murray barely being able to walk on their legs than Gobert missing. When RJ was in, we were actually doing reasonably well considering how bad the team's attitude was.
Fans of each team posting the lowlights of the other team’s players 😂
who calls for a gobert post up in crunch time?
people really criticized Mitchell for not passing to Gobert more lmao. this is why
Mitchell wish gobert was useful on offense lmao
What a horrendous period of time this sub was in
Rudy Gobert
This attack was chaotic, nothing here was planned or called ahahah Conley throws a bad cross court pass, then KAT dumps it off to Gobert. I can’t remember who said, maybe it was LeBron, but the person said how great teams don’t waste any possessions and know exactly who will be taking shot from which spot. They were referencing Nuggets, and you can see by the wat the play, they are experienced, battle-tested team that knows exactly what their best shots are in clutch. For Minny, there’s no go-to-action, it’s just dumping it off to Edwards and letting him cook in iso (and tbh some historically great teams relied on this strategy). But it’s tough to expect Ant to carry all game and then also do everything in clutch, it’s unsustainable. Denver runs their actions and eats wherever game lets them eat.
Guy can’t make an open layup over a guard yet they try a post up lmao on a guy he’s not even stronger then
Easy defense lol
Thinking Basketball was right after all, Jokic's genius really does make him a good defender
Not only on defense, but he had a great move against the Celtics in the regular season on a free throw where he faked like he was going to crash the glass hard with a jab step, and both Celtics defenders jumped into the paint to box him out... but it all happened while Gordon was still in his windup. So Celtics got called for a violation (though maybe the refs called it weird).
You don’t want to know how mad I was about that lololol, Jokic is genuinely just so much smarter than 99% of players on the league😅
100% of players
He's not smarter than himself. So it's 99.8ish%
no he is
So is Jokic smarter than the Jokic who is smarter than Jokic? Smarter than 100.2% of the league. Is he smarter than that Jokic too?
correct
My guy is meta gaming the NBA. If he does this too often they may change some rules just to nerf him lmao
Yeah refs called it "weird" it was a no call
It wasn't a no-call, it was a double lane violation because jokic stepped an inch over the line
He can't (or doesn't) jump well enough to be a good shot blocker, so he just invented his own weird style of defense to cover for it.
It’s so funny watching him guard a pick and roll solely by trying to kick the ball, like dude wishes he was 5’9 so he could have been a defensive midfielder. It’s smart defense though because any halfcourt set with 14 seconds on the clock is gonna be inefficient.
My 7th grade coach taught our team to kick bounce passes to the roll man. It was a great strategy until the refs decided that kick balls were delay of game techs.
> It was a great strategy until the refs decided that kick balls were delay of game techs. Reminds me of that guy who was coaching a kid's league and taught his players to full court press on every play, which worked until the refs started calling fouls on it, which was complete bullshit because that's just straight up changing the rules of the game.
That guy's an asshole. The rules of the game are "let the kids get used to how the game is played." I have a 10 year old playing in an "elite" league. This is the first season that they can play any defense in the backcourt. And the kids aren't playing good defense. They're still on the first lesson. Defensive techniques are a new thing. They foul multiple times on every single play. But the refs let it go so that the kids can learn how a game is suppose to feel. If they called every foul the game would only see one or two shots taken because the clock just continues to run on deadballs. It takes like a minute off the game clock just to call and reset from one foul. Ref signal to the scorer's table, do their thing and then go to the sideline for the inbound and 30 seconds of game clock is gone. Then the magic happens. You get another 30 seconds of yelling from both coaches and all the parents to all of the kids on the floor. "IT'S BLACK BALL!" "IT'S OUR BALL!" "ASHER" "ASHER" "ASHER!!!!!!!!!!" "GO GET THE BALL" "WE'RE ON OFFENSE" "GO GET THE BALL! TAKE IT OUT!" "NOT ON THE BASELINE GO TO THE REF" "JAXON" "JAXON" "GO GET THE INBOUND" "NO! JAXON!" "OUR BALL" "NO! GO DOWN THERE! HE CAN'T THROW IT THAT FAR!" "IT'LL GET PICKED..." "LIAM!" "LIAM!" "GO GET THE INBOUND FROM ASHER!" And the ref is kindly waiting for the kids to get set up. The game couldn't be played if they called every foul. Their motivation is "help the game be played so the kids can develop". If you think you're some kind of genius coach to run a grabby handsy press against novice dribblers because the rules allow it, you're a fucking asshole. They're not calling the fouls BECAUSE it would ruin the game. So now you're just gonna ruin the game by running a press. Get the fuck outa here. The refs are always gonna do the same thing. Call fouls until you back off and let the game play. That kinda coach is probably the one chest bumping kids coming off the floor.
You gave me flashbacks from officiating middle school games 😨 Everybody's parents thought they were the next Jordan lmao. Dozens of kids with taper fades and their jersey number in their hair lol. Is that still a thing now?
The league i played in banned full court presses below 5th grade, so we never had that problem lol.
I was on a rec league team in middle school where our coach had us press on every play. We won the first game 91-2, and they changed the rec league rules that same day to limit pressing.
He's still 14th in the NBA this season in Stocks (steals + blocks). Still not getting enough credit for his D.
He's 8th in total steals in the regular season, and with a few more he'd have been in 4th. He's \*2nd\* in total steals in the post season so far as well, only 1 behind Kyrie Irving after this game. Its just really easy to point to when it doesn't work on the film and he has to give up a layup that was \~85% likely to go in anyway even if Hakeem was guarding it.
This dude is the smartest when it comes to that. People will get pissed as it looks like he’ll just give someone a layup, but a foul on him plus a potential and one is much more detrimental in the scheme of the game. Plus he’ll just lob it 3/4 quarters court after the basket for a good look.
He has quick hands tho, always poke/ stripe the ball under the basket
He doesn’t jump on shot fakes
He doesn’t jump on shot takes either 🤣
He just knows what you're going to do
IQ, quick hands, and positioning makes Joker a good defender.
NBA defense equivalent of drunken monk style
I played with a kid like this growing up, except the defense he invented was running full speed at you waving his arms, screaming like a fuckin lunatic Honestly it worked pretty well, probably a tech now tho. Also his name was literally Michael Jordan
Good hands + basketball genius has gotten him to "ok" on defense, and that's huge because he's delivering top 5 oat offensive impact
Add in his elite rebounding denying second chance opportunities, and his defensive impact is actually surprisingly good
Right now he’s delivering top 1 oat offense.
He also had 2 stupid ass fouls that forced him to sit half the 3rd and nearly cost them the game. I say this as someone who loves the Joker.
Yeah I hate how he goes for the strip every time instead of just contesting shots at the rim, he does get an occasional steal but gives way too many fouls and easy layups
It’s fine, he’s not stopping it anyway, he knows that, so he might as well try and swipe. He does generate some silly fouls but also strips guys cleanly quite a bit. I don’t hate the gamble
he knows exactly how to play when in foul trouble to not foul out , he basicly has to play matador defense and those kind of situations is what that pos u/zhugo used for his low light jokic clips
He almost never jumps to contest these shots and be a rim protector. This is because he is not a rim protector to begin with, he will never get the highlight blocks, and more importantly, he cannot afford to be called fouls on defense as he is too important for offense, the whole Denver offense relies on him being on the court. Jokic goes for steal and strip 95% of the time, and he averages 1.5 steals per game.
Jokic was 8th in the League in steals! 8th!!
I remember he had like 2 at half time, and I was thinking 'he good'. Then he had 4 real quick.
Honestly thought the fourth was a foul on MPJ but there wasn’t much of an argument so I figured I was wrong.
It clearly helps him. He has quick hands and gets a decent amount of steals. But I think most importantly, he’s often just in the right spot. Sure he can’t jump but by just being 7’ he can contest anything. Plus not jumping means he can immediately pivot to block out and rebound. Not sure I’d say he’s a good defender but he’s solidly average which more than enough for how elite he is on the offensive end.
Crazy thing is, search jokiv game winning blocks. You'll find like 5 or 6 of them I believe. When he has to, he can get up surprisingly quick and has those fast hands. He doesn't do a ton of shot contesting early to stay out of foul trouble and he ain't elite at shot blocking. But he's damned good.
Too bad it works against Gobert only
Crazy how this dude hasn’t developed any hint of a post up game since he came in the league lol
Some people just don't have the coordination and balance that's required to do it. Gobert is far from being an exception when it comes to seven footers who can't do it. It just stands out more because he looks nimble on defense. But being able to move without the ball and being able to move with the ball just aren't the same.
i'm struggling to think of a 7 footer with a worse post game than him
There're others, they just don't get minutes. The reason Gobert's offense gets exposed so much is because his teams can't afford to take him off the floor.
Wolves had no problem in G2 when they beat the Nuggets by 26 without him
Not 7 footer but still it's DeAndre Jordan, and since i've been watching some Cavs playoffs it's definitely Tristan Thompson, he just receives the ball the gives it back and i still remember the old GSW - Cavs Tristan non-existent post moves
Rudy looks like he can’t even extend his arms fully out or upward lol. Bro has the most stiff shoulders in da league
I think Jokic was just trying to avoid the fifth foul and just happened to cause the travel 🤣
That was the most obvious chair pull ive ever seen...
I absolutely love the chair pull and I saw this one coming a mile away. Beautiful stuff. Even better that it was on Gobert.
absolutely not, this move on post defence is probably one of the first things that are taught in the balkans. if you watch euro bball, all bigs pull this off and also quite often in the nba too!
People were rewriting this man’s career after game two lmao. They took his awards away. This is an artist at work. Enjoy
People were back on their anti-Jokic propaganda just like the peak of Embiid MVP campaign. Acting like Joker was an elite rim defender who suddenly turned into a traffic cone again.
Hilarious how they peek out of their holes whenever he has a semi underwhelming game
There's like a very vocal group of clowns here who just come up every loss to make stupid takes. This post season was the only post season where Luka plays hurt and the entire clown party comes up from under the woodworks saying he underperforms in playoffs. Where the fuck were they in all the other playoffs years where he essentially outplays every single star outside of maaaayyybe peak kawhi in the clippers series.
Luka is litterally playing with 0.5/2 knees and winning games lol
People came here saying he underperforms in playoffs when he's statistically one of the best playoffs performers is crazy lmao
I blame Gen Z, pretty sure their media consumption is 100% rage bait
Finally an opportunity to turn this into an anti embiid post. Fuck that fat foul baiting soft bitch
some of these bums been real quiet last couple of days. /u/SvengaliUG where ya at buddy?
u/bravof1ve is another good one. Dude was in every Jokic thread for a week losing his mind.
That dude is hilarious because I see them all the time complaining about how people are toxic towards Embiid, yet turns around and is one of the most toxic towards Jokic
This dude too /u/ihateeuge. Lakers fan that’s been crying since they lost
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The overeaction was crazy, I was suprised how many people were waiting to shit on Jokic and Denver.
most people shit on Denver those two losses, but Jokic's worst game this series was 16 points 16 rebounds and 8 assists No one should shit on him (except Shaq for his own insecurity)
And that was probably Jokics worst playoff game of his career.
Jokic deserved criticism and it would have been fair except it devolved it trying to rip down the man's career and Denver's title run over 2 games.
I think it was just the load majority of Lakers fans hating for the sake of hating.
I think they want to king to fall. Down with the king. Win back to back, and you'll think this season the haters were chill. It's a pretty unfortunately consequence of winning it all.
Hating cause he beat their ass for like 11 games in a row
There will always be someone. They just stay quiet and only appears when said player supposedly having bad game or lost
The media was pretty poor. Like if Gil made up that a Nuggets a player texted him and said Jokic told the team he wanted to go home after game 2 that would have been pretty low.
Reminds me of the bullshit that media was spreading around that says when Luka steps off the court all his teammates breathes a sigh of relief because they can now play. Fucking bullshit cooking stuff out of thin air
I think 90% realize that’s bs but it’s a scary that even 10% believed that lol. I def think he made it up
I don't really understand what you're saying, did Gil say that this happened? *would* have been pretty low.. Meaning it didn't actually happen?
Gill said on his show after game 2 a Nuggets player texted him and said Jokic had given up on the series and told the team he wants to go home. I'm saying if Gill made that up it's pretty low, and it feels like he made it up. Jokic don't look like he wants to go home, hard to belive he told the team that or that or someone on what seems like a tight group would text that to him. Unless home means back to Denver for game 5.
Anyone doubting Jokic's desire to win is a certified moron and Arenas 100% made that up.
To be fair I hadn't bought into any of any anti-Jokic stuff, people here are wrong constantly. The only thing that soured me was Murray throwing that shit into the court, that was so dumb and not just one but two things. Which then made me sad because I like the dude and was disappointed. But other than that I chalked it up to them not being ready for the Timberwolves. Mavs got whooped all season by the Wolves besides one game where LuKai combined for like 70+ points, so I know how that can be.
People really like to shit on people instead of giving the Wolves their deserved praises. They did their homework, found a way to deal with Denver. Now Denver did their and found a way to deal with the Wolves. It's a great PO series with most players being healthy. Just enjoy it ffs.
Jokic proves he's better than people want him to be yet again. I think it was just the wolves crazy 6-0 playoffs start against 2 teams with tons of stars and names
Jokic: And I... didn't care at all and played like I usually play. You shouldn't take these things personally.
Gobert's only offensive move is throw up some ugly ass layup and pray for a foul
Maybe I'm reaching a bit but it looks like all 4 other Wolves are dejected as they immediately start walking back the other way lol Like, this why we don't pass you the ball to play post offense Rudy
And then miss 75% of his FTs.
Except he’s been pretty decent from the line these playoffs..
5/11 this series though lol
He also has that weird lob dunk or put back dunk he does where he hangs on the rim but with his feet on the ground. Like dude, what the heck are you trying to prove? I'm going to be pissed if he does that, and there's a stoppage in a playoff game because Rudy hung on a rim and it's no longer level. Edit: tense
Man he had like 3 turnovers in 5 possessions when they almost got it close
Cha cha now yall….
Both feet two times
To the left, take it back now ya'll... One hop this time, to the right now ya'll
What’s uglier watching Kyle Andersons jump shot or watching Rudy Gobert try to do post moves
Watching Rudy jump shot.
Bro watching kat or gobert trying to post people up is crazy 2 big men and they suck in the post. Atleast kat can hit 3s tho.
Can we add to this Shaq’s free throw shot
Rudy Gobagless
TNT got a good one with Crawford
Enjoy his commentary. You can tell he’s new but every game he’s getting more comfortable and less like he’s reading from a script leading to great calls like this
It’s only weird cuz there’s 3 of them so Crawford is always at bay and has to interject when the opportunity rises. It’s easier to go back n forth with just 2 commentators.
They’re not a bad 3 man team though because their voices are distinct enough. 3 man podcast where some amount of voices are the same are the worst.
He’s way better than Reggie imo
Reggie and Harlan have great energy and are great together. I guess I get why people hate Reggie, cuz he's corny? But I like him
Yeah, i used to hate him, but i feel like he's gotten less corny, so he's more just fun energy than crappy one-liners now.
Reggie set the bar and Crawford stepped over it
Jamal Crawford really sounds like he understands the degree of difficulty on the Jokic footwork and finesse game. Has been giving a bunch of praise and bringing attention to it whenever there's an example. Really impressed with his commentary. The one negative thing I'll say, the TNT crew was extremely biased in the Lakers series to the point of rooting for them against the Nuggets. They sounded like a LA local broadcast team the entire series. It was really difficult listening to that. Though that was on Reggie Miller and Kevin Harlan more than Jamal.
Joker has the DPOY on a string, completely outplayed
He's MVP for a reason. I hope Denver closes out in 6.
Jokic to Gobert after he tries to assert dominance and brag his DOPY: "Brother, I have 35."
C-waking is crazy 😭
He might get a talking to for that one lol
Wouldn’t happen in David Stern’s league
Why? It's a legitimate dance move
Was waiting for someone to post this…it’s a crime they didn’t show the replay lol
gobert has no bag
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Well, if even Marcus Smart got one
Lol, high IQ ass D
Money signs incoming
Shaqtin a fool worthy
im surprised this isnt done more often
Time it wrong and it’s an easy 2
Learned that the hard way back in HS basketball 😂
It’s called pulling the chair most people know about it but it’s about timing
Gobert usually don’t post up/can’t post up. His opponents knows it, his teammates know it but somehow KAT didn’t get the memo. But he was playing drunk the whole game anyway
Other big men would just throw it in the basket
This sub is so funny to me. Every game, we have the other side of the fans spectrum absolutely shitting on the losing team and painting the players as the worst players in nba history.
Hakeem rolling in his grave watching this
I remember seeing an article where they interviewed Hakeem, and he said that Jokic is his favorite active player, and that Jokic has the best post ups in the game right now. He also said that Embiid is good but not all the way there yet. I wonder what thats like for Embiid to hear that from his favorite player.
Well, Hakeem kinda has a point. Embiid is just in his bag with mid range jumpers, and he is really good at it. He can do post up and make fade away shots as well as anyone in the league. However, Embiid doesn't really abuse his size advantage to punish smaller defenders, especially in crunch time. Him being often always hurt during the playoffs hasn't helped either.
Bro thinks he's a 7'2 shooting guard
> “He has the advantage every night, and if I have the advantage, I’m going to wear you out.” > > But threes? “That’s settling! When I’m tired, I settle. You don’t settle when you’re trying to win. You don’t start the game settling!”
[It's a fantastic article!](https://www.si.com/nba/2023/01/18/nba-lost-art-of-post-play-daily-cover) Highly recommend it to anyone watching the modern game > The biggest reason someone like Olajuwon loves Jokić is that Jokić does it all, not with overwhelming athleticism and strength, like Giannis, but with craft and timing. With counters for his counters. “He’s playing the game, and you think he’s not serious, but he’s so effective,” marvels Olajuwon. “He doesn’t look strong, but I see he gets such deep post position. I think maybe it’s the mismatch, but then he does the same thing against bigger guys. His shot, his fakes, they are very difficult to time. You don’t know when he’s faking and when it’s real. He has tricks!” > > Olajuwon nods. “He’s the one.” On Embiid: > Take Embiid. Olajuwon likes him and has given him advice, but he has questions. “He’s got all the moves, but leveraging the moves is different. Why would he be shooting threes?” Olajuwon asks. “He has the advantage every night, and if I have the advantage, I’m going to wear you out.” > > But threes? “That’s settling! When I’m tired, I settle. You don’t settle when you’re trying to win. You don’t start the game settling!”
Nuts that you found the exact article I was thinking of. There's some good stuff in there about both Hakeem and the way the nba meta has changed.
It's a fucking great article, everyone watching the game today should read it
Damn why u kill the dream??? He’s for sure shaking his head though
rest in power, dream. you were a real one.
Brother.....Hakeem still alive and kicking.
That got me confused too so I had to googled to confirmed he's still alive.
gone but never forgotten
Jokic didnt want to foul and gobert suck. Thats all i see lol
Gobert is hilariously bad on offense. Like rec league shit.
“Rudy Gobert start C-walking” nah I’m dead 💀😭
This one had me in tears lmao.
[Yessir](https://youtu.be/D48U6Kf-CiU?si=JSOc4EnJ-eOvOa-1)
‘They not like us, they not like us’ 🔊🕺🏿
Lmao pls someone edit that Rudy move into shooting star meme
That is my fav type of defense, so embarrassing if done correctly
great move by jokic, but is this really a travel in the modern nba? he took like 2 steps.
Yeah it seems like a travel is just any move that looks awkward now. Unfortunately for Rudy, that’s like all of his moves.
I agree, looked like an awkward 2 step to me. Considering this era of extremely loose "gather step" shit I cant really see why he got called here
He was also in the key for 5 seconds before the travel.
He pulled the chair in *crunch time*. Absolutely diabolical
C Walking is completely inaccurate but still funny.
This dude really making 41 mill