← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - LIVE: NUGGETS-CLIPPERS REACTION: Nikola Jokic & Jamal Murray lead Nuggets to DOMINANT Game 7 win over Clippers
00:18:09
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- [00:00]
Jason
Okay, have you heard about this? Last year, Degree changed the formula for their Cool Rush deodorant. The fans rebelled and wanted the old scent back and Degree listened and that doesn't happen often. They admitted they effed up and are bringing the original Cool Rush scent back. And it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp and fresh. There's a reason why it's the number one men's antiperspirant and it's back in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under $4. So try it and see what the fuss is about. Head to your local Walmart, Target and try the OG Cool Rush for yourself.
- [00:29]
Ryan
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- [01:00]
Analyst
Lowe's helps refresh your garden in time for Mother's Day.
- [01:03]
Jason
Right now get five bags of one.
- [01:05]
Analyst
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- [01:28]
Podcast Host
The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back. We're partnering with Nissan so pull up to their exclusive lounge to get a special look at the all new 2025 Nissan Kicks and Nissan Rogue. The Nissan Rogue S is more affordable than CR, V and RAV4 and features available 12.3 inch touchscreen display while the all new Nissan Kicks holds it down with a totally redesigned interior cabin with features like available wireless Apple carplay and available panoram moon roof. Relax and see how Nissan is leveling up the game come kick it April 26th at Pullman Yards in Atlanta. Get ready for culture, community and good conversation.
- [02:05]
Ryan
The volume.
- [02:10]
Advertiser
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- [02:43]
Analyst
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New DraftKings customers bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly make it a playoff run to remember with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use code HOOPS. That's H O O P S. That's code hoops for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York. Call 877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPENY to 467-369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-78-97777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void In Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG co Audio. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Saturday. Saturday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great weekend. Well, the Nuggets sent the Los Angeles Clippers home. We're going to be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams focusing on where the Clippers should go from here as obviously this is the season where things tended to go most right for them in terms of health and yet here they are getting sent home in the first round in kind of disappointing fashion. And then we will also talk a little bit about the pending Nuggets Oklahoma City Thunder series. You guys know the drill before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions so we can get to them in our mailbags throughout the remainder of the season. We are also going over to Playback after the show tonight, so when we are finished here, there's a link in the description to this video that will take you over to Playback where you guys can follow the Hoops Tonight channel. We're going to go over there, we're going to take questions from you guys. I'll have some of you guys on stage. We also will start to take a look at some film of the Nuggets Thunder matchup from the regular season as we start to prep for that second round series. So make sure you guys get ready to head over to playback right when we finish up here live on YouTube. So the Nuggets send the Clippers Home One of the clearest bits of information that we had after the first six games of this series was that out of all of the units in the series, meaning Clipper defense, Clipper offense, Nuggets defense, Nuggets offense, that the Nuggets offense was the best unit in the series. Starting from the third quarter of Game four, everything seemed to click for them and they had scored pretty much at will from that point forward in the series, with exception of the third quarter of Game six where they kind of lost control, right? But they had an offensive rating over 1:25 in games four and games five of the series when they took the 3:2 lead. And here in game seven when they needed to, they threw one of their best possible offensive punches and closed the deal, put up 72 points in the second quarter and third quarter, overcoming a first quarter where Jokic and Murray couldn't make anything. Some good looks that neither of them could make in the early portion of the game ended with six players in Double figures before we even got to the end of the third quarter. And what turned into a complete and total destructive blowout. Classic Nuggets offensive machine advantage creation from Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Excellent play finishing from Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter, Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, Russell Westbrook again coming in off the bench and immediately providing scoring punch. It is so bizarre to see him aggressively looking for three point shots in them actually being good looks for this Denver offense. It it. They. They just threw an excellent offensive punch in that middle portion of the game. Completely rattled the Clippers foundation and and they were never able to recover on the other end of the four. The Nuggets brought the requisite competitiveness on the ball against James Harden. Against Kawhi Leonard they held the clippers to just 40 points in that second and third quarter stretch. Then the Clippers just completely let go of the rope. Tyloo called a timeout with 10 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter when the Nuggets were up by 15. And coming out of the timeout we had this horribly ugly possession where James Harden has the ball in the right corner and just sits with the ball in the triple threat until the clock nearly runs out and then he dribbles into the teeth of the defense and misses a floater. Clippers don't get matched up in Transition. Michael Porter Jr. Wide open. Three on the left wing goes in. They go down. Norman Powell turns the ball over. They go down the other end. Aaron Gordon. Jamal Murray gets in the paint easily draws Zubots and help. That frees up Aaron Gordon to fill in the gap on the offensive glass. He gets an easy tap and they go down. Aaron Gordon blocks Norman Powell at the rim. Really nice defensive play from Aaron Gordon on that one because Norman kind of went to his inside hand and tried to shield it with his back and Gordon just covered a ton of ground. Sneaky Aaron started to look really good athletically towards the end of the series, which is encouraging given what we had heard early in the series about how he was really struggling to jump. He had a a couple of dunks in this game too that kind of showed that he still has that vertical pop, but he blocks Norman Powell off the rim. The Clippers leave Michael Porter Jr. Wide open again in transition and just like that went from 15 to 23 and the game was basically over. That was out of a timeout when Ty Lou was trying to help regain control of the situation. The Clippers completely fell apart. Easily the most interesting part of that stretch was that Kawhi and James Harden while Jokic and the Nuggets are running away running away with the game. Neither Kawhi nor James Harden were able to generate any sort of consistent offense against Denver in the half court, which is crazy considering where we were at with both of these teams coming into the series and where we were at with James Harden as a player, where we were at with Kawhi Leonard. It's time to have a serious talk about the Clippers moving forward, which we will do in a few minutes. But congrats to the Denver Nuggets for advancing to the second round. It looked super bleak through the first three and a half games. Their offense had stalled out. They looked super banged up. But again in that third quarter of Game four, and I vividly remember at that point in time, the intensity from Nicola Jokic and just what he was able to do offensively to get them going in that third quarter just completely changed the tone and tenor of the series. And the Nuggets never looked back.
- [10:24]
Degree Spokesperson
Hey, so we all make mistakes, but owning up is the right thing to do. You know Degree Cool Rush deodorant well, last year they changed the formula and it did not go well with their fans.
- [10:34]
Degree's whole thing is it turns up the sweat and odor protection when you turn up the effort. And good thing it does because Cool Rush fans really turned up the effort to bring back the original formula. One guy even started an online petition and Degree listened.
- [10:51]
They admitted they effed up and are bringing the original Cool Rush scent back. And it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp and fresh. It's back in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under $4.
- [11:02]
There's a reason why it's been the number one men's Annie purse Sprint for the last decade. It's the same reason why people were not happy when it changed. So if you never tried it, it might be a good time to see what the fuss is about.
- [11:14]
Head to your local Walmart or Target to try the OG Degree Cool Rush for yourself.
- [11:19]
Ryan
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- [11:49]
Podcast Host
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- [12:53]
Coca-Cola Spokesperson
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- [13:52]
Analyst
I think the Nuggets also recaptured a good amount of their defensive identity in this series that we remember from the past. Proof of concept In a lot of ways, I've watched the Nuggets at points in this regular season, particularly in crunch time, look like they still had some of that defensive upside. The big question mark was whether or not they'd be able to get back to that level and there are bigger challenges ahead. This Clippers team is not as good offensively as that Oklahoma City Thunder team, but I thought that this was a proof of concept that they can at very, at the very least execute a game plan against a specific high quality playoff opponent and get stops when they need to. Whereas down the stretch of the season it was like they literally could not get any stops of any kind against anybody. And so I thought that that was an encouraging sign. They logged a 113 defensive rating in the first three wins of the series. Obviously the fourth one hasn't updated yet, but I feel like that's solid against this team. And then again tonight, 40 points during the middle two quarters of the game when they took control. The offense is in just such a good place. Jamal Murray in particular looks ready for what they need from him. He had a layup in transition in the third quarter run where he palmed it and took off in traffic and went up and under and finished on the right side of the basket. And I was like, he just continues to get the lift and the explosiveness out of his legs, which is a good sign of what they're going to need from him in the second round. We'll talk about the OKC series in a minute. I want to spend a little bit of time on the Clippers. I have a lot of respect for this Nuggets team, especially for Nicole Jokic, who I think is the greatest offensive player to ever touch an NBA court. And I do think they have a solid puncher's chance to beat OKC as we will discuss in a few minutes. But this Nuggets team is not at the level of okc, Boston and Cleveland in terms of two way talent. And the Clippers got blown out in a single elimination game against them. What that means is that you're not close. I think self awareness is important in the trajectory of an NBA franchise. You have to be aware of the fact that you're not close, willing to admit it. Specifically your stars aren't good enough. I believe in James Harden as a regular season offensive engine and I think there's a lot of value there. His ability to just create advantages in the low intensity of the regular season will set your bar so high in terms of like the types of advantages your role players are getting. You're going to get a certain level of offense out of James Harden, but in the playoffs, time and time again, as it gets more intense later in the series, he just can't get his game off. 11 points in game five, seven points in game seven. This is not. This was something we all knew was part of James Harden and what his, you know, trajectory looked like over the course of seasons. This is not the like new information. This is the latest bit of solidifying information. Kawhi Leonard is capable of reaching his peak for a game, but he did not have any type of sustained success in this series and it's the most healthy he's looked in years. So it's time to acknowledge that Harden and Kawhi are not good enough anymore to get you where you want to go. Which means it's time to at least start looking towards the future. If you're the Clippers. I like a lot of things about the Clippers organization. I think Ty Lue is one of the five best coaches in the NBA. I think Lawrence Frank knows what he's doing in the front office. I thought his pivot from Paul George to Dare Jones and Chris Dunn was one of the smarter front office moves I've seen in the league in the last few years. An understanding of the diminishing returns of a tertiary star, an understanding of the value of perimeter athleticism and the ability to contain the ball in the modern NBA. I think got a ton of value out of those guys over the course of this season. Everyone is pretty much under contract next year depending on what Harden does with his player option. I would assume he's going to take it, but we'll see. Maybe he ends up re upping on some sort of discounted deal, but you're super flexible outside of that. The year after next a bunch of that money comes off and you're pretty much wide open. You're starting to see some of the light at the end of the tunnel of the damage that was done from the Shake Yield Alexander trade. You have some, you have some draft picks on the horizon, but it's time to switch the focus of the front office towards finding the next generation of Clipper perimeter stars. I think Zoo obviously still has some good basketball left to build around, but like it's time to start looking for who the next guys are that are going to generate offense for this team. That means you might have to be willing to take on draft pick laden offers for quality role players that you have under contract. You might have to be willing to take, you know, take the hit of losing a quality role player like a Derek Jones, like a Chris Dunn, like an, like a Nick Batum. Right. You might have to be willing to potentially even flip a star if the right type of offer comes around. But ultimately you have to start thinking about getting as many cracks at the draft as possible over the course of the next couple years. That also means your scouting department has to shift gears towards looking for upside rather than looking for immediate contribution. You're in the market. You know, I talked about this last night with Detroit. Detroit is in the opposite boat. They don't need to be drafting upside, they need to be drafting NBA ready role player talent. The Clippers need to be shifting gears towards looking entirely for upside. The arena is awesome. I thought that was a resounding success. You have a bright future, but it's time to start building towards that future if you're the Clippers. All right, we're going to talk a little bit about the Nuggets versus Oklahoma City. I like the way Denver matches up in theory starts with the Nuggets being able to score. That unit that Denver has on the strength of Jokic and the play finishing and the secondary shot creation he has around him. That is a really strong foundation to compete in a playoff series. They went 2 and 2 versus each other this year and the Nuggets had a 127 offensive rating in their two wins. They famously hung 140 points on him in their last win. The ability to score starts with Jokic and Murray just being super comfortable in the matchup. In the last game, Jamal had 34 points and looked pretty comfortable against OKC smaller guards. Jokic in the two wins averaged 29 points, 19 rebounds, 12 assists on 60% from the field and 40% from the from three. Those two guys are pretty comfortable in this matchup because their guards can be a little small and because Nicole Jokic is comfortable against everybody on the floor. They grabbed over 32% of their own misses in the season series. That's a combination of Denver size and Oklahoma City being a bad defensive rebounding team most of this year. They're good at passing the ball through Oklahoma City's aggression. Again, Oklahoma City's defense is built towards, you know, being really aggressive with ball pressure, playing more in passing lanes and gapping trying to force turnovers. A lot of guys jumping passing lanes and gambling because it leads to their transition opportunities. You need a high level playmaking talent to be able to pass the ball through that sort of thing. I like the way that Denver matches up there. In theory on defense they didn't guard the Thunder well this year statistically in wins or losses, but with the level they've been playing at defensively in this series, in theory, if they load up on the strong side, if Christian Brown applies quality ball pressure. They rotate as well as they've been rotating on the backside. They should at least be able to challenge Oklahoma City's ability to process. Make Oklahoma City solve the puzzle. That is their their strong side loaded defense. Oklahoma City is the better team and they absolutely should be favored. But I do think this is a very interesting matchup and I think the Nuggets will give them a run for their money. I am going to begin continuing a film session. We're going to talk some film of when we head over to playback here in a little bit. But tomorrow morning I will have a full series Preview on Nuggets vs Okc. So come around to our YouTube channel in the middle of the day tomorrow and you guys will get to see that series preview between Nuggets, between Denver and Oklahoma City. So we're going to head over to playback now and over on playback we're going to take some questions from you guys, we're going to have some of you guys come up on stage, we're going to watch some film, we're going to hang out for a good 45 minutes over there. So I'll see you guys here on playback here in just a couple of minutes. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. On the YouTube front. We will be back again tomorrow morning for the series preview. Tomorrow night's going to be a little tricky on the schedule because we have Pacers at 3 Pacific time. We have the Rockets warriors game seven at 5:30 Pacific time. But I'm actually going with Colin after the game. So we're going to go with Colin after the game and then after I'm done with Colin we're going to go live on YouTube and then we're also going to do playback. So the normal cadence that we have is just going to be delayed about an hour depending on how long we go with Colin, but delayed about an hour after the final buzzer of Rockets Warriors. But Hoops tonight will still be going live tomorrow night. So I'll see you guys here and play back in a few minutes for the YouTube crowd. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
- [23:38]
Ryan
The volume.
- [23:42]
Podcast Host
Okay?
- [23:42]
Degree Spokesperson
Have you heard about this last year degree changed the formula for their Cool Rush deodorant. Their fans rebelled and wanted the old scent back and degree. Listen, that doesn't happen often.
- [23:51]
They admitted that they effed up and are bringing the original Cool Rush scent back. And it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp and fresh. There's a reason it's the number one men's antiperspirant and is back in Walmart, Target and other stores for under $4.
- [24:09]
So try it and see what the fuss is about. Head to your local stores to try the OG Cool Rush for yourself.
- [24:14]
Chase Spokesperson
Behind every successful business is a vision. Bringing it to life takes more than effort. It takes the right financial foundation and support. That's where Chase for Business comes in. With convenient digital tools, helpful resources and personalized guidance, we can help your business forge ahead confidently. Learn more@chase.com business chase for business make more of what's yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. Hey.
- [24:46]
Advertiser
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- [25:14]
Podcast Host
The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back. We're partnering with Nissan so pull up to their exclusive lounge to get a special look at the all new 2025 Nissan Kicks and Nissan Rogue. The Nissan Rogue S is more affordable than CR V and RAV4 and features available 12.3 inch touchscreen display, while the all new Nissan Kicks holds it down with a totally redesigned interior cabin with features like available wireless Apple carplay and available panoramic moon roof. Relax and see how Nissan is leveling up the game. Come kick it April 26th at Pullman Yards in Atlanta. Get ready for culture, community and good conversation.