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Volume the NBA 82 game grind is done and now the real fun begins. The NBA Playoffs are here and it's time for all the high stakes drama, clutch moments and jaw dropping plays. I can't wait. If you're looking to make the playoffs Even more exciting, DraftKings sportsbook has you covered as an official sports betting partner of the NBA. From the play in games all the way through to the finals, now's the time to back your favorite players and teams as they chase glory. All season long, DraftKings has been the go to spot for NBA player props and that does not stop now. Want to make your playoff experience even more intense? Try placing a bet on your favorite player's performance. Will they drop 30 points? 40 or more? It's your call. Ready to place your first bet? Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Now lock in your bets. Let's make this playoff run unforgettable. Here's something special for first timers. 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-HOPENY or text HOPENY to 467-369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 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 C Co Audio.
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Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Thursday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Well, this excellent second round series between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, which has been rife with highly entertaining games, gave us another great one tonight, the Julian Strother game. Julian Strother comes into this one and scores 15 points for a Nuggets team that desperately needed someone to come in and start hitting shots as a team. The Nuggets finally started to hit their catch and shoot threes in this game as they go 12 for 32 from 3, 38% a high step up from where they've been in their losses in the series. Jamal Murray also excellent in a game when he woke up very sick and was questionable to start the game. Another nightmare shooting performance for the Oklahoma City Thunder, another example of their youth showing in terms of J Dubs inconsistency. Lots of interesting stuff to get into in this game from the perspective of both teams. We'll be breaking this game down. Then at the tail end of the show we'll take 10, 15 minutes of mailbag questions with Jackson and then when we finish here tonight, we're going to move over to playback again. That's Playback TV Slash Hoops Tonight where we'll hang out for our after show. That's where we take callers, we watch film, we have a more informal, just kind of fun. We talk hoops for an extra, you know, 45 minutes to an hour at the tail end of the show. 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 podcast 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, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, keep dropping those mailbag questions in the YouTube chat there and we will get to them at the tail end of the show for a solid 10:15 minutes. And like we mentioned earlier, over to Playback TV slash hoops tonight when we finish up here. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I thought that was really the theme for tonight's game for Denver, the need to hit shots. If you go back to the last two games in particular, it was their offense that let them down down the stretch. Eight point lead in Game four, nine point lead in Game five in the fourth quarter and just an inability to close the deal from there. And specifically in Game five, not a single nugget was able to really contribute offensively in that fourth quarter run when Jokic was setting him up. I mean I saw a stat this morning and I double checked it to make sure it was fair but or accurate. But he had 20 potential assists in Game 5 and ended that game with five assists because of the types of shots they were missing. Even if you really zoom in on that fourth Quarter running. There's a couple of wide open threes for Christian Brown. There's a wide open three for Jamal Murray in the right corner. And this is a team that typically shoots really well. They shot 39% on UN on wide open threes. This is per NBA.com's tracking data. This is with the defender a minimum of six feet away. So these are like really open threes. They shot 39% on them in the regular season, 40% in the first round series against the Clippers in the first five games of this series. Excuse me. In the three losses. In the three losses in this series so far, the Nuggets were a combined 15 for 66 on wide open threes. That's just 23%. I thought there was an interesting, you know, interview brought to light by the broadcast about Christian Brown and how he was just kind of like evaluating the way he's performed so far in this postseason or really in this entire season. And he said, like, you know, I had a great regular season, can't really play any better than I did. And he's right about that. He did a. A great job stepping in for contavious Caldwell Pope into that starting two guard role and turned into this devastating transition scorer who also was a solid catch and shoot player, good defensive player, all of that stuff. And then he said in the postseason he's happy with the way he's defended. It's been a little bit of a mixed bag in this OKC series, but specifically at the end of games, I feel like he's been pretty good outside of maybe a couple plays at the tail end of Game 5. But he has been pretty good defensively in this series. But what he said was, I have to find a way to knock down these open threes that I'm getting big. Part of it is just that's the way the defense is attending to Nikola Jokic in the middle of the floor. They're conceding these open threes, especially out of the corner. And what I appreciated about what Christian Brown was saying is, like, he understands that there. Yeah, you're playing fine. Yeah, it's physical. Yeah. No one's really shooting well. I'm sure there's a lot of Thunder guys sitting in the locker room wishing they should shoot or could shoot better. But the bottom line is Christian knows they can have, they have a really good chance to win this series if guys make shots. And the thing that I thought stood out the most in that, that little tidbit provided by the broadcast was when Christian said I got two games to figure it out. One, just the confidence, knowing that he believed in his team to win Game 6, but also just understanding that he can flip the script by making shots. And I'm highlighting Christian Brown just because of the comments from the broadcast. But it was down the line, guys. For Denver finally just made shots. They shot 38% as a team. Christian Brown was 3 for 6 from 3. Jamal Murray was 2 for 6 from 3. He was fantastic tonight. We'll talk about him here in a minute. Playing, dealing with an ill illness, Michael Porter Jr. Finally got a couple shots to go down. And then Julian Strother, he also made some other plays. He had this baseline cut, a really impressive finish. That 360, kind of like lob finish he had from Jamal Murray. Way tougher shot than that looks on TV because he's right at the front of the rim. But to coordinate yourself in traffic like that, well, I guess he wasn't in traffic, but again, to coordinate himself on a spin where you can't even see the rim to then find the rim and lay it in, that was a really impressive finish. He had a play where he kind of ended up with the ball. Kind of a classic grenade situation where he ended up with the ball at the top of the key against J Dub in a late shot clock situation. And all the other guys in the floor kind of just looked at him like you do it. He put the ball on the floor and made a play and drew a foul. And I think, I think specifically those things are, you know, kind of found money in a certain way. But the shot making is the important part. Him stepping confidently into semi contested, intense, high stakes threes in that second half run and hitting three of them, two big ones in the late third quarter, added another one when things were kind of already in hand in the fourth quarter. All those shots were super important. And the reason why this is specifically important for this matchup is we spent a lot of time talking on playback and in the broadcast after game five about how the Nuggets kind of seem to be dealing with the fifth, a fifth closer problem. We talked about Russell Westbrook, I mean he, he made a big play tonight in the, in the late third quarter that we'll touch on in a minute. But he had a nightmare first quarter and in general just has been just uneven over the tail end of the series. So he's not a great option. Michael Porter Jr. As we discussed two nights ago, has just been incapable of knocking down open threes while also bringing some defense and rebounding issues to the table. So, like, there wasn't, like, a legitimate option to go for. We actually were talking on the broadcast about Peyton Watson, because at the very least, Peyton Watson would be able to defend and grab rebounds and at least just be an athletic presence on the floor if you're not going to get any sort of shooting from anywhere down the roster. But, like, he just, you know, that shooting stretch from Julian Strother just gives Adelman another option that he can consider. Should Michael Porter Jr. Struggle in Game 7? Should Russell Westbrook struggle in Game 7? You know, should Peyton Watson struggle in Game 7? If he needs, like, a guy that can just be out there that can hit a shot. He has his struggles defensively from time to time, but it's not like there's anybody who's doing an amazing job defensively in this series containing the ball. That was kind of the story of the game for okc. I thought Tim Legler did an amazing job in the broadcast breaking down the way that Oklahoma City was penetrating the shell of Denver zone, which was putting Jokic in all these, like, simple, like, do I have to step up to this guy who's driving and just give up a baseline cut for an easy dunk, or am I going to stay back on my heels and let this dude just drive right into my face and make a layup like he. Jokic was putting a lot of complimenting, compromising positions just simply because the shell of the Denver defense wasn't holding. And so having another option as a guy that, like, at least you're getting some shot making out of him, I think that's an interesting thing to keep an eye on heading into Game seven. But again, like, these are. These are the shots that are going to be there with the way that Oklahoma City is just swarming Jokic in the middle of the floor. And I thought that was really the story of the game tonight. Denver's young guys, Denver's veterans, Denver's role players, confidently stepping into shots and knocking them down when their team desperately needed them to hit shots. Let's talk about Jamal Murray for a minute. I. I was venting in a unserious manner with Jackson during the game because I watched a certain player for my favorite team play with an illness in Game 3 of the Minnesota Timberwolves series. And there was just, like, no competitive fire at all. It was almost like Luca just kind of wanted us all to know he was sick. And I don't. I don't want to be, you know, too. I don't want to Jump to conclusions, so to speak. Because you never know how sick Luca was or how sick Jamal was. But both players were questionable. Both players attempted to play. And I thought there was an obvious competitive fire with Jamal right away when he came into the game. And there were some stretches where he lost steam. There's a stretch there in that second quarter where you can tell he was getting to him a little bit. Kayson Wallace had some success. He had a couple turnovers, but like he came right out the gates and was aggressive both in his pull up shooting situations and going to the basket. And you could see like Jamal. If you didn't know Jamal Murray was sick, you would have no idea. Watching that game. There was no, you know, kind of pouty body language or like exaggerating the symptoms that he was dealing with. He was like, fuck all that. I, I have. My team needs me to win this game. And he went out there and just immediately brought that competitive fire and made play after play after play. I thought he was fantastic in the late third quarter run, really setting things up on offense. He was the guy that kind of set up those couple Julian Strother buckets. Got a big transition finish finish. Jackson was texting me during the game talking about his unbelievable finishing ability. Kind of has this remarkable talent to get into your body and then find these like below the rim finishing angles where he can, you know, put it softly up off the glass from way off to the side. He can finish on either side of the rim in a way that like, can even surprise you on the broadcast where you're like, is he going up on the strong side? Nope, he's going reverse. And you're like surprised as it's happening. And he, his supreme talent is. He's just one of the great shot makers to ever play this game. Like, if you really get down to it and you think about the guys who, again, that specific trait. I'm not talking about super high level point guard play, although I thought Jamal passed the ball really well tonight. I'm not talking about elite two way play in the form of defense at the guard position. I'm not talking about, you know, some sort of indomitable downhill attack. But if you strictly just taking. Synthesizing the a player's game down to the ability to hit tough shots, the ability to hit jumpers off the move and off the dribble from every single possible footwork and dribble combination. There's. There aren't many players that I've watched that are more gifted with that specific trait. And every one of those buckets he got tonight, they needed. I was just. I just, I just. I just think Jamal's a legend. I. It's hard to explain because I hated his guts when I was rooting against him as a Lakers fan, obviously, but, like, when I think about the players in the game that have the true competitive spirit, I always refer to this as like a hatred of losing, not a love of basketball. Obviously you need both in order to have success at the highest levels, but there is like a, A, There is like a competitive spirit you can see from a basketball player that manifests from a singular emotion, which is like a hatred and a fear of losing. I actually think that matters more than any other trait when it comes to basketball because it manifests in a willingness to do whatever it takes. And even when I think back to Jamal in his previous playoff highs, like in 2023, in 2022, he. He has. Or I should say in 2023, he has like a defensive playmaking side to his game too, where he'll get into a spot, in a big spot and, and put his body on the line for a charge or make a help side rotation where he'll get a big block. Or there was a big one he had in the Lakers series three years ago where he stripped LeBron on a key clutch possession. On a help side off of the weak side corner, he'll fight for a contested rebound. There was one late tonight. It was. It was in that crazy run when the Thunder were just ball pressuring like crazy and they forced all those turnovers in a row and somebody missed a three off the right wing. I can't remember who it was. I think it was J Dub. But a Thunder player missed a three and like, like Alex Crusoe comes flying in and Hardenstein's flying in and like, the Thunder are still playing with that, like, chaotic energy. And who came up with the ball in the mix of all those players? With Jamal Murray, Jokic was in there battling and somehow the ball just ended up in Jamal Murray's hands because, like, we can be critical of Jamal in other ways. He's. He takes the regular season less serious than a lot of his peers do in the league and comes into camp out of shape and could probably stand to take care of his body a little bit better. But when it comes to the principal concept of winning basketball games in the playoffs, he's just one of the better guards that I've seen in this era because of his ability to shot make and because of his willingness to do the things that you need to do to win basketball games. And I thought tonight, you know, should they win this series if they go on the road and they win game seven? I will think back to this. Jamal Murray, Game six against the Thunder, very fondly as one of the better games in his career. So shout out to Jamal. The late third quarter run. This was really when the game started to flip in Denver's favor. Elite defense in this stretch, they were giving up these, like, kind of easy baskets right along the baseline off of drop offs. And there were just a few sequences, like a Aaron Gordon threw a better contest at a Alex Caruso reverse layup where he forced a miss. Jamal Murray got in the way on one force to miss Peyton Watson, that huge block that he had in transition. Just there were a few efforts around the rim during that stretch that turned fit what would have been easy points into opportunities for Denver going the other way. And then that was the stretch when Jamal Murray really attacked offensively as a shot maker and as a playmaker. That. That was when Julian Strother had all those buckets in the late third quarter stretch. And then there was a huge sequence at the tail end of that. There was a huge sequence in that run, if you guys remember, where they kind of started to lose control and Denver turns it over. OKCs run in the length of the floor. Strother gets the huge block at the rim, and then they go down the other end and Russell Westbrook, who had had a turnover in this sequence, and it had a really rough game, gave an extra effort and got an offensive rebound put back that bumped it. Instead of going down to five, it pushed it back up to nine and just kind of changed the psychology of the game. And I just thought that was a very important run. And then Nicola Jokic wasn't super aggressive as a scorer in this game, but there was a. There was a stretch where when he first came in the mid fourth quarter, I think they were up by 8 or 9 at this point. And as we know, that's that same kind of margin that Oklahoma City was able to overcome in the previous two games, right? And Nicole Jokic came in and I was literally thinking, like, they need him to score the basketball. Tim Legler was doing a great job calling that out on the broadcast as well. And he came in and he hit a contested three and a contested floater in the middle of the lane, two quick buckets that bumped the lead all the way out to like 13 or 14 points. And that was when everyone kind of could at least feel less pressure in terms of how difficult it was going to be to close out the game, and the Nuggets ended up getting a much needed win tonight to extend the series.