[Highlight] Shai Gilgeous-Alexander strips Nikola Jokić who wanted the foul call, pushes in transition, and dishes to Cason Wallace for the slam, prompting Denver to sub out the starters.
Biggest fault of Jokic in games like this is when he senses momentum going the other way for good is he’ll stop competing for the ball and complain about the uncalled (in his mind) contact
No reason Peyton Watson was taking all of Denver’s shots down the stretch even with his offensive leap when you have Jokic and Murray no matter how off they are
Jamal shot 25% from the field today including 1⁄8 from 3. Can’t get that from Jamal when Cason Wallace is dropping 27 as well and SGA is getting his against every perimeter defender we have
Denver’s offense is elite as long as Jokic, Jamal, and THJ are playing well
Jokic was more than subpar and Jamal and THJ were downright pathetic, the latter of whom might be really concerning in a potential OKC series
THJ is going to get cooked in the Playoffs, he has been awful in his last two Playoffs - will go ice cold and his a pretty hapless defender.
They will still be formidable, but they are going to have to be better defensively as well. Zone won’t work against OKC like it previously had and tonight was an example of that.
I can see Denver sliding a bit as their schedule toughen up the rest of the way.
He blew one of the playoff games against us playing for fouls and arguing with the refs.
He definitely does it pretty often, especially in tight games. Happened multiple times in the playoff series with the Clippers last year
Nuggets sub already has a thread saying OKC are all floppers
(In his mind) and (on the court) contact
snatched his chain today
I know there are a lot of excuses that you can give Jokic coming back from injury.
But then I think about what his fans would say if Embiid didn’t play to his standards
lol right. his fans devalued the most coveted individual award in the league and said he didn’t care about it just to put embiid down for winning it. Meanwhile this man came back early for award eligibility and to get that belt from SGA. Turns out he might care
He definitely cares and I dont get why his fans think it makes him cool that he doesn’t. Just cause he doesn’t share it to everyone in interviews doesn’t mean we can’t figure out for ourselves that he is competitive and passionate about this sport.
It literally makes him cooler to care. His fans wanted him to be too good for the nba, more so off the court than on it. This ultra humble dude that has better character than your average nba player. Turns out man has pride just like every one else
He really doesn’t care about the MVP. The accolades are great but he also knows it’s a popularity/narrative contest..
Like Rudy is the dpoy this year but zero chance he can get it. It HAS to go to someone like Chet instead.
Also Jokic losing to the best team in the league doesn’t tell me much. It just tells me that Shai is elite af (which we all knew) and that Okc are insanely good (which we all knew)
Hey Nicola are you a big warriors fan? Why do you have the warriors flair when you player for denver
Being competitive and passionate about the sport, does not mean that you have to care about INDIVIDUAL accolades. You guys are the ones going against what everybody that’s around him sees and says. What evidence do you have for your claims?
When has he ever mentioned he doesn’t care about MVP? Except when he was about to get eliminated lol. If he doesn’t care about the MVP tell me what does he care about ? Guy has 1 championship in 10 years if rings are the only thing he cares about he better start catching some more Ws in the postseason
It just became painfully obvious to me you’re probably like 14 so I’m just going to let you have this one big dog.
What a level headed and non emotional response
I don’t even know why you’re worried about what goes on at the top. Talking bout one chip in 10 years. Your team hasn’t won 8 games in a row since 2000. Every NBA, MLB, and NHL team has done it.
Now the guy wants to talk ball again. That’s cute that you came at my flair considering you’re too scared to put yours on lol. Unlike some people I root for the team I live near instead of the one that won the last year or 2
You want to be the best. There’s an award they give the best player. You’re a competitve person. You don’t care if you don’t win the award for being the best? If he didn’t he wouldn’t get this good. Of course he cares even if he doesn’t say it, its a trophy that says you’re the best. Im not saying he’ll die for it, but to say he doesn’t care if he takes it doesn’t align with everything else he does.
To top it off, his fans claim he doesn’t care, but have a meltdown if he doesn’t win. Doesn’t that make them lame as fuck if Jokic is cool for not caring?
Came back early? He missed 15 games and is right in line with the schedule provided at the time of injury. What on earth are you talking about? Jokic plays games. It’s on record he hates “resting” and goes against our coaches staff if he feels he can play. This dude does not care about award eligibility, he just wants to hoop.
Did the same last year saying he doesn’t care about stupid awards, wait for the playoffs to see the real BITW. Playoffs came and it went quiet…
he came back early for award eligibility? i think he just did it to help his team win games idk
oh they would call him a piece of shit and a coward
Not try to make it about Jokic vs Embiid Challenge: Impossible
Be the change you wanna see in the world and all that shit yeah
But go check any Embiid thread and the flairs of those waiting to bash him. These two are forever linked cause of their fans and I just find it funny when excuses are flying from the other side after lashing out on the other.
Shouldn’t have behaved like idiots then (both sides)
Bro didn’t Jokic just drop an insane stat line in like 25 minutes in his first game back? That’s why I’m not hearing the “he’s just coming back from an injury” bs lol
17 free throws to pad that statline yeah
The whole team was poor and OKC couldn’t miss. That’s just the way it goes sometimes; you should know.
Okc shot 39% from 3 and the nuggets shot 45%
Did I talk about 3 pointers? I just said they couldn’t miss. Murray was ice cold and yall hit everything
The Nuggets also shot better from the field in general. Nuggets 49%, Thunder 47%.
Nuggets shot better than the Thunder from the field (49% vs 47%). Thunder as a team had a true shooting percentage of 62.45% and the Nuggets were 61.97%. Thunder as a team had an effective field goal percentage of 58.24% and the Nuggets were 59.49%. Certain players may have been hot or cold but the teams as a whole shot very similarly.
And Denver still shot better than us
Honestly, I feel kinda lied to by that box score
OKC FG 47% - DEN FG 49%, only thing OC shot better at was FT and even then they only made 5 more FTs than DEN, OKC are just a better team.
Nugs shot better from 3 than OKC did today. Both teams had a role player step up huge in Peyton and Cason.
SGA was the clear difference maker in this one.
Cason is a fantastic player and I’d love to have him on my team, but he’s scored more than 20 points 3 times in his career (including tonight). Watson scored 20+ 9 times in January. I think we can agree which performance was the bigger outlier lol.
That being said, can’t exactly pretend they were contested shots he was hitting.
BITW
Fuck off
Jokic pulled a Luka there. Too busy complaining to get back on defense
he has been bitching and flopping all night, it was disgusting to watch
he has been bitching and flopping all night
and alas:
https://np.reddit.com/r/denvernuggets/comments/1qtk4pw/okc_is_just_a_bunch_of_fish/
You can find equally insane threads in every team sub, thats what the subs are for, the homer takes. Its more pathetic that you drag it to the main page more then anything.
it’s literally a foul tho lol
Shai, flailing his head back like he took an uppercut when nobody touched him: aww you’re sweet
Jokic complains to a ref after Shai slaps him in the armpit: hello, human resources????
Lmk that was literally a slap right there you moron
Jokic pulled a Jokic.
Pulled a Luka? More like Luka has been pulling a Jokic all these years
Jokic was visibly frustrated that he’s getting constantly fouled with no calls, and OKC guys get every whistle.
May as well have been the MVP trophy.
Jokic is maybe the GOAT offensive player against bad and average teams but I feel like he drops significantly more against top competition that anyone else mentioned for that label does
Like if you want any player ever to shoot 80% from the field and get a triple double against a .500 team sure give me Jokic over anyone but against the very best I don’t think he’s really shown that level as consistently
I feel that his relatively lower-volume and ultra-efficiency focused style doesn’t scale up quite as well as the overall GOATs he’s kind of like the Aaron Rodgers to LeBron/MJ’s Tom Brady
Are you just saying this off one game? Brain dead take
They don’t like it but if Jokic feels beaten his effort drops tremendously
He performs really well, even better I’d argue, against better teams. Especially scoring wise
I’m not gonna deny it looked like he gave Jokic a lil love slap
He literally slaps him lol
I’m not gonna deny yeah all the homers in here acting like that didn’t happen…. It did bro, I’d be pissed too lol
Yeah. You can tell all the nuggets fans went to bed because the threads are swarmed with unlogical biased takes on this play lol. Thunder bent over the nuggets today though. No denying that
Facts. I poked my head in your sub and saw everyone blaming refs, coach, Murray, Jokic…. I was like oh yeah they’re rage quitting tonight
Winning team usually gets free rein to say whatever they want. The Wolves game had Divincenzo hitting SGA about 5 times with no call and it was chalked up as ‘real defense’. I’m sure had the nugs won it would be the same in the opposite direction
But then you got others saying how he deserves hate for stopping here. Shoulda ran back on D but also clear foul… ridiculous
Yeah, I mean they’re wrong. I get it, but even when you don’t get the call the game is still being played. Luka loses out on defense doing this a lot
I agree. Non calls will happen a lot especially with these shitty refs; but can also understand the frustration. Anyways you guys were shooting lights out. Hard to compete with that especially with Murray being cold as ice
Murray was ice cold. A lot of that is Dort. Now Cason Wallace shot almost 70% from 3 in his best game ever. That shit was just random fuckery.
he did slap him like around the chin but that wasn’t the reason he lost the ball, he had already lost control of it before sga did anything
He lost control of the ball (surprisingly) and once you lose control of the ball, the refs are less likely to call that type of foul unless it’s egregious. And of course Jokic is going to complain to refs.
It looked like he just let go as soon as he got slapped. But sga definitely had the baby powder on that one
Nah jokic clearly missed the ball with his right hand well before any contact
Perhaps I could recommend a fable by Aesop. The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Replace the boy with a thick Serbian man and replace the wolf with a foul and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Respect you for seeing it. I was thinking Jokic just straight up missed the ball (which he did) but Shai did hit his face lol. Of course why should anybody expect a measured conversation ever anymore.
Definitely did and refs weren’t the best all game… But thunder played so so much better than Denver that it’s not a valid excuse for a loss lmao
Chain snatched 😂😂
This got me so fired up. Two way play from Shai, winning plays, Cason Wallace turning it up sums up the whole game
Pretty dope that you can just slap someone in the face and not get called for a foul lmao
Do Europeans get taught to whine to the refs in school?
They all started out playing footy
As a former Soccer player it’s true lol
I feel like I’m watching La Liga when I watch Jokic, Luka, Sengun, Deni, or Embiid. They just yap all game. They’d definitely be the types to time waste when up 1-0 in a match.
They bringing that futbol culture with them
soccer culture
Jokic immediately crying about his own turnover instead of getting back on defense. How does this guy not get more hate
Luka with better PR
i wish that fat shotchucking bum was efficient as jokic
Luka with better PR, 3 MVP’s, and a chip to his name. At least Jokic has a damn resume worth reviewing in the all-time discussions. SGA is loudly building a resume of that caliber as well.
Luka, being good throughout the course of his career, sold on the defensive end trying to argue for offensive favors, and it constantly cost him in moments where it seriously mattered. He’s too busy screaming about the floor he plays on as opposed to putting his head down and using that anger to lock up on defense.
The sad thing is that the best character arc I can even equate his career to in some ways is OKC Thunder Russell Westbrook, post KD years. Great performances, huge numbers, but limited post-season success. The only difference is that Russ got an MVP on historical narrative and seasonal performance with rough coaching and development around him (Bulls fans at this point know what I’m talking about).
It’s a shame, Luka can be up there with both SGA and Jokic, but he just fails to break his own mold.
Limited post season success? Bro is one of the best playoff performers in the game right now lmao. Yeah, he didn’t win a ring when he was 25 leading his team to the finals. Russ didn’t lead his team past the first round. Terrible comp.
It’s so cool watching your kids play against each other in the NBA
hornets take good care of our former thunder players, shoutout Charlotte
Moussa is a gem and I really hope Tre can find his feet again after that back injury. I legit feel bad for the kid.
All that to say, we’re always happy to take care of our grand babies, send us I-Hart and some second rounders
we desperately need ihart for rebounding 😭 Best we can do is a Dieng, he might need to get more minutes elsewhere to really shine
Haha it was worth a shot. And yeah it’s wild because while OKC is a highly desirable place for guys to develop, you guys have so many good picks that a lot of fringe guys just don’t get a shot. Good problem to have lol
Bro just gave up
he literally got slapped in the face from the back
NAH BRO HE GOT HIS CHAIN SNATCHED FR FR ON GOD 100 SKIBIDI TOILET
6 7 6 7 6 7 6 7 6 7 SHAI THE GOAT
Do you know how mad you have to be to comment this
Feel better?
This is the most nuggets fan comment ive ever seen, and also perfectly explains why your fanbase is so dislikable.
Flairless fans who make comments like this should get permabanned for being cowards.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
That’s actually what I was just about to write! Great minds…
Didn’t even touch the ball look at its trajectory lmao. Right in front of the official too. Ah well dude absolutely balled out tonight in a blowout so who gives a fuck.
I don’t think Shai touched the ball at all lol. Looked like he swiped and hit Jokic right in the face as he was losing control of the ball himself.
Yeah this is exactly what happened, took my like 5 freeze frames to see it. Jokic loses the ball and it looks like Shai catch jokic on the chin a bit on the follow through. It was such a whipping motion im not surprised the ref missed it while watching the ball/the players arms.
I don’t even think he’s wrong to want the call here but refs missing quick contact is just a thing that happens in basketball and you have to keep playing instead of complaining. definitely some frustration from him
Refs didn’t seem to miss the quick contact for fouls on the Nuggets. Jokic was visibly and understandably frustrated
Shai on his way to win back 2 back MVP
Looks like he loses his dribble on his own, gets a little chin tap, then complains to ref instead of playing ball.
Can’t wait for this matchup in the playoffs
Me neither 🤩🤩🤩
Looked clean what is he mad about
(Looked like he hit his chin in slow mo but too far to tell precisely)
He missed the ball, but we ball, Jokic got away with so much off-ball garbage all game.
People never acknowledge this part for some reason
Because they’re biased for Jokic. Shit’s been the case for so long that they forget about the other side of the ball. He showed in the OKC series (Dort hit 3 straight threes on him to basically save the Thunder’s season) and this game (He just doesn’t rotate. He fucking sucks against 5-out.) that his offensive contributions, while otherworldly and historic, ultimately don’t mean nearly as much as they show because of how much he gives up on the defensive* (said offensive, oops lol) end. He has really nice hands though, but again, it’s where he actually moves and how it goes when he’s forced to drag out to the perimeter. It’s like, absurdly ass. They straight up blew games against OKC because* of it.
Not the first time he’s thrown in the towel against OKC
Cookies
Looked like he just lost the ball before there was any contact. SGA never touched it?
Luka and Jokic, biggest whiners in the league that get cooked by OKC every time
They get cooked? the Nuggets too you guys to 7 with a shit bench, and with an injured Aaron Gordon. That’s not getting ‘cooked’
Who ended up winning the series and championship?
Barely beating hospital nuggets that had no bench and injured mpj, congrats!!
That’s still not getting cooked dumbass. You guys only won because the Nuggets and Pacers got injuries at the worst moment.
reminder that nuggets and pacers also won game 1 buzzer beaters. What should be discussed more is how OKC came back from starting both series 0-1.
Inevitable repeat this year. Watch and see
All it took was a Halliburton Achilles, an Aaron Gordon hamstring, and an MPJ arm!
lol ok Thunder fan
Why would SGA ever need to complain about a call?
SGA does say stuff to the refs. The difference is he keeps his feet moving, which also keeps him from getting a Tech a lot of the time because he only says as much as he cares to before he’s back across half court.
The fuck he bitching about? He’s spent all night trying to lock arms with JWill and iHart. lmao
Williams did that man. C’mon now did we watch the same game?
Literally every box out Jokic was hooking under Hartenstein
it’s quiet as shit in here!
Am I crazy or did Jokic not lose the ball before SGA even swiped at it?
Yeah he lost the ball on his own, might’ve gone off the toe of his left foot, but hard to tell
Best player in the world
Jokic complaining instead of getting back on D. Can’t say that’s a first! The true MVP won tonight
This dude has been baiting, getting away with fouls, and complaining all game btw.
Guy really went to whining right away. Go back on defense, you turned it over now get back and hustle clown.
If you slow it down he gets hit in the face, but it probably wasn’t hard, but he still reached based on that alone.
Damn nearly all his team are late getting over the half and still OKC ended up with an easy 2v1 for the dunk. That team had quit with 3:20 left so can’t blame the coach for subbing them out.
r/nba 9⁄11
Can we now include him in r/nba whiny players list?
What’s jokic complaining about? SGA got all face here.
Look at the odds in the gambling site pre game. And everything becomes clear.
The whole NBA administration is a gambling ring.
embarrassing from Jokic. mishandles it and cries after the fact
Did he dribble it off his own foot?
No. Had his hand slapped lol
He loses the ball before there’s any contact
Shit you actually right! He still got slapped in the face but he just whiffed it. Fucking weird to see
He already mishandled the ball before SGA reaches. That’s probably the reason nothing was called
The problem is if this is a “clean play” then half the fouls on SGA should be clean too but they aren’t
The classic ego complain after a clean strip lol
Snatched his chain in prime time
Clean strip and his first instinct is to whine. SGA never complains about calls, but he’s the unwatchable one? Will never understand the narratives here.
Cause he gets the calls lol. I wouldn’t complain either, rack em up
I think if you did an SGA turnover comp, it would just be uncalled reaches. My obvious example will always be Nembhard/Nesmith G6 of the finals. More recently, look at Dante from Minnesota mugging SGA and getting away it only for Shai to just move on. Say what you want, but he almost never complains.
Take Luka even. He leads the league in FTAs, but he still whines. It’s truly a personality thing.
well if you get slapped in the face while playing in front of a ref you’d probably complain too. also SGA probably gets away on getting away with shoves than actually getting fouled.
God yall are insufferable, we got some great highlights and its just people bitching and taking shots in the comments.
When you prompt “who wanted the foul call” it’s going to spark the exact type of comments you would expect. Engagement baiting at its finest
He literally wanted the foul call…. its not a bad thing. You people just have narritives in your head then come in and make it a shit throwing competition.
Perhaps OKC fans are retaliating after nonstop hate the last year?
I feel you and I appreciate that you mostly posted highlights tonight rather than going for the low hanging fruit of ref stuff. I wish everyone, including our fans, could chill with all the officiating discourse. I’m guilty of it myself but it’s hard to not get caught up in it when that’s all this sub wants to talk about this season
You think people use Reddit for anything but bitching?