But it was a win

Most stifling 2025-2026 Denver Nuggets defensive performance

You should have seen the last Jazz Nuggets game

a win is a win..lol..Dumb comment.NO win as a bad win…NONE.

If you weren’t watching then it’s more than it being close lol

3Q might genuinely be the worst defensive stretch any NBA player has ever committed to film (fat man)

It’s been that way post Championship season. Denver doesn’t blow team out cause Jokic and Murray will skulk and look lazy allowing teams to catch up. It’s what burned their ass in 2024 when they went up 18 vs Spurs late and decided to not give effort anymore that allowed the Thunder to take the no.1 seed.

one of if not the most unpredictable teams in the west. Can dogfight anyone, get blownout by anyone, and clutch against anyone, who knows. 

This has Nuggets basketball for 20 plus years, typically always playing up or down to the competition

That got those dogs in them. Whole pack of rottweilers and chihuahuas.

They phone games like this in and have for years. Just do not take bad teams seriously.

I haven’t had time to write it up, but I’m pretty sure there’s a sound mathematical explanation and that it makes perfect sense.

The short version is that teams with bad offense benefit more from playing teams with bad defense because a significant part of what makes an offense good in the first place is that they can score near their ceiling even in the face of defensive pressure.

So when the Nuggets play a team with good offense, that team is already usually scoring relatively near their ceiling anyway, so the Nuggets bad defense doesn’t lead to a significant improvement. But when the Nuggets play against teams with bad offense, those teams have a much greater gap between what they’re theoretically capable of if they don’t face resistance and what they’re able to pull off in a live game, so they score much better than usual.

But since the Nuggets offense is extremely good, they’ll also generally score highly regardless of their opposition.

This is why so many Nuggets games are close, high scoring games regardless of who they’re playing.

The Nuggets make a whole lot of sense once you realize that they like to play with their food and then try to “lock in.” They’ve done this for years. They test themselves with how far they can push it in the regular season, and get burned by it from some bad teams every year.

They’re not always trying their hardest to win. Jokic and Murray to some extent are experimenters by nature.

Isnt it more about how he has little dudes wrestling him, and i mean WRESTLING him without any calls that is straight up exhausting him? Every time they put a close up view of players defending him. It’s literally like 5 fouls happening. They are hanging on him. From below. They BEND under him. There’s constant arm locks happening because they will bend and put their arms backwards to lock Jokic’s movement.

Bro is averaging an absolute joke amount of free throws relative to how teams are literally intentionally fouling him. Teams have always tested this since it was kind of a strategy to put little guys on big guys but teams are straight up just putting little dudes on him all game long. Not even hiding the fouls. Just “Go and foul him, refs won’t call shit”.

He’s trying out the defense where you yell “MISS” right as they shoot.

Yeah. I understand saying he was bad for his standards despite his P/R/A and efficiency, which is still kinda wild because even for his standards those 2 were insanely good (plus 4 of his 4 misses were 3 offensive rebound tip-in misses and one that looked more like a turnover lol), but this was his worst defensive game of the season plus 7 turnovers.

Still, there isn’t a single other player that can have such a game and be bashed like this. Closest is Luka but he’d do it shooting ¹¹⁄₂₉ instead of ¹²⁄₁₇

“Don’t give up! Make it close!”

Rich from the Clippers(?) But also not wrong. Which is why we are tanking so hard.

Williams and Filipowksi getting 3 minutes combined in the 4th is shameless

Jokic handily won his minutes.

If he played lockdown defense on top of what he’s doing. He wouldnt need four other teammates on the floor.

With little guys grabbing his knees all game long without any calls. I don’t even understand how he’s still giving superstar impact late in games. He’s literally wrestling out there while still playing basketball. Little dudes are literally hanging on his body. Every single time, they go in front of him, bend over, put their hands backwards between his arms and grab him and refs just watch it and see “defense”.

Literally everyone is doing that. There’s this weird narrative that Jokic never gets hate and that all I ever see on this sub these days.

Shhhh we’re not allowed to talk about the other half of the game mattering

Only box score matters, Jokic has more REB and AST per game than SGA therefore he’s clearly the MVP, don’t you guys get it?

He’s not even a top 3 candidate rn let’s be real

I mean to be fair everyone knows he’s not in the MVP race this year and nothing is changing that

Edit: I didn’t mean he’s not an MVP level player I just meant its clear he’s not winning MVP this year.

Where have you conjured up imaginary opponents that criticize SGA or Wemby for their defense?

Bro is on that victim complex 😭

They already paid 500k. For a game they won, and the players in question, one was coming back from injury, and the other had season ending surgery right after.

If I was Ryan Smith, after that, I would 10000% demand the most blatant tank job the leagues ever seen.

I feel like if you do it again there needs to be pick implications because billionaires don’t care about fines

Worth it. Also it’s insanely funny that benching those two in particular cost us the game against all-stars.

It requires logic to pair Jokic and Strawther. All the lineup numbers point to him being good with Jokic but he just refuses to pair them.

The jazz tried everything to lose, Adelman tried everything to lose, and the only one who cared was THJ

lol you know what I mean

exactly, Jazz didn’t care for the win. This was pathetic.

he doesn’t understand momentum. Has no sets after timeouts and has terrible rotations. This is the first time Jamal Murray has played at an all-nba level in the regular season and this team should be a 55-60 win team despite the injuries, but Adelman has probably thrown 10+ games with holding jokic and Murray back for that extra 30-45 seconds of rest. Your coach should at worst be a net neutral, but this guy has cost the team minimum 5 games this season because of his “coaching”

AG, CB, and Tim were all quite bad tonight too. It’s a culture thing at this point, and it largely starts with Jokic and Adelman imo

Yeh, I can’t rule Denver out until I see them in the post season

Lol they constantly let bottom feeders go neck and neck until they forcibly tank letting Denver clinch the win, he’s nowhere near top 3, being a liability as a center is the worst.

Giannis can do that when he’s healthy, but not nearly as regularly tbf

And his availability is clearly lower, which is why he’s consistently only ranked #3 in the world at best behind Jokic and SGA.

They have been defending his ass like this for seasons, he let’s role players get double digits every game and they clinch the win when bottom feeders need to tank it out before it’s too late.

Yes because y’all don’t face the Jazz too..

Doesnt Denver have a better record than those three teams vs above .500 teams?

If the implications include fucking over the rockets and lakers down the stretch, the Jazz are going to do it 10 times out of 10.

exactly and nba media and his fanboys give him a pass for it . love Jokic he is an all time great but his lack of effort on the defensive side of his game should not go unnoticed .

this is my job, silly!

then I’m allowed to argue that Shai wasn’t awful tonight, if we can just lie through our teeth

🤷‍♂️