[Highlight] Aaron Gordon bulldozes Mike Conley and is called for his third foul. A livid David Adelman picks up a technical and challenges the call, but he loses the challenge and the call stands.
You just got fucked by MINNESOTA MIKE!!!
That’s my Bite Bite
Hornets and Bulls legend.
Dub
Obvious offensive foul. Not sure why they risked keeping Gordon out there in the 1st quarter with 2 fouls already. Now should arguably sit the rest of the half.
What is obvious about this offensive foul? Gordon plays above Conley this entire time, avoids contact with his head, and Conley is in the restricted area.
Why even have the restricted area if you’re not going to restrict a defender with feet moving. Don’t think its AG’s responsibility to accomadate a defender that’s 10” shorter than him.
Should have been a no-call play on.
Restricted area is for secondary defenders. It was to prevent guys being undercut on dunks
I must be crazy because this is obvious to me. Everyone else seems to think Gordon punched Conley in the face
Look, a clear, objective take.
Restricted area doesn’t matter much if you’re the primary defender. Also, just because you’re taller doesn’t mean you can swing your elbows at head level to create space lol
Aaron Gordon isnt “creating space with his elbows”, he is just 8 inches taller than Conley. Nothing Gordon does is illegal, unless being taller is a foul now.
It doesn’t matter how tall you are you can’t hit guys in the face.
Ok man it’s glaringly obvious Gordon doesn’t make contact with Conley’s face.
But he ALMOST did and that’s, like, not cool man! Obv foul! /s
Stubbling backwards and going of tip toes in order to take a elbow is not primary defense. It’s a no call.
Can’t call a foul if your elbows don’t make contact though
I don’t believe the NBA goes by the “no blood no foul” rule
just because you’re taller doesn’t mean you can swing your elbows at head level
First of all, yes it does if it’s part of a basketball move. Second, his elbows clearly go above Conley’s head on this play.
Hey bro, you forgot these 👓
Restricted area only applies to secondary defenders. Conley is flopping but he is absolutely dislodged by Gordon moving his chest into him, which is an objective offensive foul by the book.
If you’re dislodged that easily it shouldn’t be an offensive foul, even with the flop as you mentioned
And that is a fair argument to make, but it seems everyone here has made up some contact to Conley’s head as the reason for this foul.
Yeah I think the elbow—>head argument on the play is dumb but it’s clear when you watch the replay Gordon using his chest to bowl over Conley is what causes him to fall down. That’s the correct call.
Conley is in legal guarding position and Gordon full body pivots into him, knocking him over. Restricted area is irrelevant, as Conley isn’t a secondary defensive player.
Their defense is an absolute catastrophe without Gordon on the court. It’s actually insane how bad their interior defense is, and Jokic isn’t even contesting most of the shots.
Yeah Gordon is what makes this team work as a playoff contender.
I think that is way too conservative thinking, but it’s probably what’s going to happen. You can’t be so worried about a player fouling out just to take them out for half the game yourself.
If you get a fourth foul in the first half then you basically can’t play defense in the second half and he’s their only good inside defender
I guess, but he didn’t pick a foul up for the rest of the game. Nuggets won, so it didn’t matter.
Yeah maybe he just needed to sit and refocus
That’s my old man 😭
Mike Conley has made 3 great plays in a row on defence
Mike Conley was literally unplayable in the regular season, goes to show how much veteran play matters in the playoffs that he can check in and make winning plays right away
He turned a corner after the whole trade deadline sequence. He’s still 38 and small but his shooting improved, his defense looked better, and he was moving well.
It’s been clear all season he just needs to play way fewer minutes. Early on we didn’t have much of a choice, Dillingham wasn’t it and our guard rotation was cooked. Picking up Bones and Ayo and developing a strong rotation with them and DDV has been huge for us.
Absolutely insane to call him unplayable
When he was forced back into the rotation due to injury (after his non-trade trades), he started hitting threes, making good defensive decisions, and frankly being Mike freakin’ Conley again.
Probably in the minority but I hate those calls in the post when a big guy has a small guy on them. It’s inevitable their arms will make contact with their face since they’re so much shorter. Didn’t seem intentional he’s just trying to go up with it.
This was definitely a foul but it drives me absolutely insane when the little guy just falls over in the post. Luckily it almost never gets rewarded now but guys still do it for some reason.
It’s not inevitable.
It’s not the arms, it’s that Gordon illegally uses his body to dislodge Conley from his spot (who is also selling the contact).
Shaq would have no hope in today’s league with this nonsense
These rules existed when Shaq played too.
Makeup for the bs flagrant earlier
“bulldozes” way to stay impartial with the title 😭
Disasterclass sequence
Conley has been a beast in his few minutes on the floor. Dude wants this
Back to back weak calls
Not sure if that was offensive foul. Initially, I thought he elbowed him to the face but there no contact to the face so I am a bit confused.
Funny how being taller actually hurts AG here. This wouldn’t have been a foul if he were being guarded by someone bigger.
Idk, he basically turns directly into the defender and bulldozes him down. Bam pulls this kind of janky move every once in awhile and gets called for it.
It would have been a worse foul because he 100% makes elbow contact to the head if the defender is his size. lol
“Turns illegally”
What the fuck is he supposed to do to?
Not have his elbows swinging through conley’s face lol
This was a classic Shaq/Amare/big man play in the 2000s.
This is messed up, I thought.
whats his face doing there lmao - hes defending with a face xD
Pass the ball, you cannot move through a defenders established position.
After watching this past year of basketball, you and I both know damn well that’s bullshit. Offensive players just truck people all fucking day, and this is what they call?
Offensive players just truck people all fucking day,
Yeah and they should call more offensive fouls on those.
I agree, the issue though is how insanely weak this contact was in relation to plays that happen 10 times a game that don’t get called. Either call all of it, or don’t. You can’t let all of those slide and then just randomly decide to call this.
“How unfair of them to make us play by the rules” loool
AG should have just pivoted to face the basket and then shoved Conley with his off hand as hard as he could. Seems to be the primary move for a decent number of guys and it’s almost never called.
Conley is also moving and in the restricted area.
restricted area doesn’t matter if they’re the primary defender
Conley was in the restricted area. Position does not matter in this case.
Per Google: The NBA restricted area is a 4-foot radius semi-circle painted under the basket designed to reduce collisions and prevent defenders from taking charges directly under the rim. Within this area, secondary defenders cannot establish a legal guarding position to draw a charge on a driving player.
So yeah.
Didn’t use his turn signal.
Only Denver fans.
Should have been a defensive foul, Conley is in the restricted area and is not allowed to move into an offensive player to help create contact
Restricted area only applies to secondary defenders, and Conley is the primary here.
Restricted area does not matter for primary engaged defenders, people here are embarrassing themselves with lack of ball knowledge lol
Bad title
Weak ass call
If the defender is shuffling it’s not an offensive foul, crap call for playoffs. What’s the point of playing bigs if they’re gonna play it like this. Conley shouldn’t even be trying to defend Gordon in the post.
weak as fuck. all you reddit clowns dont know shit about basketball
Conley with that armpit fetish - let me get my face first in them lol (and he got a foul)
Gave slo mo a lil sometjing something too 😂
Its a tech to challenge now
Mike Conley is an absolute legend.
He’s worked his ass off since day one and had such an interesting career. I know the expectations were high when you’re drafted at #4 but with what he’s accomplished in his career he’s absolutely deserving of a top 5 pick in a normal draft class. He’d go anywhere from #2-#4 if they were to redraft that class(After Durant it’s between him, M.Gasol and Horford. What a great “intangibles” class that includes two under the radar DPOY’s with Marc and Joakim).
He had an up and down start to his career, then in 2013 he had a masterful defensive season both by the eye test and by all advanced metrics. He signed the first “max” contract of the new CBA in 2016 that made him the highest paid player in the league which he got clowned for but responded by hitting his peak/apex in 2017 and absolutely going off in the first round of the playoffs, going toe to toe with Kawhi for a hot minute. He gets hurt the next year but comes back with a vengeance the season after that and eventually gets his first all star nod in UTH. He has another two playoff appearances where he lights it up from three including 2020 when he seemingly couldn’t miss before eventually ending up in MIN.
Mike was 35 when he got to MIN and now he’s 38. Considering he’s had such a long career as starting PG that’s 6foot 175lbs soaking wet, the wear and tear has understandably caught up to him. He still organizes the Wolves offense better than anyone else and makes big plays when it matters. My only wish is that he breaks his record of 19 seasons and 37,000+ minutes of game play with no technical foul by punching someone like Scott Foster in the dick and talking badly about his mother. If that happens then they have to let him in the HOF, right?
I mean it’s a full elbow to the upper body on a guy 6 or so inches shorter than him lmao
Ridiculous challenge
No elbow to the upper body occurs here btw.
I mean he just needs to not throw his elbows everywhere lol. I’m confused what Denver was so upset about and why they wasted a challenge on it
So he puts his elbows up - you say it’s a foul
If he puts his head down or puts a shoulder - you’ll probably say it’s a foul
This was a classic big man play in the 80s, 90, or 2000s.
You want AG to do a fadeaway, when there’s an easier shot?
Bad call. That was a classic mismatch, the Nuggets took advantage, and the refs blew it I thought.
It’s a classic mismatch in which Aaron Gordon committed an unnecessary foul.
I’m wondering where the foul is. The ruling on the floor is that the defender is in “legal position”. Conley was in the restricted area.
Per Google: “The NBA restricted area is a 4-foot radius semi-circle painted under the basket designed to reduce collisions and prevent defenders from taking charges directly under the rim. Within this area, secondary defenders cannot establish a legal guarding position to draw a charge on a driving player.”
So I don’t know. Shaq was doing this back in the day, with worse intentions. This was rarely, if so, called. AG was not actively trying to hurt Conley.
What do you think a secondary defender is? Mike is by definition a primary defender here
Got a point. Still strange to see this call after seeing Shaq/Amare/DeMarcus Cousins in some cases even Tim Duncan, do this move regularly, and not being called.
Fuckers mad but it’s Gordon’s fault for turning with his elbows high as fuck so it looks like he just elbowed the shit outta Conley
Pretty idiotic play by Gordon doing that with two fouls. Like why risk and play so reckless even with a smaller player on you. Even more idiotic is your coach wasting a challenge and getting a tech on top of it lol. Thanks Denver.
Team and fans both losing their minds over a getting called for a guy going full washing machine with his elbows out
ok
Quality flop.
First of all, Gordon elbowed him in the face. but honestly… how do you pick up a T on a call that you can challenge? Like what’s the point of arguing the call and harassing the refs when you’ve already decided you’re going to challenge the call anyway? Why not just calmly challenge it and save your team the free throw?
Only nuggets fans could watch their player elbow a guy in the face and start cussing out the refs like the league has an agenda against them lol
Only a Nuggets fan? I can think of at least five franchises fans that would react this way and yours is at the top of the list lol
Every fanbase when their team isn’t playing acts like they’re better than everyone else’s fanbase when the reality is we’re all the same.
I think thats true when fans are emotional watching the games, but some fan bases really are different— Lakers/Celtics/Warriors are much different than Hornets/Pels/Kings fan bases
Thunder and Lakers, obviously. Detroit? Philly? Who else?
Conley’s head does not make contact with an elbow at any point during this sequence. What are you watching?
Yup. Looks like the call is for body contact down low.
What reality are you in? At no point did Aaron make any contact with his face whatsoever.
It’s slight but his elbow does touch his face
“Only a nuggets fan” lakers flair
“Only a nuggets fan”
lakers flair
You really want to go there?