FIGHT

B/c Jokic is a dirty *****

So any of the stripes have the nuts to bounce Jokic?

lol more techs on Twolves than Denver. Of course.

But smart to get the 4th string guard I've never heard of to get Jokic to get a tech. Joker has 4 fouls and a tech and Nuggets are down 4.

Are moving screens not a thing anymore? It's amazing how they just let him rotate around the screenee to prevent him from navigating.

This replay is interesting.

Gobert pushes into Jokic on a rebound from behind

Jokic hits Rudy in the face and Rudy hits Murray in the face.

They call Rudy fouling Murray in the face, but nothing on Jokic elbowing Rudy in the face that cause Rudy to hit Murray.

If you are calling Rudy, it has to be the push in the back to start it.

You know they aren't going to give a 5th foul to Jokic on a "proximate foul" with 5 minutes left in a elimination game.

Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag said:

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You know they aren't going to give a 5th foul to Jokic on a "proximate foul" with 5 minutes left in a elimination game.

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He elbowed Gobert in the face. Gobert getting hit by Jokic is what caused Gobert to come into contact with Murray.

It is either a push in the back by Gobert or a foul on Jokic for the elbow in the face of Gobert.

The elbow to Rudy's face caused the contact with Murray. What they chose to do was the only thing they really couldn't call. Either the shove is incidental and it is a foul on Joker or the Shove is the foul on Rudy. Refs found the only way to get it wrong.

Ice cold iso middle by McDaniels.

Nuggets ball down by 8 with 1:05 left.

Guitarsoup said:

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Ice cold iso middle by McDaniels.

Nuggets ball down by 8 with 1:05 left.

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Followed by a clutch steal.

McDaniels has been incredible on both ends today. He's going to cause problems against us due to his length. We should still win easy, nevertheless.

Nuggets just totally imploded down the stretch. Murray was totally neutralized by Jaden and Rudy played the game of his life with 7 assists and fantastic defense.

Too soon to talk about how absurd it was that people were prematurely putting Jokic in the top 10 all-time convo? Dude has consistently underperformed in the playoffs, and is a traffic cone on defense. IMO it is impossible to make the top 10 convo if you are a liability on defense.

The key to beating Denver was stopping Murray. He's like Klay was for the Warriors. You're not going to stop Jokic, so you have to stop the only other guy that can kill you.

AggieEP said:

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Nuggets just totally imploded down the stretch. Murray was totally neutralized by Jaden and Rudy played the game of his life with 7 assists and fantastic defense.

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Complete and total choke job. Don't care if Gordon was out, they were playing against Minnesota missing their three best guards.

And Nuggets have massive cap problems this summer thanks to overpaying Christian Braun last summer.

This is a surprising result, but Jokic was playing without Gordon and Watson who are their two best defensive players. Jokic and the Nuggets look a lot better with those two on the court and were a big threat to win the title.

Jokic's legacy is safe regardless of this one series. He's a great player and his defensive liabilities are no worse than other offense first stars like Dirk and Steph.

Moving on to our series, I'm very curious to see what kind of offensive game plan Minnesota comes up with. Defensively they still have most of their best guys, so they might be able to slow us down a bit and I know they'll be physical with us, but I really don't know how they are going to score.

Steph isn't a defensive liability in the same way a traffic cone at the center position is. You can hide guards on defense; however, a center needs to have some sort of presence with regard to rim protection, and Jokic has been one of the worst in the league in that regard over the last few years. It's why centers are consistently named DPOY, because their impact on defense is greater than any other position.

I also would not call Steph a defensive liability outside of his first few years in the league, which along with his 4 championships is why he is in that top 10 conversation for most people including myself, but still don't think he cracks it due to being simply average on the defensive end.

No one thinks Dirk is top 10.

Not saying Jokic is a bad player, but there was a lot of talk online and among talking heads with regard to him being in the conversation, and I just think that is absurd. He's great on the offensive end, possibly one of the best ever on that side of the ball, but this is also why I thought Wemby deserved to be considered ahead of him in the MVP race this year.

Steph has been targeted in the pick and roll pretty much every possession of every game in the playoffs through his career. He's got good enough hands and anticipation to grab a steal here and there but teams absolutely and mercilessly hunt him. He isn't Trae Young, and it's probably unfair to say he's a "bad" defender but there is a reason why he gets hunted.

Also Dirk's the number 7 scorer in NBA history, I can make a case he's in the top 15ish of all time.

satexas said:

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NBA games are so hard to listen to with Doris as color commentary.

Not sexist or a pig but girls doing guy sports is hard for me.

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I don't think it has anything to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of men broadcasting that are terrible as well. ESPN in general just lacks soul.

2008and1 said:

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satexas said:

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NBA games are so hard to listen to with Doris as color commentary.

Not sexist or a pig but girls doing guy sports is hard for me.

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I don't think it has anything to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of men broadcasting that are terrible as well. ESPN in general just lacks soul.

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Exactly. It isn't because she is a woman. It is because she sucks at what she is doing.

Give me Jacob and Sean all day.

Hell, Jeremy Lin is pretty fantastic at explaining things, I want to see him on bigger productions.

Will be interesting to see if we focus on high pace in this series. They have to rely heavily on Mike Conley, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert. Their guard depth right now is Conley, TJ Shannon, Bones Hyland, and Jaylen Clark. Those four played between 12-18mpg this season.

McDaniels is an elite perimeter defender, but he is also generally foul prone due to his physical style and game 3 vs Denver was the only game he had fewer than 4 fouls. Getting McDaniels in foul trouble is key because they don't have another POA defender after him right now.

Their bigs will be tough to contend with, because our team just doesn't have the beef to match up with them. Going to be having Keldon and Barnes doing work on Randle defensively. But Randle only shot 43/30 against Denver.

Steph hit 41% of his threes in the first round. He's going to get a lot of looks because Minn likely tries to do what Portland did with Clingan "defending" Steph.

Spurs just need to take care of business and win early and often. Pile up those wins before Ayo and Ant can get healthy.

Charles Barkley:

"Without Anthony Edwards they got no chance. Zero. It would be a difficult series with Anthony. Joker is a little guy compared to Rudy. Rudy is a little guy compared to Victor" pic.twitter.com/AfwuxnbkCb

— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) May 1, 2026

I think this will end up being a 6-7 game series. I know they are banged up but I expect those guys back at some point. They are a very athletic team and killed Denver on the glass all series. Something we struggle with. They are coming out of a very tough series and have also made two straight conference finals. I definitely think there will be some learning moments this series for our young guys. Not necessarily a bad thing. Don't think were going to be able to have extended stretches of playing bad basketball like we did against Portland at times and still be able to win decisively. Expecting a tough series.

Sher Thing said:

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I think this will end up being a 6-7 game series. I know they are banged up but I expect those guys back at some point.

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From the initial estimate from Shams, Ant should miss the first 4 games.

Ayo is more of an unknown. Wolves didn't elaborate on his calf problem, but he missed games in March and April with the the same calf injury. After DDV tore his achilles a couple games ago, I would be shocked if he rushed back.

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They are a very athletic team and killed Denver on the glass all series. Something we struggle with.

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We definitely struggled some (like vs Knicks) on the offensive glass, but we were 1st in the league in defensive rebounding and defensive rebounding percentage. Wolves were 15th in ORB% and 17th in ORB.

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They are coming out of a very tough series and have also made two straight conference finals. I definitely think there will be some learning moments this series for our young guys. Not necessarily a bad thing. Don't think were going to be able to have extended stretches of playing bad basketball like we did against Portland at times and still be able to win decisively. Expecting a tough series.

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Yeah, it's going to be really tough. They have the physical front court that we don't typically do well with. Really have to win early and often and get them in as big a hole as possible before Ant comes back.

On the plus side, it seems like Gobert made it his life mission to stop Jokic and had the series of a lifetime, which is saying a lot with his defensive resume.

But if anybody is used to Gobert, it has to be Wemby - I can't imagine how much they've matched up because of national team stuff over the years.

CC09LawAg said:

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On the plus side, it seems like Gobert made it his life mission to stop Jokic and had the series of a lifetime, which is saying a lot with his defensive resume.

But if anybody is used to Gobert, it has to be Wemby - I can't imagine how much they've matched up because of national team stuff over the years.

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Since he was a kid.

Gobert used to provide Wemby with shoes when he was little because it is hard to get good massive sized shoes. Rudy has been close to Wemby for a long time.

Yeah, Wemby is a much tougher assignment for Gobert then Jokic imho. Wemby can go around you instead of just trying to go through you.

Sher Thing said:

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Yeah, Wemby is a much tougher assignment for Gobert then Jokic imho. Wemby can go around you instead of just trying to go through you.

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Exactly. Gobert struggles defensively when he is drawn out against quicker players. Jokic has insane footwork, but quickness isn't his key attribute. Gobert can't be backed down by Jokic like most other players and Gobert is smart enough to keep up with Jokic's footwork.

But the Spurs can draw him out and Wemby can beat Gobert with his quickness and handles. Joker is the better offensive player, but having handles like Wemby has has given Gobert problems, because he doesn't have to deal with that ever as a center.

But I also think they will try to match Gobert up on whoever they think is the weakest shooter so he can edge to the lane.

I anticipate Gobert on Steph and McDaniels on Wemby in game one as the Wolves try to dictate our offensive style and feel out how we're going to attack them.

If they can force Castle to shoot 6 there's a game that's a win for them because it keeps him out of the lane. And like you said, they want Gobert to defend the rim, I can't imagine they want him chasing Wemby around the perimeter.

AggieOO said:

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2008and1 said:

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satexas said:

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NBA games are so hard to listen to with Doris as color commentary.

Not sexist or a pig but girls doing guy sports is hard for me.

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I don't think it has anything to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of men broadcasting that are terrible as well. ESPN in general just lacks soul.

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Except that he specifically and broadly called out "girls doing guy sports" as his issue.

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Her voice is grating.

If they put McD on Wemby and Gobert on Steph, we should have a clear shot at the lane over and over, though.

Conley or Bones on Fox or Harper? Toast.

They have a good defense, because Gobert is probably the 2nd best defender in the league and McD is one of the best perimeter guys, but with Ant and Ayo out, they really dont have a second POA defender. Ayo is good on screens and chasing off ball, but as an individual ISo defender, he is 67th percentile. He and Conley are also smaller than our guys.

With Ant/DDV out, they arguably have the worst guard rotation in the playoffs and we arguably have the best. Fitch is a really good coach, so seeing how he adjusts to that will be interesting. We shot 42% from three against Portland and we shot 50/38 post-ASB, so I don't think they will just be able to pack the paint against us like Boston does. We have enough shooters that will make them pay for it.

DTP02 said:

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AggieOO said:

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2008and1 said:

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satexas said:

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NBA games are so hard to listen to with Doris as color commentary.

Not sexist or a pig but girls doing guy sports is hard for me.

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I don't think it has anything to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of men broadcasting that are terrible as well. ESPN in general just lacks soul.

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Except that he specifically and broadly called out "girls doing guy sports" as his issue.

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Her voice is grating.

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I don't disagree. Thats not my point.

If I were them, I'd force us to run our offense through Wemby and try to get our guards ball watching and not move the ball around.

Maybe throw Randle on Wemby, Gobert on Castle, McDaniels on Fox.

I think our offense has a bad habit of the ball sticking when the guys just want to watch Wemby go to work.

"He wants to be the greatest player that's ever played the game, and he's putting in the work to get there. He's a completely different animal than anything that we've ever seen."

Spurs legend @seanelliott_32 breaks down the 1-of-1 talent of Victor Wembanyama on The Jim Rome… pic.twitter.com/oy5qAh2b4R

— Jim Rome (@jimrome) May 1, 2026