Ladies and gentlemen, I write this on May 21, 2023, on this day in the Western Conference Finals, the Nuggets won the Lakers on the road, changing the series to 3-0.
It was an atypical Nuggets game, and after almost 13 games in this year's playoffs, Joe finally fell to the dust and played MVP-level.
The Lakers combined with home court advantage to attack the inside and finally paid off, Foster's blood was not in vain, and he played 4 minutes in the third quarter and made 4 fouls. When it is also time, the time and place are favorable and all are on the side of the Lakers, the gongs and drums in the stadium of the crypto network arena are noisy, all kinds of celebrities help the road, the old lake honey nicholson blood poured pupils, the shining spirit reappeared in the rivers and lakes, in the face of miners from afar, the lakers finally have confidence - who hasn't played miner axe?
In this atmosphere, Murray's super explosion in the first half and the Nuggets' quickly established 14-point advantage look like an ordinary Hollywood script, and the comedy of tragedy before joy makes the comedy sweeter. But after the third saving teacher left the court, in the face of the Nuggets' small lineup with Gordon as a single interior lineup, Cefavic ghostly arranged a three-guard lineup, and the shining aura suddenly disappeared, replaced by a madhouse feeling.
Fast forward to the final 7 minutes and 48 seconds of the game, the Lakers once again put the score back on the back by one point, Cephalosporin had a clear idea, let the 38-year-old Lebang go to the break, the old man sat on the bench for 48 seconds, and the Nuggets made two bottom corner three-pointers. Although the Nuggets will score another 7 points to play a decisive 13-0 climax, but in terms of the sensory cognition brought by these two three-pointers, the script belonging to the Lakers has been torn up at this moment, and they still failed to leapfrog the madhouse.
You see Cephalosporin Teacher stunned in the audience, no more mysterious and warm smiles, no longer have the confidence of "believe that everything is OK with me", you feel that everything is irretrievably far away, the cry from the depths of your heart is extremely weak and quickly dissipated, you almost wonder if anyone has really shouted such a voice: Sporospora you said a word!
It's over. Against 0-3, it's hard for the Lakers to reverse the win, because what they want to do is not get a four-game winning streak, but to challenge the number of 149. A total of 149 teams in history have faced 3-0 down in the series, and none of them have escaped. After the game, he said: "That's the way it is, it's hard, but it's not impossible. ”
Yes, competitive sports we don't say "impossible". We must still respect the strong willpower of Coach Spore and give him some reassuring evidence: the last time the Lakers were 3-0 down and reversed, back in the 2023 Western Conference semifinals, Wiggins made a three-pointer in the opening game, and the Lakers trailed 3-0, but eventually turned around to win.
But real history is much crueler than this boring joke, such as Mr. Joe did not win that award this season to become a three-time MVP, mostly just for some historical reasons rather than practical considerations, very cruel, but no way.
However, if at the end of the year, he can get another award, it will be a huge compensation. However, no one will guarantee this.
In 2016, Jokic's first year in Denver, no one promised the fat man two consecutive MVPs and the biggest contract in history, and even a starter was not guaranteed; At just 42 years old, Mike Malone has been promised another contract extension to lead a 30-win team to rebuild, and no one has guaranteed that he will not be in the Kings' situation again.
In 2017, no one promised that the team was right to trade Nurkic to help Jokic, and there was no guarantee that their first-round pick to select Donovan Mitchell and trade Lyden and Lyles would be rewarded.
In 2018, they sent Gallinari away to sign Millsap, a free agent, and no one told Denver that this was the biggest free agent they could sign in the next 5 years.
This year, they lost to the Timberwolves in the final game of the regular season and missed the playoffs, and the world was staring at the Warriors and Rockets, and no one promised them that they would always be a qualified first-round playoff team as long as they continued to persevere. That summer, after they drafted Michael Porter Jr., who had a history of serious back injuries, there was no guarantee that the player would recover a few successes and realize his potential even if he was healthy.
In 2019, they finally made the playoffs, narrowly beating the Spurs in the first round and the Blazers in the second round, Jokic shot 3 of 10 in the final quarter and 1 of 2 of 2 free throws in the final 11 seconds, and no one promised them that Jokic would not have to be so alone when he was in the doldrums again.
Then came the 2020 campus, where the Nuggets came to the Lakers after falling 3-1 down and coming back in two rounds, and they had a chance to tie the series 1-1 in Game 2, and the thick-eyed three-point shootout made them another excellent footnote to the Lakers' 17th championship, and no one promised them that they would be able to walk here again. Faced with the same contract, Jeremy Grant still chose to leave Denver to become the Pistons boss.
The next two years were two years of acceleration for the Nuggets, with the teacher winning consecutive MVPs, but no one guaranteed that his team would win more.
In two years, the Nuggets' most comprehensive guard swingman Gary Harris was scrapped with a serious knee injury and was traded to the Magic for Aaron Gordon, and no one assured them that the flowerless jumper who played as an organizational forward in the Magic would do all the dirty work on the team and become the best interior cutter for the teacher, and no one assured them that Gordon't just walk away like Grant, who would be willing to be the second or even the third all the time? Who wants to score just 9 points all the time?
In two years, the team won only one series in the playoffs, with a total of five games.
In the first six years of Malone coaching this team, the regular season win rate went from 40% to 65.3%, drawing a curve that has always been upward, but since the 2021-22 regular season their winning percentage has dropped significantly, and their playoff record has been worse year by year, but at the same time they have two consecutive MVPs, and generally the head coach is the one who prevents the team from going further. But the Nuggets renewed his long-term contract with him, posing as an ordinary playoff team without much ambition - having a two-game MVP is a hero of the times, and the teacher is too strong, we don't necessarily have to match, right?
Simply put, Denver Highlands did not spend much money to pursue free agency, in fact, in recent years, rare big names in the free agent market will not go to Denver, they all have an appointment to go, Serbian racetrack, there is no invitation call.
So the Nuggets did something, they got Gordon to accept an average salary extension of 20 million, they gave Porter Jr. a maximum salary contract, and in return was a back surgery season reimbursement. What worries Honey even more is Jamal Murray, who broke out in the park in 2020, and has been lying on the top salary contract he signed earlier for more than a year.
When Jokic was at his loneliest, and Murray was at his hardest, he asked Malone with tears in his eyes: Will you trade me like a defective product?
Malone later told the story on many occasions, saying that his answer was: No. You are ours.
Now, Murray is fit, and after being questioned by fans in the regular season, he broke out again in his long-awaited playoffs, Porter is also healthy, even if he has not yet developed any ball handling and defense, but has become the kind of undifferentiated tall shooter that the team expects, and has a more mature mentality, he voluntarily told Malone during this year's playoff journey: If you feel the need to replace me with Brown, just do it, I can.
These are all very good and warm stories, but whether these are the reasons why the Nuggets will come to the door of the Finals in 2023, it is difficult to say, because you don't know what the starting point of the Nuggets has left, that is, Connery, who is intimately called the Kang thief by Nuggets fans, whether he opened his eyes to know that the two sons will be able to recover and become great, or just without any bargaining power, how much contract can be given to give a bad gamble. And did Malone really think so in the thick chicken soup that Murray gave to his stomach, or did he actually have no responsibility to speak as a head coach who did not actually have the right to decide on a trade, or did he already understand how difficult it is to trade an ACL injured player with a top salary contract, and he had to wait until he played a decent performance after his comeback?
But the Nuggets didn't have many earth-shattering shots, they drafted Braun, who is known for defense, in the summer, they sent Barton and Morris back to Caldwell Pope and Iss Smith, signed Bruce Brown, and the defensive flexibility of the two wings was greatly improved, especially for the outside defense, Coach Malone improved, everything seems to be arranged with the Warriors as an imaginary enemy. As for what kind of opponents they will face after the next 82 long games, there is not much consideration, so around the mid-season trade deadline, they basically maintained the "I have to do something to brush the presence" style of the past 7 years, sending away the "bone" Highland who is not strong in tactical execution and Reid, who has not played much time, bringing in Thomas Bryant and Jordan Jr. as goalkeepers, and finally bringing in Reggie Jackson, which also did not have any impact on the season itself.
You can certainly assume that the Nuggets' top architects thought they had put enough resources around the two-in-a-row MVP, and if the truth is reversed, they did have the capital to say so, but at the time of these operations, there was no guarantee that their middle school students' efforts to brush the basic questions would reap an unexpectedly high ranking.
In fact, this season is their first generous tax payment in the Jokic era and their third tax payment in 47 years, so these small but correct actions by Nuggets management are already considered excellent. Anyway, in the 47-year history of the Nuggets entering the league, they have never really done anything, never made it to the Finals, there is no way to talk about championships, there is not even a 75-year 76er on the team, they are the real part of the NBA map that is really disliked. Their greatest luck in nature was to select Jokic in 2014 with a total 41st pick in the second round, and Jokic's presence made their operation seem so methodical and remarkable.
In 2021, the Nuggets team traveled thousands of miles to find Jokic's farm in Serbia, and the reporter asked Jokic if he believed the team would win the championship, and Jokic said that it was natural. The reporter also said, you close your eyes and imagine, do you really think we can win the championship?
Jokic said I don't have to close my eyes to tell you that we can win the title.
Pretty good. But who hasn't said such a thing with his eyes open? After the Lakers traded in the midseason, James came back, and they played one of the league's strongest defenses and best records in parallel time, and the thick eyebrows also widened his eyes and said something similar, I really think we have the strength to win the championship.
James was there at the time, and he agreed, and after finishing seventh in the West in the play-offs and knocking out the Grizzlies and Warriors back-to-back, that confidence came to a peak, James said: "It all depends on the health of me and the thick eyebrows. ”
The implication is that as long as he and Thick Eyebrows remain healthy, everything is fine. Observing the 38-year-old man's game, you can only feel that he is too good at playing basketball. At this age, at James's level, he is proficient in matching goals and methods, and when goals change, his methods can change with them. Heading into the playoffs, James has become an extremely good all-off, all-defensive playmaker who looks like a more powerful dream chaser, but when we pull out the dream chaser analogy, it is enough to show that James's influence on the game has shown a clear degradation compared to his own peak.
As for why Cephalosporin replaced James with 7 minutes and 48 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the reason is not complicated, James played the last 4 minutes and 14 seconds of the third quarter, and played 4 minutes and 14 seconds at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Lakers once again won by 1 point at this point, morale is strong, and Spore believes that it is not a very outrageous decision to let Old Jen take a breather to prepare for the decisive battle at this time.
Who knows this end, there will be no decisive battle?
The 48 seconds of the old Jen Xie, 3 years backwards, it is difficult to happen, but even if we do not consider the age factor of 38 years old, the last sprained left ankle, and the right ankle himself also has an old injury in the old Zhan, I am afraid that he will accept the coach's advice. So it was a moment that was bound to happen, but we didn't know when it would happen, and what kind of man was a teenager to death, it was all women's lust.
So in the 2023 Western Conference G3, we can see the 28-year-old Jokic and 38-year-old James rubbing shoulders with each other, just like some people rushing to the science field at night, some people resigning and returning to their hometowns, and the world is alternate.
And on the backdrop wall where the greatest players of the two eras pass by, you can clearly see another important chapter of the Nuggets season that tells another broader story of time and space, that is:
2020 has finally passed.
Of course, you know that there is no river to cross in the world, but human beings always have a sense of ritual, as long as we complete similar things to those of the year, fulfill the unfulfilled wish of the year, this knot of time hidden in the heart can be truly untied. For the Nuggets in 2023, since the river in front of them is still called the Lakers, and now the game is still called the Western Conference Finals, the Nuggets have crossed over, they have accomplished some things and buried some memories. Memories from 2020.
So, do you remember your 2020? Have you already buried him too?
Most of us who live until 2023 just bury our memories gently and erect a small monument on it. Looking back, there are always those small monuments on everyone's road. Some tablets are engraved with words, while others are empty. Some of the words on the tablets were written by others, more words were written by your own hands, and only a few sporadic and incomplete monuments were erected at the time nodes that everyone walked through roughly recorded the so-called common memory.
When a person completes his life's path, a large part of the inscriptions that belong to him disappear. Every moment of this world unfolds like this, one story line is broken, another story line is generated, one monument disappears, another monument is erected, no one can grasp all the history and facts intact, along the way, looking back, there are always some inscriptions that will disappear into memory, so you and the world may lose this part of the truth forever, even the tiniest and most insignificant truth and details, are worthy of the weight of the four words "forever lost".
Dong Yuhui said that you have to believe that you have been walking on the right path. But as far as I have observed, the destiny we really have shows that where there is an absolutely right path, the only thing you can be sure of is just keep walking and keep losing.
Therefore, the Nuggets and Jokic will continue to walk, and the Lakers and Old Jen are destined to be unable to stop.