Watching the examples of the NBA Nuggets and Jokic may only prove one thing

The Heat made the last resistance, but the Nuggets still managed to lift the trophy today. Having only lost 4 of the 4-round series, the Suns, who won two of them, actually lost them the most on net difference. What is the concept of the Nuggets outscoring opponents by 8 points per 100 games in the playoffs? This data, 22 Warriors is 4.9, 21 Bucks is 5.3, 20 Lakers is 6.9, 19 Raptors is 5.6 - the Nuggets seem to have more dominance than the championship of the past 4 years to the opponent of the season, if you consider that the 18 Warriors and 18 Rockets are inseparable, the last team that surpassed the Nuggets' dominance that season was 17 Cosmic Braves.

Watching can be corroborated with data. The Nuggets' offense is too strong, and the Nuggets with sparks and lightning all the way look more comfortable than champions crawling out of the defensive quagmire. The hardest time their offense had was around the fourth quarter of the Western Conference G1, when you couldn't guess Murray would beat everything, Jokic could make logical defensive tricks invisible and exaggerated, but they could do it consistently and consistently. The Nuggets have played at least three top defensive teams, one with Gobert, one with thick eyebrows that just picked up DPOY drops, and one with the league's highest defensive rating, and they all can't take the Nuggets with the naked eye.

Dunbao said: "You see, what difference does it make if you try hard or not? ”

So did the Nuggets prove that "defending to win championships" doesn't apply?

In fact, the Nuggets are 4th in the league in defensive efficiency in the playoffs, and the three teams in front of them, the Grizzlies and Cavaliers, are all round-robin, each losing the quagmire battle. The other team up front is the Knicks, whose defense is mostly driven by opponents. Although the Nuggets' defense has not received too high a rating in the past many years, this year's regular season is only in the middle of the league, and their stubborn problems against top backcourt blocking teams cannot be said to be eliminated - facing Hanako in the first round and Booker in the second round, this weakness will still be exposed - but if you have watched the Nuggets' playoffs this year in their entirety, you will definitely agree that their defensive statistics are not too moisture, they have good discipline, and maintain traditional advantages such as rebounding and foul control. Almost everyone around Jokic handed over tough counterpoint resistance, and Jokic's own defense became more and more like a wall of sighs.

At least in the playoffs, the Nuggets proved their defense. Malone and Jokic, up and down the Nuggets, also emphasized defense more frequently than offense in interviews. But here it is still necessary to emphasize the premise that the so-called "defense wins championship" is omitted:

The NBA is a league where stars dominate the game, and people believe that you can give the ball to the big brother when the offense can't open the situation, but you can't just pick it up when you want to emphasize defense, which requires team configuration and training reserves, which is why all teams, especially championship teams, emphasize this end.

Compared with offense, defense is more like a team than a star attribute, it is a "fault tolerance mechanism" when the team shoots poorly and the big brother is not in good shape, which allows the team to have a "sense of security" when it retreats into a corner.

In that sense, the Nuggets are indeed more like a team that "wins championships on offense" because their "sense of security" comes from offense rather than defense. Nowhere is this better than in the Western Conference finals, where the Nuggets can accept dodging the Lakers for layups in some basket rounds, giving up interfering with some shots to avoid getting into bigger foul trouble. The courage to do this is out of absolute confidence in one's own attack. In this series, the Nuggets' defensive efficiency of 116.1 was the worst of the four rounds, but they returned with a four-game best offensive efficiency of 122.3.

In the 20 playoff games, only 4 games in which the Nuggets' offensive efficiency is below 110, and only those below 100 are overly excited and no one can shoot three-point games. If you think back to the Nuggets' resume, they also won two rounds against the 20 Jazz and 21 Blazers, and if you only look at the Jazz and Blazers offensive end, you can't figure out how they can be out — the Nuggets just have the ability to hit back, even though Mitchell and Lillard made 33 and 35 three-pointers, respectively. Even the Nuggets, who did not have Murray and Porter last year, have the ability to play against the eventual champion Warriors.

Jokic and his Nuggets are showing us the possibility that they may really be undefensible. The Miami Heat have proven their defensive versatility in recent years in the playoffs, and Spall has tricks you can't think of to figure out, but Spall admits they can't defend Jokic and Nuggets.

Jokic provided the ultimate in offensive reliability, and he proved that the best defenders could not resist him head-on, at least not at the same time, in two sets of No. 4/5 positions with super basket guards (Gobert/Downs, Thick Eyebrows/Hachimura). To limit Jokic relatively effectively, you may have to put on two top talent and defensive insiders at the same time, such as having Gobert + thick eyebrows, one top defense, and one against Gordon to assist defense. Note that it must be the top talent, and the knight-level twin towers will be pulled a wave of A. Would the Bucks' letter + Da Lo be the closest combination to this standard? But in recent meetings, Teacher Yo was more like a dimensionality reduction blow to them.

Murray is a "super repudiator" that cannot be ignored, and his "super transformation" in the playoffs may be an important X-factor in the failure of a large number of ball critics to fully favor the Nuggets championship before the start of the playoffs. The following two sets of data:

A.17.8+3+6.2, true hit rate 60.5%

B. 20+4+6.2, true hit rate 57.1%

B, who averages 2.2 more points per game, how much better can he be than A, who has a slightly higher true shooting percentage? Their BPM, EPM, and even salaries are almost the same, it's not too much to say that they are a level player, right?

However, A is Russell and B is Jamal Murray.

Playoffs Murray is better than the regular season I don't know how many notches, you wouldn't guess that he can transform again, even if he proved in 20 years that he has another form to turn on, but there are many reasons not to support your belief that Murray is real:

Is the park data representative?

Murray had only played two years of playoffs before that;

He's had a big injury and there was a time in the season when he looked desperate.

If Murray really were just at the level of the regular season, I'm sure the Nuggets wouldn't have lifted the trophy today, and even if they could get to this position, the series would be far tougher than it is now. But now, Murray and Park Murray in the championship season confirm each other, really showing people an inexplicable but real playoff transformation play. He is proficient in all kinds of difficult mid-range, has always been a big heart shooter, handed in impressive passing and defense, and played a qualified second-in-command on the Nuggets' championship path. It was he who allowed the Nuggets to crawl out of the quagmire tenaciously without destroying the Lakers' No. 4/5 position in the first place, and this became the key breaking point for the team to win the opponent with a bang. It was also he who made the Heat waver in defensive strategy, unconventionally coming up with a suicide strategy of pinch guard to arc Jokic, and then changing the defense of Yomu to give Jokic a big snack.

The Heat have no way, after determining that they can't prevent Jokic, the Heat always have to choose a good strategy that can limit other points of the Nuggets, and Murray has proved with an average of 10.5 assists per game that he is by no means a submachine gun equipped by Jokic, and he can also become an independent soldier.

This era—perhaps in a few years' time, people will change to "cross-era"—the most buggy interior offensive core, and a big-hearted attacker who we can't accurately position the level, but has the attributes of a team and can complete shots in various positions, together they make up the most difficult starting combination. On this basis, every piece of the puzzle around them shines brightly:

Aaron Gordon, who said goodbye to the embarrassing positioning of the magic era with or without the ball, used his talent of 9 points to play a 10-point explosive performance, becoming Denver's most powerful heavy hammer on the chest of an enemy. He and Jokic are a match made in heaven, like the storm tomahawk and Thor, and, the rice light of the grass and another god of thunder;

Porter Jr., with his tall posture and proud feel, is another of Jokic's killer skills in the bright side. The so-called disagreement is Denver's most unreasonable winning skill. But then again, what team would tolerate their third-highest-paid star contributing a steady five-game blackout from three-point range at the Finals? Jokic and his team could let Porter, who only had one trick of fresh failure, willfully ignore the empty basket opportunities of the team owner who was close at hand, rely on the original talent to cut hard, and find a sense of presence in the Finals. teammates with Jokic saved Porter Jr.;

Pope, a dark dart hidden in Jokic's waist, is launched at the slack opportunity of the opponent's retreat and weak defense, and the shot will be red. Pope's two seasons with the lowest career turnovers (except for his rookie season) were the top moments of the 20 Lakers and 23 Nuggets. When he only needs to do the simplest sniper tasks around the big guys, he is a championship guard - although this time in the finals, he is not as impressive as 3 years ago. In fact, Denver's two top scorers were not accurate in the Finals;

Bruce Brown, I would say last year's playoffs, was he actually awesome too? At that time, he averaged 14 points per game, shot 67.6% from the field, cut with vitality, and responded from the three-point line. But you should remember that the Nets were embarrassed at that time, and their centers also needed to show value in the lower position, and KD and Irving were not well-rounded traders like Mr. Yo. And, there, Brown plays 34.7 minutes, while with the Nuggets, he just needs to use energy when the team needs him. I don't want to say that the Nuggets have better depth than that Nets team, after all, the Nuggets only have 6 quality rotations. But the Nuggets do have an environment and style of play that suits Brown, and there may be no better big guy in this league to drive the energy-type small wings than Jokic - another positive case is Curry and his Peyton Jr.;

Braun and Jeff Green, I love their energy, and we will also try to find any visible good in every player on the championship team with a magnifying glass, and praise the guys who watch over the water coolers as the best teammates in the locker room. But objectively speaking, Braun's occasional highlights in the Finals are not enough to prove that he is a player worth a lot of playoff time, his performance is not consistent, and Malone will jump back and forth between reuse and "go up for 3~5 minutes or even abandon". Jeff Green will be a little better, but he's also a bit inadequate as the first interior backup on the championship team. But the fact is that in a few matches, they helped Jokic, and these necessary bursts made it easier for Jokic to clear the level. For most of the season, though, they couldn't hold Jokic's few minutes off.

So, how good is the Nuggets' roster?

The puzzle players look talented, but are there enough ability levels?

Jokic, a G4,5 offender, witnessed the world-saving performance of the puzzle puzzles around him off the scene, and this scene is usually dominated by him, with the exception of this time. The heavens seemed to have a special plan, and they didn't want Jokic to think back on this journey and remember only the loneliness of being alone and Murray's awakening. This also caters to Jokic, who seems to prefer to understand the game in a different way, he will set the tone of the game, but generally not define it independently, as he hides in the back row in the championship group photo, he wants to support the Denver team, but does not want to be the whole body of the team. Denver didn't let him down, these around him are great, but not as great a puzzle as you think, they stood up in their own way at some point in time, making the Nuggets three-dimensional, diverse, and unpredictable, as if in the past two years, the picture that left only Jokic's lonely back never existed. Jokic clenched his fists on the sidelines and roared, which made you understand that the basketball he was waiting for finally appeared.

Michael Malone has published countless praises and eulogies about the world's best players in the grammar of the world's first covenant, but his choked voice and hoarse roaring out a piece of chicken soup for the soul conveys the spirit of teamwork, unity, honor and disgrace. This is certainly not a show, this is the mental nourishment that the players need most. You don't need to tell Jokic on the sidelines that he is number one in the world, Jokic will prove the obvious with his actions, there is no need to stress it alone. But Denver needs confidence, it needs security, it needs stability in good times, it needs to survive in adversity. Malone told them they could, and Jokic helped them prove that they really could.

Happy Marlon.

Nuggets of happiness.

I'd love to find something common in the Denver championship case, the style of play, or the team building. I'd love to say that the future is an era of offense winning championships, but reason tells me that the premise of relying on offense to gain security is that you have to have infallibility — mind you, absolutely, and even some historic stars don't deserve the word "absolutely" — thighs, and that's really hard to imitate. I also want to say, look, spring is here for the small ball market, and Denver's smooth team building and perseverance patience have paid off. But if you look at the operations of Nuggets management over the years, they have made no fewer mistakes than some teams struggling in the second half of the playoffs or even on the margins.

The premise of all this is that a second-round show, Jokic, descends on the city and firmly carries them on his shoulders when they are in trouble. The management of the team also very sensibly chose to build a competitive team around Jokic, and in the first season when Jokic returned to Murray, he won the championship with a team with only 6 players far above the alternative level.

The example of the Nuggets and Jokic may prove only one thing - the top stars in history, they will always get the praise they deserve, even if the process will go through twists and turns, and they will eventually get to that position. It may even be irrelevant to the location or the starting point.

After all this, Jokic stood in the corner, and the magnesium lights outside the game did not raise his interest, as he showed about the possibility of triple MVP, to the anxious indifference of onlookers. He himself said that if he were to choose, he would not have preferred himself as a teammate in the All-Star Game, and with Denver's naturally unobtrusive nature, people almost ignored the fact that there is a star of our time who may be promoted to the Pantheon. The first Joe blowing Malone is more eager than anyone else, and he violently reminds people to look at Denver, that is, you don't miss witnessing history, don't miss Jokic.

And Jokic even just wants to go home.

Jokic let the people around him share the achievements and results, he was the conqueror, the ultimate winner, but he did not take everything, but sat on the side like Zhang Muzhi, allowing the crowds behind him to occupy the center of the camera.

But so what?

Even if he doesn't stand in the center and spread his arms, we have to record his achievements, and like Coach Malone, he takes the trouble to pass them on over and over again.

Jokic, the greatest star in Denver Nuggets history, will continue to unlock the "greatest" prefix in the future, making the definition of the term gradually cover a larger connotation. He endured perseverance and waiting, conquered the alliance with an indisputable performance, and shared honor and joy with his dear companions. He has earned all my personal respect, and I personally am insignificant, but I believe that there are many people who have similar attitudes to me.