Friday, June 2nd, 2023

  The Opening Tip

• An example of why the Nuggets are so hard to guard

• The league has apparently found more bad Ja Morant stuff

• The Celtics’ offseason comes down to one question

 1. Nikola Jokic has broken sports media    

Nikola Jokic dropped a 27-10-14 triple-double last night in Game 1 on 12 shots, the latest masterpiece in a season and playoffs full of them. 

• Denver’s likely on its way to beating the Heat in the Finals, which would vault Jokic -- a potential champion, Finals MVP and two-time MVP -- into the all-time great discussion. 

As basketball enjoyers, his ascent has been fun to watch because he’s, uh, fun to watch, but also because it’s broken the talking-head NBA take-asphere.We’ll use the recent Twitter work of FS1’s Nick Wright, the ultimate Jokic hater, as a micro-example: 

• Tweet No. 1: The Lakers will beat the Nuggets. 

• Tweet No. 2: Jokic has disappeared in the fourth quarter of Game 1. 

• Tweet No. 3: Actually, Game 1 was a loss for the Nuggets, despite it being a win. 

• Tweet No. 4: Rui Hachimura on Jokic will swing the series for LA.  

• Tweet No. 5: Is Hachimura outplaying Jokic?

• Tweet No. 6: Wow, the Nuggets won Game 2, but the Lakers will win Games 3 and 4!

• Tweet No. 7: Credit to the Nuggets.

These mental gymnastics are unfolding unbeknownst to Jokic, who treats the often-toxic (and sometimes bewildering) discourse around him the same way Stanley treats Schrute Bucks.If/when he wins his title and heads back to his horse stable in Serbia, the nonstop NBA take economy, which can’t seem to comprehend that his postgame ritual with his daughter has nothing to do with winning #ringz, will have to yell about something, which Jokic surely will not care about.[READ: Miami’s worst-case scenario happened in Game 1]

 2. Daily GIF: You can’t really stop this     

Denver ran this play to stop an 11-0 run for the Heat last night.Miami played it pretty well, but the Jokic-Murray two-man game, plus Jeff Green’s intuition to cut at the right time, plus the gravity that Bruce Brown and KCP hold on the perimeter, makes this essentially impossible to guard.

 3. Trivia time  

Who’s the last team to lose back-to-back Finals appearances to two different teams?Answer at the bottom.

4. Ja Morant is going to get a big, healthy in-season suspension 

Adam Silver said yesterday before the NBA Finals tipped that he and the league will wait until the season ends to announce a punishment for Ja Morant, who is currently suspended from all offseason activities by the Grizzlies for flashing another gun on IG Live.Silver also said this: 

"We've uncovered a fair amount of additional information” in addition to the gun flash, which succeeded an initial gun flash, as well as beating up a teenager and harassing a Finish Line worker.

We’re not inside Silver’s head, but going out of his way to mention the league has ‘uncovered a fair amount of additional information’ felt intentional. It also feels like a *significant* suspension (30 games? 40 games?) to start the 2023-24 season is coming, too.

5. Most playoff triple-doubles, NBA history 

Last piece of fawning Jokic content, we swear: He got his 15th career playoff triple-double last night, halfway to Magic’s record of 30.He’s also recorded nine this postseason in only 16 games, which means, TL;DR, he’ll eventually have this record.

 6.  Quick Hits 

• The Celtics’ entire offseason comes down to one question: Are they prepared to offer Jaylen Brown a supermax extension worth $290M?

• This is why Nuggets mascot Rockymakes $625K a year. 

• In hindsight, this is one of the funniest tweets in recent NBA history. 

• Jokic and Shaqshared a moment after Game 1 last night. 

• Jimmy Butlerlistening to fan DMs amidst a potential 0-3 choke is hilarious.

 7.  Reads & Pods 

• The mesmerizing Denver Nuggets better get used to attention [WaPo]

• NBA Finals Game 1 mini pod [Lowe Post]

• Can the Celtics run it back after this? [The Ringer]