Nikola Jokic & The Denver Nuggets Are BREAKING The NBA

You know, there was one thing I was worried about for Denver going into the Western Conference Final Series against the Lakers. And in case you're wondering what I was worried about, it wasn't LeBron. It wasn't AD. It was… Yeah, the Denver Nuggets are getting a first-hand taste of what the Warriors got in that second round. But the difference is, Nicola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the rest of the Nuggets are so good that they're literally breaking the NBA script. Not even the refs can bail out the Lakers based on how Denver has been playing, and with that being said, let's get right into it. LeBron James broke the scoring record. The Lakers started off the season 2-10, but through the sheer will of LeBron and AD, and through robbing the Utah Jazz blind, the Los Angeles Lakers completely turned their season around and had a roster that, I'll admit, looked pretty good. The NBA at that time must have asked themselves the question, how good can they be? Can they be champions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is the script that the NBA had going for the Lakers, but as we all know by now, it ain't working. You know, I'm a bit salty because of what I saw from the officiating in that Warriors-Lakers series, so I wondered to myself, is it just me? Am I too biased? So I actually went on to the NBA Reddit to see what other non-Warriors and non-Nuggets basketball fans were thinking about all this, and these are literally the sediments of what fans around the world are thinking. I said this in the game thread, I normally think that complaining about refs is lazy and often based in blind homerism, but this is an absolute joke. Murray got hammered on two plays. No call. Look at a Laker the wrong way, and it's a foul. Despite their best efforts, the refs fall to the Denver Nuggets. Scott Foster was cooking tonight. Can't believe the Lakers wasted that performance. 29-11 free throw advantage, and these Lakers are still losing. The refs can't save you when the team is this good. Absolutely demoralizing loss for the Lakers. Not even Scott Foster can stop this Denver squad. He bled out there on the floor and put up a great performance, but in the end, it wasn't enough. Some of these comments were too funny, but anyway, it seems that the overall consensus, minus the Laker fans of course, is that the officiating has been trying to push for the LA team to come out on top, but two bad men aren't letting anything stop them. And with that being said, let's take a look to see just how the Nuggets are doing this. Here's Murray on the perimeter being defended by LeBron James. He gets the screen from Jokic, and then proceeds to step back to the three-point line. At that point, because of how hot he's been in this series, both AD and LeBron jump out to him, but he simply dishes the ball to Jokic. And from there, everything becomes a practice drill for the two-time MVP, because ain't no way any of these three dudes are even going to affect the shot. Here's Jokic again. This time, he's on the block being defended by Anthony Davis. As he tries to make his way to the rim, D'Lo comes in for the double team. Well, Jokic spins out of that with ease, and makes a sweet dish to a cutting KCP for the lay-in. The Joker has been an absolute beast in this series. I mean, we all know he's the walking triple-double in the regular season, but the truth is, in the playoffs, he's actually turned things up a notch. For the 2023 playoffs so far, the man is averaging 30 points, 13 boards, and 10 assists, while shooting 54% from the field and a staggering 47% from beyond the arc. Man, guys, the media laid it onto him the past two years for his playoff performances, and now that he finally has a healthy team, he's showing just how wrong everybody was. The man has taken everything said about him personally en route to dismantling Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, and now he's dismantling LeBron James and Anthony Davis. How in the heck was this guy drafted in the second round? I mean, the numbers he's putting up are absolutely unheard of. Then, uh, to add onto this, the crazy thing about all of this is, after the Nuggets beat the Lakers, I don't know who the Western Conference Final MVP is going to be, because his partner in crime, Jamal Murray, against the Lakers, is averaging 35 points on shooting splits of 53% from the field, 45% from three, and 93% at the free throw line. No wonder why the Lakers have no chance. Because in addition to dealing with arguably the most skilled center ever, they also gotta deal with someone who's as hot as Steph Curry himself. I mean, this man has been lighting the Lakers up, and nobody could stop him. Not LeBron James, not Anthony Davis, and definitely not the most second annoying person in the league next to Dylan Dynasty Brooks. I'm talking about the flop master himself, Dennis Schroeder. You know, Murray had like one bad game in this series, which was game two, where in the first half he scored like 10 points while shooting 3 for 13 from the field, but, uh, the funny thing is, even on a bad night, when the final buzzer sounded, the man had 37 points and still torched the Lakers from anywhere and everywhere. I mean, look at him here against the flop master, Dennis Schroeder. He just plays bullyball here, gets to his spot, and elevates over the flop master for the easy bucket. Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm calling Dennis Schroeder the flop master, just look at these plays. Here's Schroeder here. After a tiny bump, the man just flails to the ground like the annoying flopper he is, at which point Murray is like, what the heck is this guy doing? Here's another example of Dennis Schroeder trying to flop. And here's another dang flop attempt. Honestly, how can Lakers fans feel proud of having this guy on their team? This guy literally flops all day, all night, every game, and he doesn't ever take a night off from flopping. But anyway, I'm glad Jamal Murray is teaching him how to actually win, because the truth is, flopping isn't the way to win games. This is how you win games. You know, these 2023 Nuggets are really something different. They've been able to do something the Warriors couldn't, and that's beating the Lakers and the refs. And if you look at the overall series stats, it's simple to see how they've been doing it. I mean, just look here. In addition to their superstars shooting well, they also got KCP, MPJ, Bruce Brown, and Jeff Green shooting the lights out. Almost everybody is hitting their outside shots. And if you look at the pure numbers, they literally have 6 players shooting 40% or above from beyond the arc, and that's something that the refs just can't stop. Oh, and I keep mentioning the refs because it's so frustrating seeing these guys side with the Lakers. And, you know, here's another outside spectator with his perspective of the officiating. Now, the greatest example I can give of the bias, the NBA bias here, having their thumb on the scale, helping the Lakers out, was Game 3 of the series against Golden State. Now, that game was a 30-point win for the Lakers. The Lakers attempted 20 more foul shots in Game 3 of that series against the Warriors. The myth, which a lot of dumb-dumbs like to spread, is, well, it's because the Warriors shoot from downtown, and all they do is shoot three-point shots, and they don't try to go in the painted area. They don't try to go towards the basket. That's why the Lakers get all those foul shots. And it's not just biased officiating. It's just you don't know basketball. So we pointed it out at the time, but it bears going back. The problem with that hypothesis is it is a lie. It's not true. We've debunked it. The Warriors in that game attempted 41 shots in the painted area. The Lakers attempted 40. So Golden State was pretty even. They had one more shot than the Lakers in the painted area, but yet the Warriors attempted 20 less foul shots. Why? Because of crooked officiating. That's why. And that's the big concern for the Nuggets here going forward. You know, I really couldn't have said that better myself. But anyway, the series is now 3-0 for the Nuggets, and with or without the help of the ones holding the whistle, the Nuggets are going to advance to the NBA Finals. I mean, about 149 teams have been down 0-3 in NBA history, and you know how many of those teams came back? Zero. Anywho, the dust has settled, and seeing how they've been playing, normally it'd be very easy for me to say that the Denver Nuggets are going to win the NBA Championship. But uh, there's one bad man right now in the East that's preventing me from saying anything prematurely. Jimmy Buckets is Denzel Washington from Man on Fire. Jimmy Buckets is Michael Jordan's long-lost son. Jimmy Buckets single-handedly knocked out the number one seed in the East and is about to knock out the number two seed in the East as well. Man oh man. One thing is for sure. We're done with the flopping. We're done with the whistles. Ladies and gentlemen, the 2023 NBA Finals are going to be off the hook.