Nuggets-Heat Game 3 reaction: Jokic & Murray make history, too much for Butler | Draymond Green Show

What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. We are live on Amazon app and we are going to break down game 3 of the NBA Finals. Um, the Nuggets went into Miami and got a 109-94 win. And quite frankly, kicking it with the homies now, right now, and every single one of them yesterday is like, "I got Miami, I got Miami." And like every single one of them, it's maybe what, 5, 6, 6 of 'em? They all bet against me. And the bet was 3 shots and under. 10 minutes, which was very nice by the way. Like 10 minutes, that's a long time. And I said, I asked him, I said, yo, like when all y'all bet together and y'all bet against me, like at not one point did y'all think like, well, if all of us are betting this way and he's saying Nuggets are gonna win, like let one of us flip to his side. No, they didn't. And I watched all of 'em take 3 shots in under 10 minutes and it was great. So I said all of that to say, I was heavy Nuggets last night. And going back to what I said to y'all before, which is they aren't playing with they breakfast. They had the slip up in game 2 where it just didn't seem like they had the energy. You probably saw Coach Malone's press conference saying, Yeah. Lack of sense of urgency, blah, blah, blah, all of those things. And I said, they have not had that game all, I didn't, I said this to myself, they haven't had a game like that all playoffs. Anything that they've had to do, they've taken care of their business when they needed to take care of their business. So I personally think they're going to go out there and win game 3. June is a championship month for sports. Pro basketball, hockey, college baseball, and softball. NBA playoff ball championships all underway. And of course, pro baseball is in full swing. For last-minute amazing deals on tickets to whatever your favorite sport may be, check out GameTime. And it doesn't stop at sports. GameTime even has tickets to concerts and comedy shows too. Download the GameTime app and redeem code GREEN for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, download the GameTime app and enter code GREEN. That's G-R-E-E-N. For $20 off. No matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. I also think they're gonna win game 4. And they did exactly that. You could see right from the beginning of the game, the focus, you could see the intensity level locked in. That's the Denver Nuggets team that we've seen all playoffs long. How did they get there was what I thought was very interesting. Joker had 32, 21, and 10 on 12 of 21 shooting. Great numbers, incredible numbers. The 10 assists I thought was very, very interesting because usually when Joker is like diamond guys, like you, like it's like, wow, like this guy getting everybody. To me, the 10 assists, he had 7 assists in the first half. And to me, it didn't feel like he was dicing Miami up. It felt like he was cooking Miami, but it didn't feel like your typical him dicing Miami up. And I thought that was interesting. But who it did feel like was dicing Miami up when it came to playmaking was Jamal Murray. Now, when I was watching that game, I had no idea that Jamal Murray had a triple-double. Mm-hmm. Until I looked after the game and saw that he had a triple-double. Now, that for me was very interesting because everyone's been talking about, you know, taking Joker out of his pass and making him a scorer. And I thought one of Denver's adjustment was to just go heavy, heavy, heavy pick and roll with Jamal Murray. And Joker, and Miami was taking the pocket away. So if you notice, Miami was taking the pocket away and Joker was kind of doing like a, not quite a short roll. It was kind of like a little pop, not popping far out though. Like he was almost like popping behind the pocket. And so Jamal Murray couldn't get the ball to him in the pocket. But he just kept stringing it out. And then it's almost like a little toss back. And that's where Joker was getting those little touch shots in the middle of the paint, which is where he found his rhythm. Now I thought, I thought, and I've been watching this and I thought the way Miami is guarding Joker, like yes, their mindset is to take the pocket away. I think we all know You wanna take the pocket away, not let Joker catch the ball in the pocket with an advantage to either score or make plays because you're a man down who's in the pick and roll coverage. And so I thought, and I still think, and this is a little more of an adjustment, when Joker's setting a screen, unlike Bam, He's not a fast roller. Like if Bam get one step behind his, or even even with his guy, if Bam sets a screen, Joker's in pick and roll coverage or whoever else. If Bam now starts to roll and he ends up even with the guy, like not even behind because if he ends up rolling and you get behind your man, it's all bets are off. Coverage is done. If Bam, Bam is such a good roller that if he gets even with a man, with his man, you throw the lob up, you can count it. They converting that at an 85, 90% clip. Bam's an incredible lob threat. However, Joker is not. He's not a fast roller. He's not a lob threat at all. And so something that I thought was very, very interesting was that Miami, I think Miami needs to move Bam up to the level of the screen. Like all the way up to the level, almost in like a contained blitz. Like not that he's necessarily— Playing a contained blitz. Blitzing Jamal Murray, but it's almost like a contained blitz that then allows, A, if he's up at the level, it doesn't allow Jamal Murray to turn the corner. And if you don't allow Jamal Murray to turn the corner, A, that naturally takes the pocket away because you can't turn the corner to create the separation. B, it doesn't allow Joker to continue to catch the ball in the middle of the paint and where he's automatic from. And if you make one false movement off a guy, he's making a play. So I think Miami really needs to like move Bam all the way up to the level of the screen in those Jamal Murray joker pick and rolls and stop Jamal Murray from turning the corner. Because what's happening is, You're allowing Joker to get into a great rhythm with those little push shots right in the middle of the paint that if he gets the ball on the rim, he has such incredible touch and it's going in. But even more importantly, what you're allowing is Jamal Murray to find a rhythm. And Jamal Murray finding the rhythm has proven to be very problematic, not only for this team, Miami Heat, with the couple games he's found a rhythm, But everyone in the playoffs. And if you look, Jamal Murray had a pretty tough go in game 2. They put Jimmy on him, we discussed that, and he had a tough go. I think he had 17 points on 18 shots or 18 points on 17 shots, something like that. So what's proven to really be a big issue is Jamal Murray. For the Miami Heat and he got it going last night. As I said, he had 34, 10, and 10 on 12 for 22 shooting. They're going to have to do a better— Jamal Murray has said something earlier in the playoffs and I thought it was very interesting. I wanna say, I wanna say it was against Phoenix. I'm almost positive it was against Phoenix and he had a great game, maybe like great game one. And in his interview after, he was like, "How much do I have to do to get respect?" Or something like that, of that nature that he said. And like, "Y'all gonna respect me yet or respect me now?" And when I saw that, I was like, "That is very interesting." Because Jamal Murray's a very good player. But quite frankly, when he said that, he didn't proceed to the next 2 games, I think, to play, like have— Yeah. Pretty rough go at it. Next 2, maybe 3 games, pretty rough go at it. And when I saw that, I was like, you can't come out and say that, like, where's my respect and all of that, and then not follow up on the next game. Because the reason you're not getting the respect is because people don't think that you're consistently doing it. Like, you may have a game and then, you know, cut 2, 3 games, you don't have a— Well, I said all of that to say, Jamal Murray has completely changed that in these playoffs. Completely changed that. Ain't no 1 or 2 games. It's now like he have 1 game and then 2, 3 bad ones or mediocre game. It's now great game, great game, great game, maybe 1 mediocre in there, right back to it. And so I think the growth of Jamal Murray in these playoffs has actually been A, incredible, but B, as much of a key as Denver being as dominant as they've been in the playoffs as Joker has been. As much of a key for the Denver Nuggets. And so to me, it was very evident that, okay, y'all want to make Nikola score, not allow others to get involved. This is what we're doing. We're going heavy Jamal Murray, allow Jamal Murray to get Nikola involved, allow Jamal Murray to get everyone else involved, and then start rolling from there. So that's actually why I think it didn't feel like some, like, like Joker just dicing you up, like you normally get to feel, you get the sense when they're playing. I thought that was very interesting. I thought, um, that was to me again, I'm not in their locker room. I don't know what's being said. I'm not in their shootarounds. I'm not in their practices. I'm not in their team meetings. But to me, that looked like a point of emphasis in making adjustments. That looked like something that Coach Mo said, this is what we're doing. This is how we're gonna combat them just trying to make Nikola score the ball over and over and over again and not get anyone else involved. In turn, like I said, you got two guys ending up with a triple double. Another adjustment that I saw that I thought was very interesting, and even from the first half to the second half is, remember Miami zone? That's been the talk of the series first couple games. They went zone, especially late in the fourth quarter, and they were really able to stifle Denver's offense. And in turn, game 1, they almost came back. Game 2, they did come back and take the game. Another key in them coming back and taking game 2 was Duncan Robinson's 10 points to start the 4th quarter. After, if you remember me telling, or you know, what I saw was Duncan Robinson couldn't get a shot off before the 4th quarter. And then he come out, he gets it going in the 4th quarter. And I mean, it proved to be too much for Denver. And Denver couldn't hit a shot. Miami took control of the game, took control of the series, headed back to Miami. I noticed Denver do something at the beginning of the game, or not the beginning of the game, when Duncan Robinson first came in the game. I noticed Denver do something that I've seen in the playoffs before, which is when I saw that, it was, you know, going back to the Cleveland Golden State Warriors Finals days. And what that was, if you remember, Cleveland had Kyle Korver, and you give LeBron James a guy like Kyle Korver, Kyle Korver, he's gonna find him, he's gonna get him involved. And in getting him involved, it just changes everything. It changes the team. And so what we ended up doing was we ended up calling Korver. We ended up, anytime Kyle Korver came off of a, anytime Kyle Korver came off a pin down, anytime he came off a handoff, anytime Kyle Korver came into any action, we just switched it. So if I'm on the big, I'm guarding Tristan Thompson, they hand it off to Kyle Korver, I'm jumping out and almost like a blitz without the second guy pursuing, it's just switching. But I'm like heavy jumping out to Kyle Korver, making Kyle Korver have a panic attack and cough the ball up. You take the ball from Kyle Korver or Kyle Korver had to make a pass. And it took Kyle, in turn, it took Kyle Korver out of the series. Which made it very, I mean, I wouldn't say easy, it's never easy to win, but it made our defense a lot more predictable. It made it a lot easier for us to contain the Cavaliers offense. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's the year that we swept them, which would be 2018. Interestingly enough, Kyle Korver could not get a shot. He couldn't get a shot off. And then Kyle Korver got a 3-pointer in the left corner in front of our bench, the 4th quarter, very meaningful 3, and he threw that mud over the rim, airball. Because the rhythm just wasn't there. So you're jumping out every time, he never gets into a rhythm. He get that wide open corner 3 and throw it over the rim, it doesn't feel so open because guys have been draped all over Kyle Korver whenever he's in the game. And so now you take Kyle Korver's shooting away, not the strongest defender, that allowed us to really roll, like really, really roll, taking that shooting away. That's what Denver did last night to Duncan Robinson. Yeah. Especially early in the game, Duncan Robinson came into an action, they just switched it. Duncan Robinson not getting off and it really, really, really neutralized Duncan Robinson. If you can continue to neutralize Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent, if you can neutralize Max Strus, if you can neutralize all of those guys and not, you know, even if it's one of them that get off, you can't have two and all three getting up, all of them getting off at the same time. And so I thought that was a very interesting thing for them to kind of just take Duncan Robinson right back outta the series and not allow him to have the impact that he had in game 2. Now Denver on the other side has someone that's playing similar to Duncan Robinson, Michael Porter Jr., shooting a lot of jump shots, threes, and he can't get it going. And Michael Porter Jr. is going to, He's putting Coach Moe in a very tough spot now. You go out there and you win game 3. So, you know, you never hit the panic button off a win. But Michael Porter Jr. is gonna have to play better. We spoke about it earlier in this series, or at the beginning of the series, or leading up to, or maybe a couple series ago, whatever. Michael Porter defensively, and not the strongest defender. I will say I've noticed him giving more effort on the defensive end and you can appreciate that. You know, he had a, one interesting thing I saw Denver really doing is when they were, they're sending the ball screens to the middle. They're sitting there not icing it. They're sending all the ball screens to the middle. The guards chasing over the top of the ball screen. Miami's taking a lot of mid-range jump shots. The pursuit and contest that they're getting off those ball screens, I, it looks to me as if that's a point of emphasis because everybody was doing it. Well, even Michael Porter was doing it. But he's going to have to play better. And I think, you know, even like, okay, that's great. That's better. But this is the NBA Finals. I think Michael Porter Jr. is going to have to give even, um, even more effort. There was one Max Strus 3 in the first half where Max Strus slipped out. KCP ran to help. When he ran to help, Max Strus was open. He was at the— ran to the top of the key to help. Max Strus is open. They kick it to Max Strus. You have Michael Porter Jr. in the corner. Like, you gotta make that next rotation. Michael Porter Jr. doesn't make the next rotation. KCP comes running back from helping to get back to Max Struess when you should get the next rotation from Michael Porter Jr. He comes running back, Max Struess lines it up. Now, doesn't cost you yesterday, but all of a sudden Max Struess see that one go in, which he did, but then he catch a rhythm off that, and those are the type of plays that can cost you. So I think they're going to need a little more from Michael Porter Jr. Um, Miami's making a very conscious effort to not leave him, to not give him open looks. And then once he does get the open looks, a la Kyle Korver, it doesn't feel so open and he's not knocking them down. So for Denver to continue to dominate the series, or they've taken control of the series, they're gonna need more from Michael Porter Jr. And Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown, To me, I view Bruce Brown as one of the guys that has to play well, that you're expecting to play well. Not quite your typical role player who's like, if they do play well, that's a bonus for you. I view Bruce Brown as like, he has to play well. He needs to, they need him to play well in order to win. And which they would have last night, but the rookie came in. Christian Braun comes in, 15 points, all backdoor cuts, all hustle plays, steal, transition dunk, played his role extremely well. And so I, yesterday Christian Braun covered for Bruce Brown in turn, you know, and helped him win the game. But can you, are we gonna expect the rookie to play like that again? Now I'll give him kudos. I take my hat off to the rookie. You go get 15 points. Points in 19 minutes, 4 rebounds, couple steals affecting the game on your first NBA Finals road game. That was very impressive. That's a kid who got taken out of the starting lineup. I mean, not a starting lineup, excuse me, out of the rotation, was taken out of the rotation last series, stays ready and is ready for his moment. Professional rookie gonna have a long career in this league. That very thing right there is so valuable. And for him to do that on this stage in the NBA Finals as a rookie, I take my hat off to him. 'Cause he helped, he won Denver that game last night. His hustle plays, his backdoor cuts, timely buckets, finishes. He won Denver that game last night. So I take my hat off to the rookie. I thought that was a job well done for him. And you know, shout out to his vets for, I'm sure they're giving him that message, stay ready. And he did that and he helped them take control of the series again. And like I said, be interesting to see what happens in game 4. But I got Denver in game 4. Another couple things that I witnessed, um, listen, so Steph Curry is like, he, he made me aware of this like over through the years, is guys holding on to the ball at the end of a quarter, like so they don't lessen their shooting percentage. And I saw a couple guys do that yesterday. Like, this is the NBA playoffs, man. It's the NBA Finals. Who cares if your shooting percentage drop a little bit? You see that a lot in the regular season where guys don't wanna like throw that heave, they hold it till after the buzzer go off and then shoot it because they don't want to drop their shooting percentage. That very thing drives Steph Curry nuts. Now quite frankly, if Steph shoots some heaves, Travis Walton, my trainer, my brother, he gets very mad at me for shooting the heaves. But I'm like, bro, I play with Steph Curry. Like Steph gonna get very upset if you just holding the ball and not shooting. Now quite frankly, Steph is the best shooter we've ever seen, the greatest shooter we've ever seen. So his numbers are going to even out anyway and he's gonna get the attempts to even out. When you don't quite get the attempts, it's a tough thing. In saying that, I'm watching guys do that in the playoffs and it's so unacceptable to do that during the playoffs because Jordan Poole actually helped us win the NBA championship by hitting 2 shots last year before the buzzer. Yeah. And one of 'em was he came across, he cross-cross right in front of half court line. He shoot it and he make it. Another one, if I'm not mistaken, he banked and he was like going up the left side of the court. And the shots were so important because one of 'em that he made, it gave us the lead going into the fourth quarter. And Boston had made this crazy run. And so to go on this crazy run, I think it ended up putting us up 1 or 2 points. 2 points going into the 4th quarter. And the run that they were on, it's like if they go in tied up or with the lead, they're feeling good going into that 4th quarter. But when you go on a run like they went on in that 3rd quarter to have to claw and fight your way back into the game, and then you look up, and even if it's 1 point or 2 points, you look up and you down, it's just a gut punch. And so Jordan not being that way, due to Steph Curry's to the litch, actually helped us win an NBA Finals. Like two very important shots, just like, and you may not think like, oh, that was a good shot. Oh, that's exciting. But what it did to the momentum of the game was huge. So I just wanna say guys, stop holding the ball at the end of the quarter. Like, shoot the ball. Like you, if it, like it may go in and, and it can win you an NBA Finals. Like who cares about your shooting percentage? Another thing that I saw from the Denver Nuggets, Coach Malone, like Coach Malone adjustments were on point last night. Another thing that I saw is in the first half, first quarter-ish, maybe top of the second quarter, late first, top of the second, Um, Draymond Green goes to the bench. When Draymond Green went to the bench, they went that zone and Denver struggled again. Um, they couldn't get into any offense, couldn't get any good looks, struggled. They had— that was the lineup with Jeff Green at the 5. I think it was Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon in at the same time, but I'm certain Jeff Green was in and It really hurt Denver. If you see at the end of the third, top of the fourth, Joker was in and Miami wasn't able to go zone, which hurt them. There's another adjustment. Y'all zoning us every fourth quarter because Joker's starting on the bench, killing our rhythm, and now it's downhill. Mike Malone goes to Joker at the top of the fourth, not to allow Denver, not allow Miami to get in that zone and Denver rolled. The chess match. Gotta enjoy the chess match. Gotta pay attention to the chess match. So I thought Mike Malone's adjustments were great. I'm looking forward to seeing Miami's adjustments. I already kind of hinted at one of them, which I think is a very important one, which is getting Bam up to the level of the screen, almost in a trap, not quite a trap because you're not just trapping, selling out, and then giving Nikola pass and allow him to go make plays with numbers. But you're up at the level. Now you're up at the level, you got Jimmy on, you need to get Jimmy on, Jamal Murray, Bam's up at the level, doesn't allow Jamal Murray to turn the corner. If Joker start rolling, you're up at the level, then you just start to drop with Joker. As he drop, pocket never opens up. Jamal never quite turns the corner. You got your athletic defensive stopper, Jimmy Butler, pursuing, making it tough, getting rearview contest if he needs to. But you're keeping the ball contained. So won't be too much review contested. And saying that, Jimmy Butler's capable, more than capable. So I think that's something that the Miami Heat needs to do. I also think, um, Miami has to find a way to get those shooters going again. Gabe Vincent getting in foul trouble, I thought really hurt them last night. Um, threw off their rhythm. Gabe Vincent's been playing incredibly well. Miami has to find a way to get those guys involved. And if they're going to switch like they were doing on the shooters coming into action, maybe you need to get some keeps. Bam is really good at the keeps. Bam actually gave me a couple pointers on the keeps when we were playing in the Olympics. So may need to mix in some of that to loosen the defense up. Yeah. But I got Denver taking game 3, um, game 4. Denver got outscored from the 3. I think Miami had maybe 6 or 7 more 3s than Denver. Denver also turned the ball over more than they're usually turning the ball over. I think they had 10 more turnovers. And yet they won by 15 points. They did outscore Miami 60 to 34 in the paint. So that's good. But 10 more turnovers and 6 less threes and lose by 15 points. That is not very promising for Miami. But Miami is Miami. They're never quitting and going away. Spolstra, great. Sure he got some adjustments coming. Looking forward to checking those out. They gonna need 'em, 'cause you can't go down 3-1 headed back to the Mile High City. So we shall see. That's a wrap from this episode of the Draymond Green Show, live on Amazon AMP. As you know, this will be everywhere you can get your podcast. You check it out. Oh, and before we get out of here, last thing. So for our subscribers, um, you probably have noticed that, uh, the logo of the show changed a few weeks ago. Um, and initially it was like the cartoon, um, figure character of me like yelling or laughing, actually. Um, And then it changed to like my actual face. And we want to know, we're going to do a Twitter poll, we're going to do an Instagram story poll, and we want to know from our subscribers, um, supporters, those of you that noticed it, we want to know, did you appreciate more the cartoon figure or do you appreciate my beautiful face? We're gonna do a poll. We want your opinion. As you know, we always wanna make you a part of this show. Your opinion matters, your support matters. So we're gonna run that poll. You can tap in, let us know what you think. We gonna get it done with whatever it is that you, the supporters, think. So check that out, look for that. Till next time, that's a wrap from the Draymond Green Show. Peace. What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward.