Rip_City
Well-Known Member
True to a point but he's also at his best when he can float on the perimeter and be that help defender at times to the basket. He's elite at guarding 1-5. He's not a banging center and wants to save his body in the regular season which im cool with and he's stated many times he'll do whatever is necessary once the Playoffs roll around where you see him play the 5 much more often. McGee has played what, maybe 10 minutes at the most of actual non garbage time since game 2 of the Rockets series? AD played the 5 pretty much every minute from game 2 on the last series and has played a decent amount starting off this series as well. Howard is without question the best option on Jokic for most of the minutes as it leaves AD to roam and cause absolute havoc on the other 4 guys and if needed he can take over in the second half and shut most of his game down.
Luckily the Lakers finally have a coach again that can make great in game adjustments and decisions. Like in this current series you have McGee who can guard Jokic better then any defender he's faced in the Playoffs outside of probably Gobert yet he's only the Lakers 4-5th best player to guard him on our roster. Jokic just has no chance to consistently have good minutes with what the Lakers can throw at him while they all get to remain fresh at all times and even after Jokic lost the weight he's still far from great shape to say the least. Hopefully people will stop saying he's at AD's level which was ridiculous in the first place imo especially when you factor in the defensive side.
That lineup with Morris/AD as the bigs is absolutely lights out though defensively (offensively as well much of the time). If they keep playing the way they are they'll go down as an all time great Playoff defense. He's the number one guy I hope they are looking to re-sign, he's a great fit next to AD in the modern day smaller ball NBA most teams throw out now.
I'm interested to see what adjustments Malone makes but honestly the Lakers are just an awful matchup for them and vastly superior at every single facet of the game so only so much a coach can do. Plus they were already in the Nuggets heads 2-3 minutes into the 2nd quarter of game 1. They're mentally weak just like the Nuggets of the mid 2000's when Kobe would wreck havoc on them and they'd fold every single year...
I do agree though that McGee needs to play extremely limited to no minutes again in this series to not give the Nuggets any real hope.
This is great analysis. More of this, please.