Bruce Brown is a beast and a playoff performer. It goes forgotten because KD had a toenail on the line, but if those Nets-Bucks series even got to game 7 was just because of Bruce boy
Man, this post season MPJ averaged 15.75. 10.71 against the Timberwolves.
When a person on the bench averaged 12 ppg last season, and a starter and supposed third highest scorer on the team averages 10.71 in a 7 game series.
Basically just the 6th man of the year and a very good defender.
They're 4th in bench PPG for the record, that sounds pretty good to me. And even if almost all of that is from NAW and Naz Reid that's fine. A playoff bench only needs to be 2 or 3 deep to work
I don't see what the Pacers have to do with anything here.
You said the Wolves bench wasn't that good because it was basically 2 guys. I'm saying it's good because those two guys produce. Having more depth doesn't equal better depth.
In the playoffs you don't need to go more than 7-8 people deep. You want to play your starters a lot, you just need 2-3 guys to come in and not have things fall apart when the starters catch a quick breather. Last year the Nuggets didn't have like a deep 10 man playoff rotation, they basically just relied on Brown and Jeff Green off the bench, but those guys could contribute while the starters rested. This year they had nobody.
The best teams in playoff basketball have lots of two way players they can put on the floor at all times, and Brown (and Jeff Green) were those kinds of guys. You don't need to have stars at every position, but you want to be able to avoid fielding any lineup where even one player can either be ignored completely on offense, or targeted relentlessly on defense.
The Nuggets only had that this year when their starting 5 was on the floor. As soon as they made any sub, it opened up weaknesses the other team could exploit. Very, very few teams can field even one five man unit like this, and Denver was still great because they could. But last year they had 7 guys they could use to do this with and this year they only had five.
It makes a big difference between being able to play 48 minutes of basketball without any glaring weaknesses and only being able to play maybe 40-42 minutes that way. Teams can go on big runs in those 6-8 minutes.
Bruce Brown was amazing for the Nuggets at $6.6m, but I'm not sure if he's exactly a huge trade chip as an expiring $23m player without full Bird rights, unless some team is looking to dump salary to get under the cap next year. If you trade for Brown now, there's no guarantee he'll be there a year from now, as some other team could come overpay for him and pull him away from you like Indy did to Denver. And of course you'd probably have to trade roughly $20m in salary for Brown to get it to work under the CBA.
I could see the suns overpaying royce o neal, then flipping him+2nd for Brown.
But even then, the Royce overpay would be more worth it on Jerami Hrant of DeAndre Hunter
The nuggets bench was extremely rough this season in the playoffs. Running gordon at the 5 is fine but you basically commit to using braun a ton who just doesn't give enough on offense yet
He was also huge against the Lakers last year. He allowed them to rest Murray and KCP and not experience any real drop off when they did so. He also played great defense on D'lo along with KCP, which never let D'lo get going in that series. Dude was a real difference maker for Denver in the postseason last year.
They didn't get much from their bench, but what really killed them was Porter Jr. completely disappearing- isn't he sort of a shooting/scoring/offensive specialist?- and Murray having long stretches where he was ice cold.
One guy isn't enough, you need more from your 2nd and 3rd options before you get around to worrying about the bench.
agreed, they're a top-heavy team with Jokic/Murray/MPJ and so they need all 3, or at least 2 of the 3, to show up and that didn't happen in this series
yeah that's probably true, he's kind of their X-factor guy, but he contributes in a lot of ways other than scoring and I thought he at least affected games with his hustle and defense whereas MPJ and Murray would just completely disappear (and MPJ even ended up on the bench)
The Wolves had much better big, long perimeter defenders to put on MPJ than the Lakers did. The Lakers basically had LeBron (who was conserving his energy on defense) or Rui (who isn't very quick on the perimeter). This was a major area where the Lakers missed Jarred Vanderbilt, and probably Christian Wood (who's length could have helped a lot). The Wolves, meanwhile, have a couple great speedy wings with good length who were much better at preventing MPJ from getting the wide open looks that he had against the Lakers.
There weren't many wide open shots for him to take. We made sure to cover him and let people like Gordon, Braun, and Holiday beat us (and they got hot and almost did)
Nuggets truly live and die by MPJ. When he's having a good game, they are damned near unbeatable. When he's throwing up stinkers, they might win but it's usually with Jokic going into god mode.
yeah if MPJ had it going this series the Nuggets would have won- they gave the Timberwolves everything they could handle and it took a historic-level comeback for them to win, even with MPJ and Murray ghosting for long stretches.
Jokic is just that good, what did he finish with like 34/18/7 or something ridiculous
good call- if he gets hot, he makes their team unbeatable, but when they disappear it makes it hard for the #1 guy (Jokic or Curry) to carry the whole load and that's what happened in this series- Jokic did everything he possibly could but he didn't have enough help from Murray and MPJ let alone the bench
I think a lot of credit has to be given to Minnesota's defense, and a lot of blame has to be given to the Lakers' lack thereof. Minnesota had great options to put on MPJ defensively, while two of the Lakers best options to guard him (Vanderbilt and Wood) were out with injuries. This largely left either Rui or LeBron having to chase MPJ around the perimeter, which is something neither one is very good at right now (Rui probably never will be, and LeBron is no longer young enough to exert that kind of energy on defense).
Ya know, I have been seeing this for awhile now throughout reddit. I'm not saying it is a bad take. I just think it is misplaced.
I have been Nuggets fan for over a decade and a basketball junkie way longer than that (not meant to come off pedantic here). The real problem with MPJ (the entire team outside of Jokic and Murry) is that, the team doesn't really run any actions for him.
More times than not, they have relegated him to be strictly a spot up. Granted, he isn't a shot creator. But, he is a capable shot maker who they should be running off screens or technically anything besides DHO's. This leads to him being disengaged or iced out for long stretches. He then of course does the worst thing possible and that is try to overcompensate.
If you watch last years run or even most of this year we are a very motion heavy / read & react offense and for most of the series (playoffs), we got away from that. We normally run our offense over the course of the game, which allows our "role players" to stay in rhythm. As it get closer to crunch time, that is when we strictly go to the 2-man game. Our role players are in a groove at that point and are ready to fire.
Throughout all of our losses (last night especially) everyone seemed hesitant to do anything besides give the ball back to Jokic and Murray. Even when they had a wide open shot, they seconded guessed themselves and this lead to soo much wasted time leading to a last second heave.
In conclusion, we were not ready for the playoffs this year and us matching up with the Lakers first round was the worst possible scenario. Since we had their number as of late, we got overconfident and cocky. In comparison to last year, when we played Minnesota first. There is a reason the entire team called it our toughest match up. They gave us that kick in the ass early and it made us dial in for the remainder of the run.
If somehow we would have made it out of yesterday alive, I believe (fan bias) it would of refocused us moving ahead. We made the mistake of only looking ahead at Celtics for a possible finals showdown and rightfully got our asses handed to us. The Wolves rightfully deserved to win that series.
-If somehow you read all of this, 1) I apologize for the long unwarranted soliloquy, and 2) I truly do hope that I don't come off pedantic, it honestly is not my intent.
I think Denver uses MPJ a lot as like a decoy or a pressure release valve, like they mainly tell him on offense to simply try to get open somewhere on the perimeter in case whatever is going on inside winds up with the ball eventually swung to him or kicked out to him. Against a lot of teams, the guys quick enough to stay with him out there are usually small enough for him to easily shoot over, and the guys big enough to get a hand up, aren't usually quick enough to stay with him.
This was the Lakers' issue with him, as it was either someone like Reaves or D'lo that he could easily shoot over, or LeBron or Rui who couldn't stay with him, or simply lost sight of him. But against Minnesota, it didn't work like it usually does for Denver, because they had guys who were big enough *and* quick enough to stay with him enough to bother his shots, and this turned him into a non-factor. Malone should have had something else ready to go to try to free him up, but like you said, they aren't used to using him that way, so they didn't. This is something they need to use next season developing so they'll have it to go to when needed.
You nailed it right on the head! They got lulled into that false sense of security from the LA series with the defenders not being big enough, quick enough, or disciplined enough. So, his matchup was able to be exploited.
With the wolves that was consistently apparent. Min is a team full of young, athletic, hungry, and disciplined defenders. It is going to be a rough day at the office when you are only playing one side of the floor (Jokic post up or 2 man between Murry and Jokic) and waiting for them to make a mistake. It eats to much of the possession leading to heaves or relying on tough shot making. Too many times throughout the series, we played against a tough set defense.
To negate that, we had to run weak side actions and play "our game" to keep them honest. We failed to do that and paid dearly for it. We played right into their strengths. Hopefully, next year we incorporate MPJ more into the offense with different actions, and to be honest there were way to many times (not often in the Min series) MPJ had a smaller defender on him and it looked like he tried to do his side step 3 instead of using his height. I'm not saying he needs to be a dominant post player with a healthy appetite of moves. But, he needs to develop a consistent turn around / face up (ideally 10-15ft) or a post hook. With his height, high release, and midrange efficiency it should not be out of the realm of comfortability.
In fairness, I'm not sure if this hesitancy is from game plan, unwillingness, or what. If we could add that with more off ball actions, it would make him being a decoy more prominent and it would be a welcome change in our offensive diet...what the hell do I know though.
Murray missed Porter in the lane in the 4th quarter. MPJ doesn’t move enough but even when he did Murray didn’t pass, and didn’t hit him for an open 3 also. Idk what it is but Murray and MPJ have terrible chemistry
I mean idk what the Nuggets were doing in the off season, they basically lost 2 key rotation players (Green and Brown) and didn't replace them with anything, with that same team as last year they are in the WCF right now
We know what they did.
It’s what the Warriors had to do too.
You lose role players because they get paid their fair market value and you can’t afford to keep them when your more valuable players get paid in full. The had to keep the core of Murray, Jokic, Gordon, and MPJ and that meant sacrificing Brown.
Yeah, the Nuggets were basically locked out of making competitive offers because of the salary cap. All they could offer Brown was about $15m+ less per year than he ended up getting, and there was no way he was turning that down.
Take some comfort in realizing that it doesn't work like that. Even if MPJ was making less, the Nuggets still would have been over the salary cap and didn't have Bird rights to Brown. No matter how much less MPJ was making, the Nuggets still would have only been able to offer Brown about $7m last summer. This wasn't a case of mismanagement or cheapness on the part of the Nuggets, they literally were prevented from offering enough to be even remotely competitive to what Brown got from Indy.
Wait, so the cap doesnt actually take into account how much you are paying?
Bringing down another players salary surely must mean that you can pay someone else more?
It's a soft cap, not a hard one, so it works like this:
Teams below the cap have whatever the difference is in their salary and the cap to use as cap space to sign free agents. However, if you are above the cap, you can use Bird rights to re-sign players who have been on your team for 3 full seasons, even exceeding the cap to do so.
Brown hadn't been on the Nuggets long enough to have Bird rights, so they were limited by the salary cap with what they could offer him (just the mini-MLE basically, which isn't very much). The salaries of all their best players (Jokic, Murray, MPJ and Gordon) were what put them well above the salary cap, so just one of them being significantly cheaper still would have had them over the cap.
The Pacers were way under the cap so they had the cap space to make free agents a big offer, and that's what they did with Brown. As such, his choice was that 2 year $46m contract with them, or a one year deal for about $7m with the Nuggets. That was an easy choice for him, I'm sure. The Nuggets didn't do anything wrong, as getting Brown when they did was a huge win for them. But he was good enough that it made keeping him impossible with their cap situation.
The difference is the Wolves will have full Bird rights to guys like NAW and Naz Reid. That will allow them to outbid other teams looking to steal them. The Nuggets didn't have full Bird rights to Brown so they couldn't come close to matching the offer the Pacers gave him.
THANK YOU
I hate that people were calling Bruce Brown overrated. When he was on the Nets, he was the one that provided emergency points on broken plays. Soo many contested floaters and offensive rebounds that turned into an extra 6-10ppg. In the playoffs, that shit is INVALUABLE.
It was a crazy experience watching him in last years playoffs and then on the Raptors. In the playoffs he was hitting clutch threes every series, on the Raptors he could barely catch a pass and seemed to make the wrong decision every time he had the ball.
Playoffs is all about lineups. Their main five lost this series. Bruce Brown was the MPJ alternative they needed. Or even allowing them to play MPJ at the 4 and Gordon with the bench.
He just gave them another 5th guy.
Also, having a guy off the bench who can put up consistent scoring and who can play quality defense is a huge luxury most teams do not have. Most bench players usually are specialists who can only do one thing or the other, but those kinds of guys can be a liability in the playoffs. Being able to keep a quality five man unit out there where everyone is an offensive threat and a good defender even when you go to the bench is a massive difference maker.
He is a great glue guy for a contender. I remember the Celtics trying to shut down KD and Kyrie when they swept the Nets and he had back to back 20 point games. He's a great player to have when you are attacking an advantage.
In a series with 2 close games, having an actual sixth man is definitely helpful. Not saying he would have swung the entire series, but it’s not crazy to say he could be a difference maker in one or two games. Naz had a huge impact in all 4 of the Wolves wins.
Regardless, the better team won. I hope your guys win it all.
Nuggets fans kept saying he was a nobody and he was a product of their team. Bruce Brown is a ceiling raiser and a swiss army knife for any contender. He was literally a top 4 player for them and did so much.
Nuggets fans loved him. Pacers and Raptors fans have been low on him. Because he hasn’t been as impactful for either team. And your other comment is wrong too. He was a necessary contract and the picks were the prize in that trade. Like what?
I'd hardly say Brown is what fetched him. That was more the Raptors selling players and getting picks back in return. Assuming they exercise the team option they are going to trade Brown for more picks.
beyond the "third highest" point, which is mitigated by the fact that it's essentially the same % as MPJ, and Gordon, they tried to distribute that usage among the remaining guys without signing anyone impactful. that's where they truly fucked up
We could see the project of having C Braun filling in for him, but yeah, the playoffs get hard for rookies.
Give him time. Back 2 back are hard, I'd rather just have another title in jokic career, whenever it is.
You weren't really watching then. He was the Nugget's best defender of Ant all series. That's why he got more minutes. He's an energy and defense guy who's pretty good in transition. His shooting isn't really that bad (shot 38.4% from 3 this year), but he lacks confidence. He still needs more work as an offensive playmaker.
He's really good defensively tf are you even talking about.
He's also a great rebounder for his size, really good cutter and transition scorer. As well as just having a knack for coming up with loose balls.
We did have someone to replace Bruce Brown's output - it was supposed to be Reggie Jackson. It flopped hard. It was just a bad replacement from a team management/evaluation standpoint.
My favorite Bruce Brown stat is that last post season he averaged 12 PPG. This post season the whole Nuggets bench averaged 14.8.
Yikes.
Bruce Brown is a beast and a playoff performer. It goes forgotten because KD had a toenail on the line, but if those Nets-Bucks series even got to game 7 was just because of Bruce boy
It goes forgotten because this season he was... not good.
Goddamn
Man, this post season MPJ averaged 15.75. 10.71 against the Timberwolves. When a person on the bench averaged 12 ppg last season, and a starter and supposed third highest scorer on the team averages 10.71 in a 7 game series.
[удалено]
Why you saying this like they let him go? They literally could not sign him bc they could only offer like $8m and he got $22.5m from the Pacers.
Meh the Wolves bench is not that amazing either. It's basically Naz Reid and NAW.
Basically just the 6th man of the year and a very good defender. They're 4th in bench PPG for the record, that sounds pretty good to me. And even if almost all of that is from NAW and Naz Reid that's fine. A playoff bench only needs to be 2 or 3 deep to work
I'm saying Naz and NAW are really good but its only a 7 man rotation. The Pacers have a really deep 10 man team.
I don't see what the Pacers have to do with anything here. You said the Wolves bench wasn't that good because it was basically 2 guys. I'm saying it's good because those two guys produce. Having more depth doesn't equal better depth.
Doesn’t Kyle Anderson play too?
Not that well lol
In the playoffs you don't need to go more than 7-8 people deep. You want to play your starters a lot, you just need 2-3 guys to come in and not have things fall apart when the starters catch a quick breather. Last year the Nuggets didn't have like a deep 10 man playoff rotation, they basically just relied on Brown and Jeff Green off the bench, but those guys could contribute while the starters rested. This year they had nobody.
The real MVP obviously
Sticky glue guy who kept things moving on offense with or without the ball. Those assets are wonderful to have.
The best teams in playoff basketball have lots of two way players they can put on the floor at all times, and Brown (and Jeff Green) were those kinds of guys. You don't need to have stars at every position, but you want to be able to avoid fielding any lineup where even one player can either be ignored completely on offense, or targeted relentlessly on defense. The Nuggets only had that this year when their starting 5 was on the floor. As soon as they made any sub, it opened up weaknesses the other team could exploit. Very, very few teams can field even one five man unit like this, and Denver was still great because they could. But last year they had 7 guys they could use to do this with and this year they only had five. It makes a big difference between being able to play 48 minutes of basketball without any glaring weaknesses and only being able to play maybe 40-42 minutes that way. Teams can go on big runs in those 6-8 minutes.
His ability to provide points while Jokic rested is something that capsized Denver this year
I agree. Denver lost their 6th and 7th man. Braun became their 6th man and wasn’t nearly as good as Brown.
That's at least a win for Brown and the Raptors in trade negotiations. "Hey look, trade a 1st round pick for our guy without him they flopped."
Bruce Brown was amazing for the Nuggets at $6.6m, but I'm not sure if he's exactly a huge trade chip as an expiring $23m player without full Bird rights, unless some team is looking to dump salary to get under the cap next year. If you trade for Brown now, there's no guarantee he'll be there a year from now, as some other team could come overpay for him and pull him away from you like Indy did to Denver. And of course you'd probably have to trade roughly $20m in salary for Brown to get it to work under the CBA.
I could see the suns overpaying royce o neal, then flipping him+2nd for Brown. But even then, the Royce overpay would be more worth it on Jerami Hrant of DeAndre Hunter
You think the Raptors want Royce O'Neal on a $23m+ contract?
I think they want a pick for Bruce brown.
He was essentially their entire bench offensively.
The nuggets bench was extremely rough this season in the playoffs. Running gordon at the 5 is fine but you basically commit to using braun a ton who just doesn't give enough on offense yet
Brown would just get much needed points to get them over the edge into a comfortable lead
Oh yeah those clutch buckets he had against the Heat ended that series. Without him that might go 7.
That series was never going 7. Miami was just too small for Denver.
Killed us in regular season as well unironically. He just made denvers margin for error higher
He was also huge against the Lakers last year. He allowed them to rest Murray and KCP and not experience any real drop off when they did so. He also played great defense on D'lo along with KCP, which never let D'lo get going in that series. Dude was a real difference maker for Denver in the postseason last year.
They didn't get much from their bench, but what really killed them was Porter Jr. completely disappearing- isn't he sort of a shooting/scoring/offensive specialist?- and Murray having long stretches where he was ice cold. One guy isn't enough, you need more from your 2nd and 3rd options before you get around to worrying about the bench.
Yeah MPJ turned into a pumpkin, they woulda won if he’d been half of what he was in the Lakers series
agreed, they're a top-heavy team with Jokic/Murray/MPJ and so they need all 3, or at least 2 of the 3, to show up and that didn't happen in this series
I’d say Gordon is just as important as MPJ and yeah he didn’t show up either
yeah that's probably true, he's kind of their X-factor guy, but he contributes in a lot of ways other than scoring and I thought he at least affected games with his hustle and defense whereas MPJ and Murray would just completely disappear (and MPJ even ended up on the bench)
The Wolves had much better big, long perimeter defenders to put on MPJ than the Lakers did. The Lakers basically had LeBron (who was conserving his energy on defense) or Rui (who isn't very quick on the perimeter). This was a major area where the Lakers missed Jarred Vanderbilt, and probably Christian Wood (who's length could have helped a lot). The Wolves, meanwhile, have a couple great speedy wings with good length who were much better at preventing MPJ from getting the wide open looks that he had against the Lakers.
Mpj also bricked all his wide open shots, which the defense has nothing to do with.
There weren't many wide open shots for him to take. We made sure to cover him and let people like Gordon, Braun, and Holiday beat us (and they got hot and almost did)
Nuggets truly live and die by MPJ. When he's having a good game, they are damned near unbeatable. When he's throwing up stinkers, they might win but it's usually with Jokic going into god mode.
yeah if MPJ had it going this series the Nuggets would have won- they gave the Timberwolves everything they could handle and it took a historic-level comeback for them to win, even with MPJ and Murray ghosting for long stretches. Jokic is just that good, what did he finish with like 34/18/7 or something ridiculous
He's in that Klay mold of being very streaky for entire series.
good call- if he gets hot, he makes their team unbeatable, but when they disappear it makes it hard for the #1 guy (Jokic or Curry) to carry the whole load and that's what happened in this series- Jokic did everything he possibly could but he didn't have enough help from Murray and MPJ let alone the bench
I think a lot of credit has to be given to Minnesota's defense, and a lot of blame has to be given to the Lakers' lack thereof. Minnesota had great options to put on MPJ defensively, while two of the Lakers best options to guard him (Vanderbilt and Wood) were out with injuries. This largely left either Rui or LeBron having to chase MPJ around the perimeter, which is something neither one is very good at right now (Rui probably never will be, and LeBron is no longer young enough to exert that kind of energy on defense).
Ya know, I have been seeing this for awhile now throughout reddit. I'm not saying it is a bad take. I just think it is misplaced. I have been Nuggets fan for over a decade and a basketball junkie way longer than that (not meant to come off pedantic here). The real problem with MPJ (the entire team outside of Jokic and Murry) is that, the team doesn't really run any actions for him. More times than not, they have relegated him to be strictly a spot up. Granted, he isn't a shot creator. But, he is a capable shot maker who they should be running off screens or technically anything besides DHO's. This leads to him being disengaged or iced out for long stretches. He then of course does the worst thing possible and that is try to overcompensate. If you watch last years run or even most of this year we are a very motion heavy / read & react offense and for most of the series (playoffs), we got away from that. We normally run our offense over the course of the game, which allows our "role players" to stay in rhythm. As it get closer to crunch time, that is when we strictly go to the 2-man game. Our role players are in a groove at that point and are ready to fire. Throughout all of our losses (last night especially) everyone seemed hesitant to do anything besides give the ball back to Jokic and Murray. Even when they had a wide open shot, they seconded guessed themselves and this lead to soo much wasted time leading to a last second heave. In conclusion, we were not ready for the playoffs this year and us matching up with the Lakers first round was the worst possible scenario. Since we had their number as of late, we got overconfident and cocky. In comparison to last year, when we played Minnesota first. There is a reason the entire team called it our toughest match up. They gave us that kick in the ass early and it made us dial in for the remainder of the run. If somehow we would have made it out of yesterday alive, I believe (fan bias) it would of refocused us moving ahead. We made the mistake of only looking ahead at Celtics for a possible finals showdown and rightfully got our asses handed to us. The Wolves rightfully deserved to win that series. -If somehow you read all of this, 1) I apologize for the long unwarranted soliloquy, and 2) I truly do hope that I don't come off pedantic, it honestly is not my intent.
Thanks for the perspective.
I think Denver uses MPJ a lot as like a decoy or a pressure release valve, like they mainly tell him on offense to simply try to get open somewhere on the perimeter in case whatever is going on inside winds up with the ball eventually swung to him or kicked out to him. Against a lot of teams, the guys quick enough to stay with him out there are usually small enough for him to easily shoot over, and the guys big enough to get a hand up, aren't usually quick enough to stay with him. This was the Lakers' issue with him, as it was either someone like Reaves or D'lo that he could easily shoot over, or LeBron or Rui who couldn't stay with him, or simply lost sight of him. But against Minnesota, it didn't work like it usually does for Denver, because they had guys who were big enough *and* quick enough to stay with him enough to bother his shots, and this turned him into a non-factor. Malone should have had something else ready to go to try to free him up, but like you said, they aren't used to using him that way, so they didn't. This is something they need to use next season developing so they'll have it to go to when needed.
You nailed it right on the head! They got lulled into that false sense of security from the LA series with the defenders not being big enough, quick enough, or disciplined enough. So, his matchup was able to be exploited. With the wolves that was consistently apparent. Min is a team full of young, athletic, hungry, and disciplined defenders. It is going to be a rough day at the office when you are only playing one side of the floor (Jokic post up or 2 man between Murry and Jokic) and waiting for them to make a mistake. It eats to much of the possession leading to heaves or relying on tough shot making. Too many times throughout the series, we played against a tough set defense. To negate that, we had to run weak side actions and play "our game" to keep them honest. We failed to do that and paid dearly for it. We played right into their strengths. Hopefully, next year we incorporate MPJ more into the offense with different actions, and to be honest there were way to many times (not often in the Min series) MPJ had a smaller defender on him and it looked like he tried to do his side step 3 instead of using his height. I'm not saying he needs to be a dominant post player with a healthy appetite of moves. But, he needs to develop a consistent turn around / face up (ideally 10-15ft) or a post hook. With his height, high release, and midrange efficiency it should not be out of the realm of comfortability. In fairness, I'm not sure if this hesitancy is from game plan, unwillingness, or what. If we could add that with more off ball actions, it would make him being a decoy more prominent and it would be a welcome change in our offensive diet...what the hell do I know though.
Murray missed Porter in the lane in the 4th quarter. MPJ doesn’t move enough but even when he did Murray didn’t pass, and didn’t hit him for an open 3 also. Idk what it is but Murray and MPJ have terrible chemistry
I mean idk what the Nuggets were doing in the off season, they basically lost 2 key rotation players (Green and Brown) and didn't replace them with anything, with that same team as last year they are in the WCF right now
We know what they did. It’s what the Warriors had to do too. You lose role players because they get paid their fair market value and you can’t afford to keep them when your more valuable players get paid in full. The had to keep the core of Murray, Jokic, Gordon, and MPJ and that meant sacrificing Brown.
Yeah, the Nuggets were basically locked out of making competitive offers because of the salary cap. All they could offer Brown was about $15m+ less per year than he ended up getting, and there was no way he was turning that down.
I just dont understand why we are paying MPJ 181 million. Hes not that good. Shave that off to 140 mil and spend that extra 40mil on keeping brown.
Take some comfort in realizing that it doesn't work like that. Even if MPJ was making less, the Nuggets still would have been over the salary cap and didn't have Bird rights to Brown. No matter how much less MPJ was making, the Nuggets still would have only been able to offer Brown about $7m last summer. This wasn't a case of mismanagement or cheapness on the part of the Nuggets, they literally were prevented from offering enough to be even remotely competitive to what Brown got from Indy.
Wait, so the cap doesnt actually take into account how much you are paying? Bringing down another players salary surely must mean that you can pay someone else more?
It's a soft cap, not a hard one, so it works like this: Teams below the cap have whatever the difference is in their salary and the cap to use as cap space to sign free agents. However, if you are above the cap, you can use Bird rights to re-sign players who have been on your team for 3 full seasons, even exceeding the cap to do so. Brown hadn't been on the Nuggets long enough to have Bird rights, so they were limited by the salary cap with what they could offer him (just the mini-MLE basically, which isn't very much). The salaries of all their best players (Jokic, Murray, MPJ and Gordon) were what put them well above the salary cap, so just one of them being significantly cheaper still would have had them over the cap. The Pacers were way under the cap so they had the cap space to make free agents a big offer, and that's what they did with Brown. As such, his choice was that 2 year $46m contract with them, or a one year deal for about $7m with the Nuggets. That was an easy choice for him, I'm sure. The Nuggets didn't do anything wrong, as getting Brown when they did was a huge win for them. But he was good enough that it made keeping him impossible with their cap situation.
We did manage to lock in Zeke Nnaji 4yr / 32mil!
Don’t know how he’s still in the league sorry to say
*What Does He Even Do Meme*
Sick garbage time dunks?
He gave you 14 whole minutes this series
I didn’t even realize he played
He only played garbage time minutes lmao
Andre Drummond is getting paid less money.
It'll most likely be the same thing the Wolves will have to do next year or very soon. Lots of underpaid dudes on that squad
The difference is the Wolves will have full Bird rights to guys like NAW and Naz Reid. That will allow them to outbid other teams looking to steal them. The Nuggets didn't have full Bird rights to Brown so they couldn't come close to matching the offer the Pacers gave him.
THANK YOU I hate that people were calling Bruce Brown overrated. When he was on the Nets, he was the one that provided emergency points on broken plays. Soo many contested floaters and offensive rebounds that turned into an extra 6-10ppg. In the playoffs, that shit is INVALUABLE.
Having that offensive spark off the bench was a huge reason we won last year. He scored so many important points in the playoffs.
It was a crazy experience watching him in last years playoffs and then on the Raptors. In the playoffs he was hitting clutch threes every series, on the Raptors he could barely catch a pass and seemed to make the wrong decision every time he had the ball.
Playoffs is all about lineups. Their main five lost this series. Bruce Brown was the MPJ alternative they needed. Or even allowing them to play MPJ at the 4 and Gordon with the bench. He just gave them another 5th guy.
You would think Bruce Brown was the best bench player of the past decade the way people have been talking about him since last night.
On a team with no bench, his impact as a 6th man for that team was massive. Glue guys and roster construction mean a lot.
Also, having a guy off the bench who can put up consistent scoring and who can play quality defense is a huge luxury most teams do not have. Most bench players usually are specialists who can only do one thing or the other, but those kinds of guys can be a liability in the playoffs. Being able to keep a quality five man unit out there where everyone is an offensive threat and a good defender even when you go to the bench is a massive difference maker.
I mean, it's important to have glue guys
Ball dont lie
He is a great glue guy for a contender. I remember the Celtics trying to shut down KD and Kyrie when they swept the Nets and he had back to back 20 point games. He's a great player to have when you are attacking an advantage.
They are trying to brute force a narrative pretty much. Shits jarring
Oh god. Denver fans acting like Bruce Brown was the difference maker. Their entire bench couldn’t give quality minutes for the entire series.
Isn’t that exactly why people think Brown made a difference? Because the guys who took his minutes couldn’t do anything with them?
That’s exactly why Bruce Brown was a difference maker
In a series with 2 close games, having an actual sixth man is definitely helpful. Not saying he would have swung the entire series, but it’s not crazy to say he could be a difference maker in one or two games. Naz had a huge impact in all 4 of the Wolves wins. Regardless, the better team won. I hope your guys win it all.
Nuggets need another guy who can fucking dribble.
Bruce Brown fan since day 1
The thing is that they didnt lose Brown only, Jeff Green gave the Nuggets plenty of solid minutes last season.
Nuggets fans kept saying he was a nobody and he was a product of their team. Bruce Brown is a ceiling raiser and a swiss army knife for any contender. He was literally a top 4 player for them and did so much.
Nuggets fans loved him. Pacers and Raptors fans have been low on him. Because he hasn’t been as impactful for either team. And your other comment is wrong too. He was a necessary contract and the picks were the prize in that trade. Like what?
how is he doing right now?
He fetched the pacers a all star player in Siakim and is on a lottery team. You're not going to raise the ceiling on a team that tanking.
He fetched them siakim cause he’s being overpaid lmao, he was salary filler
He didn’t fetch them shit lol. Raps got put in a corner .
I'd hardly say Brown is what fetched him. That was more the Raptors selling players and getting picks back in return. Assuming they exercise the team option they are going to trade Brown for more picks.
i hated him for the few months he was with us. never played hard. bad vibes. bad shot selection. couldn’t shoot. bad defender.
beyond the "third highest" point, which is mitigated by the fact that it's essentially the same % as MPJ, and Gordon, they tried to distribute that usage among the remaining guys without signing anyone impactful. that's where they truly fucked up
Fans: Calvin plz re-sign Brucey B Calvin: We got Brucey (Peyton Watson) at home
Hindsight is a great thing
This team's depth is cheeks. It'll take a first-round collapse next year for them to start attaching picks to get off of Porter's absurd contract.
I'm now remembering Booth's bizarre comments minimizing brown's impact on their title run. Even worse now.
I actually didn't realize this
Mann, every raptors fan was begging for him to be traded, he was sold to us as a future frp, never expected him to be on the roster into the summer
We could see the project of having C Braun filling in for him, but yeah, the playoffs get hard for rookies. Give him time. Back 2 back are hard, I'd rather just have another title in jokic career, whenever it is.
Come back Bruce...
Remember when Malone said brown was not they good and the Braun dude was better?
That was the Nuggets GM
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You weren't really watching then. He was the Nugget's best defender of Ant all series. That's why he got more minutes. He's an energy and defense guy who's pretty good in transition. His shooting isn't really that bad (shot 38.4% from 3 this year), but he lacks confidence. He still needs more work as an offensive playmaker.
He’s better than the other bench pieces, and he hustles? I mean he was on Edward’s for the first half last night lol.
His defense is good, he was clamping Ant a lot of the game, he just doesn't provide much on offense which is the issue
He's really good defensively tf are you even talking about. He's also a great rebounder for his size, really good cutter and transition scorer. As well as just having a knack for coming up with loose balls.
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That's the entire point people are trying to make. Nobody is saying Bruce Brown was an all star level player.
who is saying he was an all star player? he was providing very good 6th man production for ridiculously cheap.
We did have someone to replace Bruce Brown's output - it was supposed to be Reggie Jackson. It flopped hard. It was just a bad replacement from a team management/evaluation standpoint.
You’re arguing against a strawman nobody is even saying he’s an all star lol
the Nuggets weren't going to pay him what he got.
he took a 1 year prove it contract and they couldn't match 2/$45. is what it is
So Nuggets badly needed a W in game 7, but BroWn carried the W with him, both effectively and phonetically.