Is OKC Thunder’s playoff inexperience giving Nuggets an upper hand? David Adelman weighs in
Preponderance numbers will tell you the Nuggets trail their series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Point differential favors the Thunder by after three games In regulation alone the Nuggets have lost by a combined They ve committed turnovers to Oklahoma City s They ve been outscored - in the paint and - on fast breaks They ve been held to assists per contest after averaging in the regular season third-most in NBA history They ve made only one more -pointer entering Sunday s Meeting They ve attempted only three more foul shots In their - Match win on Friday they got up field goal attempts to OKC s For them to lead the series - in spite of all of that there must be a reasonable explanation The emerging conventional wisdom has been that Denver s continuity and playoff scars are trump cards when a match hangs in the balance in contrast to Oklahoma City s inexperience I was excited to play Denver because I knew that they were gonna bring greatness out of us Thunder guard Alex Caruso reported Saturday It s no disrespect to Memphis but we were gonna win that series especially when Ja Morant went out just based off of talent level But Denver is a smart unit an experienced unit I know that this is the challenge that s gonna push us to be great And I think we re seeing that I m a firm believer that we re gonna get over that hump The Nuggets have snatched their first two wins of this series the same way they did against the Clippers oddly one overtime thriller and one game-winning bucket from Aaron Gordon Four of their six playoff victories have been decided either in OT or in the last three seconds of regulation They ve played minutes designated as clutch time second-most in this postseason behind New York with a net rating The Thunder has a minus- net in clutch minutes so far Nuggets interim coach David Adelman agreed that situational familiarity matters late in playoff games but he hesitated when requested about the reverse side of it the idea that inexperience weakens a crew like Oklahoma City in the moments that swung Encounter and Championship We were young once and we handled it pretty well Adelman commented And they do too That s why they won so plenty of games The reason they haven t played a lot of close games is they have totally blown the doors off people the whole season If I was coaching a gang I would rather do that than play four-point games So yes the experience helps but the scary part is the more experience they get in those games the better they re gonna be at them just like we were with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray all those years ago You can draw on experience Unfortunately they re getting experience as well The Thunder broke an NBA record for point differential while cruising to wins But as a upshot it also played only clutch minutes the fewest in a season by any association this century Meanwhile Denver s clutch net rating ranked atop the Western Conference for the second consecutive season and at a healthier sample of minutes After Match the Nuggets are also - in overtime games this year their only defeat coming in double overtime when Russell Westbrook fouled Minnesota s Nickeil Alexander-Walker at the buzzer Jokic Murray Gordon Michael Porter Jr and Christian Braun are all responsible for game-tying or go-ahead shots in the last seconds of a match at least once To an extent there s an innate quality that transcends experience or lack thereof as Adelman sees it He points back to when Jokic and Murray knocked off San Antonio in seven games in their first playoff series together The bulk surprising thing was how calm those two guys were at the end of the meeting Adelman remembered This instant There was no like Oh they re learning how to play in these games No They were ready to go And I see that in those two guys over there He was referring to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams one a likely MVP this season and the other a newly minted All-Star They remain unproven at this stage Scrutiny circled them after Tournament when a struggling Gilgeous-Alexander didn t defer to a scorching Williams down the stretch Sure he apparently could have touched the ball a bit more Gilgeous-Alexander acknowledged If I make those shots it s not even a discussion Everything for them went sideways against Denver s bottom- defense especially once the extra period tipped off An - Nuggets run followed and what didn t make sense on paper was the reality of the series
