How Thunder’s Unstoppable Strategy Crushed the Nuggets When It Mattered Most

It’s easy to gameplan and say “let other players beat you” but a lot harder to execute. A team can’t just have two guys guarding Jokic at all times without bleeding points. The doubles and help had to come at exactly the right time and the recovery had to be on point as well. Jokic doesn’t have to put the ball in the basket to beat teams.

But the Thunder made sure he had no lanes to beat him with his passing either. By forcing him to work so hard just to get the ball where he wanted it, the Thunder had already run out most of the shot clock before they had to be in rotation. Flying around in recovery for 10 seconds is a lot easier than doing it for 20.

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