Nuggets vs Jazz:
"Round two: Come to play this time."
Pregame thoughts:
In the end, Utah will not end up winning all that many games, but they will not only continue to give their fans reason to show up to games, but build winning habits, to go with their few young assets and stockpile of draft picks.
They hustle, claw and scratch on every single play, on both ends of the floor and that's precisely what you ask for out of a largely young squad.
They still have veteran leadership in the form of Conley & Clarkson, and Lauri Markkanen has proven to be a highly effective offensive player vs all teams (not just the Nuggets, as before) now that he's an offensive focal point for the first time in his still-young career.
Their elite-defensive front-court of the future is already in place, (in the form of offensive-rebounding menace, and former Nugget Jared Vanderbilt and Walker Kessler) and their timeline is such that there is little need to depart from the current agenda of playing Conley/Clarkson/Beasley/Sexton in the back-court, until their eventual replacements are acquired by way of their numerous upcoming draft picks. The latter two in particular, should provide some solid overlap in their current timeline's trajectory.
Having said all of this, I find it highly unlikely that they'll catch the Nuggets by surprise tonight in Denver, as they did opening night in Utah. The Nuggets are rarely a team that makes this same mistake twice (to the same squad anyway) and it's less-likely-still to occur, given the relative proximity of the two games.
Seldom will Utah be involved in non-effort blowout-defeats, either way, by virtue of their tenacity alone.
MPJ returns tonight after a one game absence, and Nuggets fans everywhere can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
I predict a coming out party for Jamal Murray tonight, as he's getting anywhere on the court that he wants to, and just failing to convert on some very good looks. If this occurs, and Denver can string together 4 quarters of consistent effort defensively in transition, I think Denver wins handily, by a score of 119-103.
(pregame photos courtesy of Denver Nuggets Twitter)
The Good Guys
Their Adversaries
*Red boxes above indicate one notable number (or numbers) to catch my eye for each team
(Open images in a new tab for a closer look. Charts courtesy of ESPN.COM.)
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Data:
TPM™ Game 6 UTA
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Total TPM™
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Avg. TPM™ Per Game
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Final Thoughts:
- Denver wins by a final score of 117-101, and in so doing improves to 4-2 on the season.
- Still Westbrook's fault.
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For context pertaining to the statistical aspects of this piece, please open this link: TPM™
A brief statement with regard to this piece on whole: As a means to avoid repeating myself I will include this descriptive diatribe in all TPM posts going forward.
Sure I like statistics; ever since I was a child collecting sports cards and later a pre-teen who ran pre-internet fantasy sports leagues on ink/paper/spreadsheet for the four major US pro-leagues, I've been fascinated by box-score stats, but I'm by no means an expert.
I created TPM, which has been around longer than RPM incidentally and unlike them, I fully disclose my non-proprietary system and I contextualize the action rather than being a boring, mysterious, predictive metric, because it does add immediate and accessible context to what we see and what the numbers indicate, which I like.
While the data is meticulously tracked and demonstrably sound, I'm a creative type, not an engineer. Algorithm is the bane of my existence in fact. I'd far rather approach life with the intrigue of expected surprise than attempt to get to the bottom of why things are the way they are. There are many engineers in my family, so I totally understand that joy can be derived from finding solutions to problems, I just can't relate. It's not fun for me. THIS is for the most part, not fun for me.
Now I'm a 45-year-old man who was born during the season in which the team I love joined the NBA. I happen to have a lifetime of experience with this sport in several capacities, including playing (highly underrated within the writing community) so I understand basketball theory in a way most (by no means all) pundits do not.
I was, in this case, interested in a data-driven approach.
If you are averse to colorful language, this is not the place for you. I have no way of knowing how many people even read this, so I'll not be affected even remotely if you choose not to indulge. For those of you who do, I greatly appreciate your support.
I can be found at @prmorphine on Twitter.
Also, my DIY music production and videos can be heard/seen here if you don't value your ear-balls & eye-drums.
And as always, act like a good person privately and especially in public; even if you are not, and most importantly, fuck the Lakers.
#DoNotBeABranchCovidian
#DoNotBeAnAmmosexual
#FuckTheLakersOneMoreTimeJustForGoodMeasure
#TLDRHashtagsAndSiglines
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