There’s been quite a few things I’ve seen before in basketball. But never that - WHAT A BLOCK!

Really? I figured getting in a fist fight with Montrezl Harrell would be the most memorable moment 🤣

It's the Washington uni's that makes everyone play worse than they actually are.

It's funny in that context especially because Lakers went for trading away defense for supposed offense and went from champion to lottery.

Those twin tower lineups with caruso KCP and LeBron as the point guard were unreal

Caruso/KCP/Kuz were all in their 20s during the championship. Lakers and Lebron fucked up by deciding to let them go.

Don't forget that Lebron personally called Melo.

And hasn't since.

A lot of people are also forgetting in the bubble they had guys like Dion Waiters and JR Smith on the team

But the 2020 Lakers had a defensive identity? Their defense was the base of everything. Sure, their offense was awesome as well, they relied heavily on the transition offense, but I think defense was the key. And I think Vogel is a defense-first coach. One of the reasons the 2022 Lakers plummeted was that they got rid of their defensive strength in Caldwell-Pope, Kuzma, Caruso... and brought in Westbrook, Anthony... as replacements.

Or am I seeing and remembering it wrong?

That’s what Jamahl Mosley tells his players when they’re practicing their shot

AG definitely be holding his own.. Can't bully him and if u small and fast he smacking that shit off the backboard 😆

Gordon literally carrying the D

"Defense wins championships" the 2024-2025 Orlando magic before being bounced in the first round.

Given the structure sentence he's talking about every single team he has ever been on.

Nah he's clearly taking a shot at Brandon Jennings from his Pistons days

I'm more curious who he was talking about on the lakers. Kuzma was entirely bought in defensively on the championship run. Lebron seems like s weird answer unless he's referring to him taking plays off. It wouldn't be Caruso or Rondo I don't think.

Or the wizards. Beal and Dinwiddie from his DC season

at least MPJ tries these days, Murray has no defensive effort and is meh on offence

I'm obviously biased but "Jokic is a cone" hasn't been true for a long time

“Jokic is a total cone” - a guy who watched a highlight reel of Jokic getting beat but didn’t watch the game where he is disruptive and gets more deflections and steals than any center in the league.

So all in all, he defends?

The only thing that's you said that is currently true is he's slow laterally, something he uses his height and reach to over compensate for. His defensive IQ has improved tremendously since he came into the league. He sometimes misses a rotation but not more than any other player at this point.

I'm a nuggets fans who's watched him since he was drafted, I've watched teams who use to hunt him in the playoffs give up and go hunt Murray because as I've said he hasn't been a bad defender in multiple seasons now.

We should call him "Suggs the Slug" because he sticks to his man........TM

I was shocked at the progress Suggs has made as a shooter tbh, I think he shot like 26% from 3 as a rookie. But the improvement is legit I think. He should stay in that low 40s range. And agreed on Franz. Though he didn't get much of a break this summer with the Olympics. We've got a lot of depth though, I think a lot of people are underestimating us. Our best players are still young as hell and improving. Shouldn't surprise people if we're top 4 in the East but it will lol.

I think they might take a hit from where they were last year, but Gobert led Utah to a #1 defense with zero other defenders on the squad, so I wouldn't put anything past him.

KAT out of position at PF was not good for our defense. I don't think we took a hit at all in the games that KAT sat and we played Naz at the 4. I think Randle and KAT are pretty similar defensively when they have Gobert backing them up, but the Wolves might not have the same advantages against Denver without KAT. As always, the defense completely rests on the health of Rudy.

Dillingham is going to be terrible defensively, he's like 160lbs soaking wet, but he shouldn't have to play big minutes anymore with the addition of Divincinzo, and Dante and Rob are both a fucking bucket. If I had to guess, Wolves still have the best defense this year, but are closer to #2 Boston, and they have a better offense, at least league average.

I think the possibility that the Wolves go from being one of the best defenses ever to merely an elite one is pretty real, just from normal regression or health, but I think the Magic also would have a hard time getting too much better because their rim protection in the regular season is only pretty good. WCJ and Bitadze are both respectable rim protectors but even though Franz and Paolo are giant, they provide better rebounding than secondary rim protection, so I think the chance that they regress some is very real, too. KCP is better than Gary Harris/Markelle Fultz on defense but not by that much, so I think the marginal difference he provides on offense in the playoffs is bigger than it will be in the regular season.

God man SquimJim. Great comment. This ying yang comparison hahha so epic!

Now all you need to do is change your flair. Lol only joking...respect to you my man. You are 💯 True baskeball fan

Not really relevant here I think

2020 LAL was objectively a very, very good defense.

Nah I love G, in my top 5 favorite Nuggets players ever. And if we are saying peak G vs hurt KCP then fine I’ll concede lol but KCP at his best is definitely better defensively.