Vinny Benedetto | Denver Nuggets Insider, The Denver Gazette

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BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist online who can help you find that balance and stick to it. We welcome Vinnie Benedetto from the Denver Gazette who's covering this series and is in Phoenix. I have to ask you about Jason's comment. Even if you didn't hear it, I'll explain it to you. He said late in the game, so this is about two, three minutes to go, that maybe the Nuggets would be better off if Chris Paul returned to the game and returned to the court because they had played so much better when he was on the court as opposed to being injured.

What do you think of that? It's definitely given Phoenix a different look and in these two games, since Paul's been out, the Suns are playing at a much faster pace. Campaign is getting up and down the court and that's really allowing Devin Booker to get going because he's killing the Nuggets in transition right now. With Paul, the Suns are playing a little bit more methodical.

It's tough to really discern how much of it is strictly due to the pace, how much of it is role players playing better at home, which is tough. I think we've seen from both teams. It was interesting to hear Mike Malone say there was a lack of awareness on defense, essentially not knowing who to focus on and where the hot hand was and referring to Landry Shammet, of course, but these are all NBA players. It's not like they can't at any point get hot and hurt a team like Landry being a great example of that.

He only had 14 in the playoffs before this particular game. What did you think of the Nuggets defense in Game 4? To Malone's point, they were trying to double Durant and Booker most of the night and then they switched that up when Shammet and Terrence Ross hit a couple threes. So when those guys started making shots, I think the Nuggets tried to switch it up a bit, pull off the double or at least some of the aggressiveness in which they were doubling Durant and Booker.

I think his frustration was more with the rotations where guys weren't fully flying around. They were forcing the ball out of Booker and Durant's hands and then they'd swing it and swing it. The Nuggets just didn't have the ability or the willingness to fly around to the requisite level. A lot of those Shammet threes were wide open and I think that's the part that will bother Malone. Prior to Game 1 or Game 2, tough twos aren't going to beat us and that was the case in those first few games, but since the series has come to Phoenix, those tough twos were in fact beating Denver. To take that away, they kind of had to live with some of those open threes, but that's not what Malone is looking for in terms of effort, I think. Certainly the fact that they were able to get an extra 18 points on threes is a big deal. Some of those shots were contested though and you kind of wonder what else Denver could have done, but if you look at the shooting percentages, that was the case in this game for both teams. Both teams shot nearly 57%.

First of all, how would you describe the game that Jokic had? Even for him, 53 in a playoff game is incredible. Yeah, it's definitely probably the best game he's played, especially from a scoring standpoint. It's more points than he's had in any game in his eight years. It was just one of those nights.

Phoenix played him straight up and J'Andre Ayton and Joc Lawndale are trying, but I just don't think they have what it takes to consistently get stops against a guy like Nicola. And then for him to also get 11 assists points out that it wasn't strictly a scoring night for him. So yeah, a career night for Jokic and it feels like that's a game the Nuggets need to win. If you get 53 from your MVP, that's on the road.

That's one you really want to have. But yeah, it went to waste for the Nuggets. Right. So I was going to ask you then to follow up on that, how painful considering that not only did they get 53 from him, but they played incredibly well in the paint. They were able to get a bunch of shots that were up close, higher percentage shots and didn't necessarily need to rely on the three. Right.

Yeah. They got everything they wanted, especially through Jokic inside. Some of those three that Michael Porter missed feel pretty big.

He feels like he got fouled on one. But yeah, the Nuggets got what they wanted inside. It was just, they'll live with 124 points. That should be enough for them to win more times than not.

Yeah, I think most of their concerns on the defensive end. And if Phoenix switches up and starts bringing doubles in game five, then we're going to go back to Jokic being the distributor that he is. And then it's going to come down to, can the Michael Porter juniors, can the Contavious Caldwell Popes make open shots? Vinny Benedetto is with us from Phoenix, covers the Nuggets for the Denver Gazette and the series that's now tied 2-2. It's tied, Vinny?

I don't know if it feels like it's tied. When you were hearing from Michael Malone, hearing from the players, I know Porter was relatively optimistic. Did you get that same attitude, that same feel with the rest of the locker room? Yeah, everyone said the Nuggets did what they were supposed to do. They won their two games at home. The Suns did what they were supposed to do.

They won their two games at home. But I think it is a little different in terms of, if you look at the two games in Denver, both of those were double digit wins for the Nuggets. In Phoenix, games three and four, the Suns led both those games late, but the Nuggets made a charge and had a shot to win in the last four or five minutes and came up short. I think that's maybe a bit more deflating in terms of not every winner, all wins and losses count the same, but they feel different. So I think that's kind of what is hurting the Nuggets right now, is just that they had these opportunities and they only needed one.

You steal one in Phoenix and you feel good about your chances in game five, I imagine. It's a bit deflating, especially when you consider the 53-point night Jokic had, but they were generally pretty, I don't know if optimistic might be a step too far, but there weren't visible signs of panic or too much frustration, I would say. Compared to how the Nuggets ended the regular season, where they gave up some games, Nikola Jokic was hurt, maybe that's when he lost the edge or the nose in front with the MVP award. How would you compare the way they were playing then, when it took them so long to clinch the number one seed, to how they're playing now, Vinny?

Yeah, it's almost completely different. I compared the final stretch of the regular season for the Nuggets to having senioritis, where you've almost wrapped up one portion of the season or one portion of life and you're kind of taking it easy, enjoying the moment. They were the one seed since December 20th or something. They had a seven-and-a-half game lead and the tiebreaker on Memphis, I think, after their last regular season meeting. It felt like the Nuggets were kind of on cruise control.

Guys, I don't think, wanted to go 100%. Throughout the playoffs, through eight of the nine games, they've played with the requisite intensity and they've really been able to ramp it up. It feels like people ask the question, are you able to flip the switch from the uninspiring ball they played at the end of the regular season and turn it up for the playoffs?

For the most part, the Nuggets have done that successfully. They look completely different now than they did at the end of the regular season. Other than the intensity, maybe, is there anything else you can pinpoint that has changed for them? Yeah, they're playing kind of significantly different in that they've shortened the rotation a bit. Aaron Gordon is getting those backup center minutes for the most part. Him and Jeff Green, they're kind of going smaller.

Aaron Gordon, they're just banking on him to battle most of the night. I think that's probably the most significant change. It's not a huge change because they would switch a lot in the regular season when Zeke Najee was getting those minutes. They played similarly when they had a smaller five in there. Aaron Gordon with the bench, I think, is by far the biggest change we've seen so far in the postseason. Vinnie, let's talk about that incident in the corner between Jokic and the Suns' owner.

I'm not sure of your perspective. Obviously, we've seen it on video over and over. What did the Nuggets have to say about this incident? Yeah, Nicole kind of stood his ground as firmly as I've seen him in one of these kind of situations. He kind of questioned if the league is going to protect him, not him individually, but a player. He considered Matt Ishby a fan, sitting courtside. He didn't think that he's the owner. He didn't seem to think that made much of a difference. My vantage point was blocked because I'm sitting mid-court, top of the 100 level, and the basket obstructed my view.

I'm going off the same video everyone else is. Jokic kind of fought back the notion that he should have let the refs handle it. One thing he'll do pretty regularly is he'll quickly restart play. He'll chase down the ball, he'll throw it to the official, he'll try to get it back, and sometimes he'll throw a full court pass to a guy who's unguarded. That was what Jokic said his intent was, to go and try and grab the ball.

He didn't seem to appreciate that Ishby didn't immediately give it up. I know some people have said that they weren't going to restart play with Josh Coggi landing a seed or whatever. Jokic fought back the notion that it was deserving of any further punishment than the unsporting technical he got.

We're going to have to wait and see until tomorrow to see if the league will take any further action. Again, if you pay any attention to the Nuggets, you know that he typically does this. He wants to try to grab that advantage if the Nuggets can get the ball in quickly.

This is a move we've seen from him a bunch, and I have to say I agree with him. Yes, this fan may be the guy who writes the checks and may have a lot of money, but come on, everybody who sits courtside generally has a lot of money, so that shouldn't make a difference. I hope that's not why an official would assess a technical foul, because that would be lame.

Tony Brothers was asked about this in a pool report, and he said the technical came down to there being deliberate contact, so I don't think it matters who the person in the stands holding the ball was. It sounded like Brothers felt like there was no way that he could let any contact between a player and a fan go unpunished. I do like Spicy Jokic, though. When he's like this and he has an edge and an intensity to him, that's good for the entire team.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I don't know if any of this will have any impact on the way he plays, should he be on the court in Game 5, but he does seem to hold onto the receipts, I guess. He's one of those guys where he's pretty cool, calm, and collected almost all the time. But he can get a little hot under the collar at other times, I think, as we've seen throughout his career. But he didn't seem to think this was anything too out of the ordinary. He tried to get the ball back, he nudged the person who was preventing him from, in his opinion, being able to restart play.

So yeah, it'll certainly be interesting in terms of if there's any additional fallout. Before I let you go, Vinny, I, like millions of other people, am a huge fan of Devin Booker and his game, but also a huge fan of Jamal Murray. And Jamal getting back into this groove, this rhythm that we had missed for a couple of years, what have you seen with him in finally being healthy again? Yeah, he's back to the playoff performance we've seen from him before. He's brought back the notion that Bubble Murray was kind of like a one-off. He feels like he's kind of capable of these performances on a regular basis.

And we kind of saw it in Round 1. In the bubble, it was him and Donovan Mitchell trading just incredible individual performances in Round 1. There was a lot of Jamal and Anthony Edwards trading those kind of incredible individual performances, and now it's him and Devin Booker.

And this is one where it's like, you got to tip your hat to Devin Booker. He's playing absolutely phenomenally. The scoring stands out, but he's also managed to get the rest of his team involved. He had 12 assists tonight, so he's playing at an incredibly high level. And it feels like Jamal has maybe pressed a bit at times in this matchup, but he salvaged it tonight with 28 points. I think this is going to be a battle that is going to be pretty incredible to watch for two or three more games of this series.

Yeah, for sure. As much as we can nod to the Splash Brothers, who have the bling and the hardware, to see Jamal Murray and also to see Devin play the way that they are right now, I think makes the series can't miss. And then you throw in a couple of MVPs in there, too, and you're like, whoa, there's a lot of star power in this series, too.

It's not just the other Western Conference semifinal. So it's good to catch up with you, Vinny. We're glad to have you, especially live here on the show.

You can follow Vinny on Twitter at V-B-E-N-E-D-E-T-T-O, Vinny Benedetto, and Covers the Nuggets for the Denver Gazette with us from Phoenix. Safe travels, and we hope to catch up with you again. Awesome.

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