Chapter 1: What recent games impacted the Nuggets' performance?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily presented by Amazon Prime for March 3rd, 2026. I'm Dave DeFore here with Espera Henney. Coming up, the Nuggets got a scare. We're going to talk about Jokic a little bit. Darius Garland's back. We're going to talk about his debut for the Clippers. And Jay King is here to talk about the Celtics, Jalen Brown, and Tatum's comeback. Good morning, everybody.
What's up, Bess? How you doing, buddy? Living the dream, man. Yeah. Yeah. Look, a weird night in basketball. Not undoubtedly. Not a good one. No, I will say. No. And it's funny because we had some returns. We had Giannis Antetokounmpo come back for some reason.
Chapter 2: How did Darius Garland's return affect the Clippers?
I don't I don't think he would have come back if he if he would have known that they were going to lose by 30, 27 points to the Celtics with no Jalen Brown. I mean, yeah, Nehemiah's Kato wasn't out there. There's just no excuse for the Bucs. But we talked about that game a little bit after the break with Jay King. Anyway, OK, we got to talk about the Nuggets, man. Look, they had a couple of.
We'll say rough losses, but two good teams, okay? They lose to OKC on Friday. They lose to the Wolves on Sunday. Then they have to go hop on a plane and go to Utah.
Chapter 3: What insights did Jay King provide about Jayson Tatum's comeback?
Now, it's not a far flight. I feel like the trip from downtown Denver to the Denver airport is probably longer than the flight from Denver to Salt Lake City, okay? So it's not a lot of travel, but there is still some travel. And they almost blew a game to the Utah Jazz who are actively trying to lose. They wind up winning thanks to the refs a little bit. 128-125.
Look, the refs gave them the game at the end here. I thought it was an unbelievable reversal on that foul call on Jokic. Unbelievable is a really kind word, I would say. Egregious, for sure. Egregious. It felt like they were gift-wrapping the game to them at that point. There was a delay of game penalty down there.
There was a lot of moments where it felt like Denver could have completely lost this game. And yet, like you mentioned, a lot of Jokic antics in this one. There was the viral clip going around of him boxing out and kind of jumping over the guy, boxing out. Whoa, whoa, wait. You mean Keontae George? Yeah. Wearing Jokic as a backpack isn't a foul on Keontae George.
Chapter 4: What challenges did the Nuggets face against the Utah Jazz?
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, insane, man. Insane. It just it feels like it's this egregious. And, you know, obviously it's coming off the heels of a very, very physical OKC versus Nuggets game and OKC and obviously Minnesota. It just feels like the all eyes are on Jokic. And his ability to maybe flop throughout games. And this was like the worst version we've seen.
If you have a chance, folks, and you want to just watch like flopping as an art form, I would go and watch this Denver Nuggets-Utah Jazz game because Jokic takes it to another level. Shout out to Keontae George, though. The Jazz are going to be fun next year, Dave. They're going to be fun.
the the sad thing is that the jazz are actually already good they've kind of been good all year yeah they're just they got better at the trade deadline and we don't know it they're a mystery box right now as far as i'm concerned they could come out next year and and roll a dud i don't know nothing i have nothing to base it on us yeah because they refuse to play their best players everybody's getting surgery you know uh it's it's that time of year okay let's move on to a guy who came back darius garland comes back for the clippers the clippers mount a comeback um
I dare say the Warriors probably need to get Steph Curry back out there at some point if they expect to win any of these games, although it does feel like they're pretty safely in the play-in no matter what. The Clippers win 114-101. Darius Garland came off the bench in the game. Puts up 12 points. He started out a little bit rough.
And S, I think one of the things you can point to for Darius Garland, he had five turnovers. And really, I thought he had a couple that he got bailed out on.
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Chapter 5: How did the referees influence the Nuggets vs. Jazz game?
He looked rusty as far as timing and his handle. Yeah. Look like a guy that hadn't played basketball in a while. Uh, and also look like a guy that was being thrown into a new team, right. And figure out what players have specific tendencies, especially as a ball handler, a guy who's such a good playmaker.
You could tell some of the passes were off just by timing of knowing when a guy's is shaking to the corner or making the 45 cut and whatever. Like it's just timing for Garland right now. Um, I just like the fact that he played 22 minutes, truthfully.
Like the fact that he played and there were no complications with his toes or anything like that, that's a good sign for the Clippers moving forward. And hopefully we don't hear something, you know, after the game where he's going to miss more time. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of what he dealt with all year with Cleveland. I just want to mention Yannick Conan.
Oh, there was no way we weren't talking about Yannick Conan, Conan the Barbarian, because he was incredible. I'll tell you, Zena would be mad at us if we didn't spend a couple minutes on him. You know, look, puts up 11 points, nine rebounds, four blocks. His activity up around the basket, look, you can see where losing Zubach for the haul that they got makes so much sense for them.
Where you have this guy waiting in the wings who looks like, I mean, he's not going to be Zubach necessarily next season. But he has some Zubach qualities to him.
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Chapter 6: What makes the Celtics' current season stand out?
yeah yeah yeah i totally agree i mean look he's very traditional like rim runner get to the basket uh pick and roll guy offensively we'll see how much he can develop on that end but defensively he's a very intriguing big man like he can switch out onto guards hold his own he's very good at the pick and roll and i mean you know this but it's really hard to be a big man and a rookie in the nba and be good on defense uh he already has that and i feel like
Over the last month or so, every time I've watched the Clippers, he's had moments where incredibly timed block shot, great offensive rebound, leaks out in transition. He's a really talented athlete, too. So I'm just I'm impressed because he's, you know, the Clippers have nailed the draft pick. Shout out to Andrew Schlecht, who always thinks I'm on. So they never nail it. OK, it's early.
He has been working with Zubach and Brooke Lopez. you know, all season. So I imagine, you know, he's picking up some stuff from them. You know, we'll see, you know, the other thing that, that he has, right. He can't teach this seven feet tall, seven feet tall, great athlete, especially against the warriors. Absolutely. Yeah. It matters.
Cause Brooke Lopez and, and Yannick Conan Niederhausen made the, the warriors look amazing. just like little yeah very small so anyway guys uh we got jay king after the break stick around for that and he's gonna tell us if jason tatum's coming back or not feels like he is
Well, Giannis came back last night for the Bucs, so we thought we'd get Jay King on to talk about it because, you know, the Celtics have been so good this season. The Bucs stand to look better with Giannis and the Celtics had other ideas. Jay King luckily didn't make the trip for that game.
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Chapter 7: How is Joe Mazzulla reshaping the Celtics' identity?
What's up, Jay? Thank God I watched that from my couch. There are no direct flights from Boston to Milwaukee. At least there weren't today. And so I would have had to fly through like Detroit or something to just go see that despicable basketball game. The Bucs should be ashamed. That was the Celtics on the second night of a back-to-back without Jalen Brown, without Nemeus Keita.
And the Bucs just never had a chance. They let Hugo Gonzalez look like Wilt Chamberlain. they let the 16 rebounds yeah the Bucks are and Giannis was back like right that should have been an energizing force on top of having maybe the best player in basketball back on your side nope they stink Yeah, they were minus 16 in his 25 minutes. That's what I was going to say.
It felt like in the moments where the Bucks were making a quote-unquote run, it was when Giannis was off the floor. I mean, I don't think that says much about Giannis particularly because he's coming back from that five-week hiatus, but... The Celtics just completely dominated this game and they have this identity that just leans into everything that they want to do on a night to night basis.
You take away Jalen Brown from this team. It's Peyton Pritchard and Derek White. And to your point, Ugo Gonzalez jumping in for 16 rebounds. I mean, you followed this team for a while now. Is this the most fun you've had watching a Celtics team?
Chapter 8: What should fans expect from Jayson Tatum's return?
I mean, I've covered outside of maybe the championship. I've covered some very good teams. Some teams that went on unexpected runs. The 1718 team after Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward got hurt, went to game seven in the Eastern Conference finals. The Isaiah Thomas teams were just kind of like they weren't supposed to get to where they got to.
They were number one seed, got to Eastern Conference finals. He was just dynamite every fourth quarter. That said, this is like for fans, this is a totally enjoyable experience. It's a bunch of guys playing above what anybody thought they would play at. Jalen Brown has reached another level. All these young guys can really play. Yeah. It's not just Hugo who was great tonight.
He's barely 20 guarding Giannis while going for 18 and 16. It's Baylor Shireman who started and done a really good job and all of a sudden is like a defensive stopper. Jordan Walsh has had moments. Yeah. Ron Harper Jr. is on a two-way contract. They plug him in the starting lineup. He's had moments.
It's just the mentality of the whole team, it seems, is just totally bought in, a little crazy, like crashing the offensive glass, borderline reckless in some ways, but also super polished in other ways that such a young team shouldn't be. They hardly ever turn the ball over. The matchup against Milwaukee...
I think it's a great one because Milwaukee doesn't do a lot of the things that win basketball games. They turn the ball over. They don't rebound the ball. They can really shoot. But other than that, they don't do a lot of the things that win basketball games. Whereas the Celtics have been great on the margins in a lot of ways. They're one of the top five offensive rebounding teams in basketball.
They take care of the ball as well as anybody else. They have become one of the better defensive rebounding teams in basketball against all odds because they were terrible at that at the beginning of the season. So, yeah, Joe Mazzola has done a great job just sort of formulating an identity for this team. Everyone's bought in. And I think there's a lot more talent than people expected.
I thought this would be a really thin team. Instead, it's really deep with options everywhere. You think the difference between what we're seeing with the Celtics and what we see with the Bucs is all coaching? No. No, not at all. I think the Bucs have a lot of guys on their team that are about themselves that don't really know the game. They added Cam Thomas. for whatever reason.
Hey, somebody's got to score some points, man. Yeah, but somebody has to pass the ball. Giannis had already called his team selfish, and they were like, let's go get this 20-point-a-game scorer who was so bad at the other stuff that his other team waived him, even though they're desperate for talent. Let's go grab him. He'll fit really well with everybody. I just think the Celtics, like,
They have a bunch of guys who are willing to play a role, who excel in those roles, who do all the little things, who set screens, who crash the glass, who get deflections, who pick up steals. All their young guys take on the most challenging defensive assignments. They have, like Luka Garza comes in off the bench tonight. He hadn't played in a while because they acquired Vucevic.
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