Nuggets are a Hallmark Movie

We recap a 3–1 stretch, then turn the Nuggets into a Hallmark movie using bingo tropes, from Jokic’s “magical elder” aura to Cam Johnson’s small-town fit and Bruce Brown’s joyful return. Predictions land, humility holds, and we close with a reminder to find balance on Christmas.

• Rockets thriller as playoff preview
• Magic swings decided by a 30–6 run
• Cold night versus Rockets with foul trouble
• Jazz blowout with 24 made threes
• Hallmark Bingo mapped to Nuggets players
• Jokic as wise magic, Nurkic as old flame
• Bruce Brown’s return as the happy epilogue
• Cam Johnson thriving in structure
• Cute kids and the human side of winning
• Jamal Murray rewriting his narrative
• “Jokmas” as the season’s love story
• Predictions for Christmas and a title run
• Advice to balance hoops with family

Find some balance on Christmas. We all love basketball. It’s gonna be on all day, but you don’t need to sit there and watch it all day. Find a way to spend time with your family.

Chapters

• 0:04 Early Drop And Holiday Setup
• 0:37 Rapid Game Recap And Record Check
• 2:39 Hallmark Bingo Meets The Nuggets
• 5:03 Assigning Bingo Tropes To Players
• 9:05 The Movie Pitch And Predictions
• 11:47 What I Got Right And Wrong

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

All right everyone. Welcome back to Fandom from Afar. And you may be saying, Brian, you blessed us with an amazing Yokemis episode just last week. How is our new episode out already? Well, consider it an early Christmas present to you. You're welcome. We have a fun episode today. Uh the real reason we're doing it early is I am heading out of town on a little family vacation, so I wanted to get another episode in before the end of the year. And this is going to be a fun one today. While there's not much actual basketball to talk about because of the NBA Cup, I thought I'd take a stab at relating the Nuggets to Hallmark movies because you know I can relate anything to the Nuggets. First, let's do a quick review of the games that happened since we last spoke. The big one, it was a matchup against the Rockets, and they are obviously, along with the Nuggets, two of the best teams in the NBA behind the Thunder. And it was really like a playoff preview and really an exciting game all around. I would love it to see that matchup in the playoffs, and the Nuggets came out with a victory in that one. Next up was the Magic. Got to watch that game with a couple of my Magic fan friends down here, and I was the only one that came away happy. The Nuggets came ahead after a bunch of runs. The Magic started out really well, but the Nuggets had a devastating run in the second quarter. I believe it was 30 to 6 and kind of held on from there. We did have another matchup with the Rockets, and it was just one of those games where no shots were going in. Jokic was in foul trouble, everyone was turning the ball over, just not our night. So we we took the loss on that one. And then they played the Jazz. Now, to say that the talent level on the Jazz is a step down from the Rockets would be an understatement. And the Nuggets started out the game 19 to nothing. So you can guess that it was pretty much a snoozer from there, but it was pretty fun to watch the Nuggets tie a franchise record for the most three-pointers in a game. They hit 24 of them, so that was an easy W. So right now, their record is 21-7. They have a game against the Mavericks tonight as I record this. And so hopefully we can pull out another victory before Christmas. Now, you said it couldn't be done. I'm going to try. My family and I have been watching some Hallmark Christmas movies this holiday season, and a lot of the movies are very similar. They've been going on for years, otherwise, I would just assume that AI was pumping them out. A lot of the times it is a overworked, busy, big city type female lead that somehow finds herself moving to a small town and falling in love with a single dad with an extremely cute kid, and shenate shenanigans happen, and then they fall in love. And yet, my family and I love watching these movies. They're just fun, get you in the holiday spirit, and I am going to relate the nuggets to Hallmark movies using Hallmark Bingo. Now, if you haven't played Hallmark Bingo, because the movies are so similar, you can print out some bingo sheets that have the categories on them, and because each movie, it doesn't matter which one you pick, they will have many of these characteristics in them. I recommend printing out multiple different kinds of bingo cards. It just creates fun conversation and a way to kind of laugh at these silly cheesy movies. So let's give this a shot. One of the categories on the bingo card was an old romantic interest is in town. Now I'm going to relate that to Yusuf Nurchik. Now, if you'll remember from last week's episode for Yokemus, Nurkic, he was our starting center, not quite as good as Jokic, even back in those days, and he got replaced by Jokic and ended up crying his way out of town. So while he was never a superstar or one of our favorite players, he was a Nuggets draftee, and we thought he had some potential there at the beginning. It just didn't quite work out. He was in town last night on a terrible Utah team, and I'm sorry, Nerk, but we got the banner out in the deal with Jokic. Another category is a wise, magical older person. Now, a lot of times this person will just be magical. Sometimes it'll kind of be hinted at that they're Santa, but in almost every movie there's some sort of wise, magical older person that helps the two characters get together and fall in love. So this is a bit of a stretch. But for this category, I'm gonna say Jokic. Now the reason being is Jokic is gonna turn 31 pretty soon. I know. Fellow young people, I agree, that's so old. But Jokic is magical, so we gotta give him that. He has turned this franchise around, given us 10, almost 11 years of pure basketball joy, and we have obviously fallen in love with him. So I think Jokic fits with that one. Another category is the wedding one year later. A lot of times this is added on as a final scene in the movie after the characters finally come together and show that they're in love. It will show one year later and cut to their wedding. Very common in these movies. And I don't quite have a perfect match for this one, but in this category, I am giving it to Bruce Brown. After the championship, Bruce left us for a big giant contract out in Indiana. He kind of bounced around the league for a little bit, but he came home. Two years later, Bruce E B is back and he is playing so well. We love Bruce E B. Next category, it takes place in a small town. I'm giving this one to Denver, Colorado. If you watch or listen to any national media coverage, you would think that Denver is a small farming town where people ski down from their caves in the mountains and maybe buy something at the market, but then go tend to their herd the rest of the day. We may not be on the east or the west coast, but Denver is a wonderful city. And I'm sure there's some people that fall in love at Christmas markets there too, but we are a real big boy city. The next category is the big city character goes to a small town. This one was easy. This one goes to Cam Johnson. He played for the Brooklyn Nets the last couple years. He has loved his time in Denver from what it seems so far. After a little bit of a slow start, he has been amazing. I know Michael Porter Jr. is putting up big numbers, but that's just because he is shooting every time for that terrible Brooklyn team. Cam Johnson has been a perfect fit for us. He is playing wonderful basketball. I'm excited. I think he can still grow into his role even more. Nights like last night just show when he is on, we can dominate. He was six for six from the three-point line last night, and it really wasn't close. So Cam Johnson, you are our big city. We'll say big city boy coming to the small town. Next category is just cute kid. Like I mentioned, most of these movies will have a single dad with an adorable kid. The kid just adds a little bit of cuteness to the movie, kind of helps the big city character fall in love with the small town. They are allowed to be extremely honest because they're so cute. And so I'm going to give this to Jokic, Jamal, and AG. The reason for that is obviously Jokic has two little ones that he he always tries to find them in the crowd. They're obviously a big part of his life. Jamal, his daughter, is gotten to the age now where she's been around quite a bit more as well. There was some cute footage of her at the Nuggets practice the other day. And Aaron Gordon, obviously, sadly, his brother passed away last year. So Aaron Gordon has been a big part of his nephews' lives, and you often see the nephews at the at the arena as well. So I think the Nuggets check the box for all the cute kids. And the plus side is our cute kids aren't overly cute, where sometimes in the Hallmark movie they smile just a little bit too much. And the last category, there's a big misunderstanding that almost ruins everything. I'm giving that to Jamal Murray. Now the reason I'll say that is maybe Jamal just misunderstood the first ten years of his career when he would come into the season out of shape and not really play hard until the playoffs. That's not happening this year. He is playing amazing basketball. He's going to be an all-star. And you just wish you could have seen him play this way the first 10 years of his career, but better, better late than never. So maybe there was a misunderstanding that almost ruined everything, but Jamal, he's making us fall in love with him all over again this year. So it got me thinking with all these categories, what would the movie be if they made a Hallmark movie out of the Denver Nuggets this year? And I think it was pretty easy. It would obviously be called Yokmus, a mile high love story. And the description I think would be something like a young Serbian moves to a small town in the mountains. The whole city falls in love, and some awkward dude in Florida makes a podcast about him. I'd watch that. Alright, let's hit a few predictions for the upcoming games. Obviously, I said the Nuggets play in Dallas tonight. Hopefully that'll be an easy win. My first prediction, though, will be the Nuggets lose their game on Christmas Day because they always lose their game on Christmas Day. I always get so excited to watch them at the end of the night thinking that, oh man, the whole country's going to get to see how well they're playing right now. And for some reason, they just never, never do well. So I'm predicting they lose, but you know how my predictions go. This might be a little bit of a reverse jinx action. And my second prediction is the Nuggets will win the championship this year. A little bit of a new strategy for me on this one. I am predicting more of a long-term one, so I can't get it wrong immediately. So we'll keep track of that one as the season goes along. Speaking of, what was I wrong about last episode? Well, I actually went one for two. I wasn't wrong about everything. Jokic did have a huge game against the Rockets in that first matchup. He had 39 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists. I predicted a huge triple double, so I'm going to count the win on that one. Unfortunately, I did get the other one wrong where I said we would go two and oh versus the Rockets. So one for two is not bad. I will take it. I always like to end the episode with ways to be a better fan. My my uh way to be a better fan this week is just a little bit of advice. Find some balance on Christmas. We all love basketball. It's gonna be on all day, but you don't need to sit there and watch it all day. Find a way to spend time with your family. There will be more games later on this season. It is okay if you don't see them all. So I hope everyone has a happy Christmas and a happy new year. I'm taking some time off. I'm gonna go visit my family out in Colorado. The Nuggets actually, the Magic went to visit Denver just last week, and then as soon as I fly to Denver, the Nuggets are flying to Orlando. So I am not going to get to see them this year, but that's okay. I will get to see my family. Merry Christmas, everybody.