2016 Thunder vs 2023 Nuggets

[AEnigma]

I was responding to a straw man voicing the same tired tropes about why 2016 OKC would destroy the 2023 Nuggets. Never mind that 2016 OKC had even worse spacing than the 2023 Lakers and that the 2023 Nuggets just had one of the most dominant playoff runs in recent memory.

None of that requires you to pretend that anyone was scared of a torn tendon Lebron pnr, or that anyone thought Jimmy Butler would or could play anywhere near his Bucks level.

This sounds like a lot of rationalizing in hindsight.

No, that is paying base level attention to teams before they play the Nuggets.

[Peregrine01]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

[rk2023]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Just with the size and instinct, he makes to be a pretty good stonewall and hard to beat without an active dribble. People gloss over that due to the avid concerns in space and pick-and-roll coverage due to slow lateral and recovery quickness.

[AEnigma]

The Nuggets outperformed their regular season defensive standards, but not really because of Jokic. Jokic’s on-court defensive rating was a point better than it was in the postseason, and that is with them playing three below average offences. In the regular season the Nuggets’ defence was two points worse with Jokic off the court (largely because guys like KCP and Gordon were glued to him and their deep bench was weak), but in the postseason their defence was six points better when he was off the court. Jokic can hold his own at this point, enough to dominate teams with his offensive advantage, but he is far off any legitimate anchor.

[Peregrine01]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Just with the size and instinct, he makes to be a pretty good stonewall and hard to beat without an active dribble. People gloss over that due to the avid concerns in space and pick-and-roll coverage due to slow lateral and recovery quickness.

In these past playoffs, Jokic was put in pick and roll more than any other big and the Nuggets allowed just 0.74 PPP on those play-types. This was better than:

Robert Williams at 0.74
Al Horford at 1.5 (!)
Bam Adebayo at 1.06
and even AD at 0.79

[lessthanjake]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Yeah, I agree with this. Jokic’s mere size is still a pretty significant deterrent at the rim, and his positioning is pretty good such that he can be that deterrent with a good bit of frequency. I think we actually saw this a lot in the postseason—particularly in the Finals. The Heat legitimately didn’t really want to go at Jokic—it was genuinely pretty frequent for the Heat to get into the paint and see Jokic and pass the ball out. That said, I do think he avoids contesting some shots near the basket for fear of getting called for a foul—which is in a sense a necessary evil when your center is also your best offensive player. Overall, though, I do agree with your assessment.

In terms of this particular matchup, though, I think Jokic would be less of a deterrent than he was against the Heat, because the athleticism of guys like Durant and Westbrook was at a different level from the guys on the Heat. In essence, I don’t really know that Durant or Westbrook would be all that deterred merely by Jokic’s size.

[Peregrine01]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Yeah, I agree with this. Jokic’s mere size is still a pretty significant deterrent at the rim, and his positioning is pretty good such that he can be that deterrent with a good bit of frequency. I think we actually saw this a lot in the postseason—particularly in the Finals. The Heat legitimately didn’t really want to go at Jokic—it was genuinely pretty frequent for the Heat to get into the paint and see Jokic and pass the ball out. That said, I do think he avoids contesting some shots near the basket for fear of getting called for a foul—which is in a sense a necessary evil when your center is also your best offensive player. Overall, though, I do agree with your assessment.

In terms of this particular matchup, though, I think Jokic would be less of a deterrent than he was against the Heat, because the athleticism of guys like Durant and Westbrook was at a different level from the guys on the Heat. In essence, I don’t really know that Durant or Westbrook would be all that deterred merely by Jokic’s size.

I see spacing such a huge issue for OKC that it'd be hard to really stretch out the Nuggets defense. Keep in mind that OKC did so well against the Warriors because they forced turnovers and bad misses from 3 and killed them on the offensive rebounds all of which led to easy transition points and put backs. The second those opportunities went away, they were stuck with a your turn/my turn KD/Westbrook isolation offense.

The Nuggets don't operate like the Warriors and are one of the lowest turnover and best defensive rebounding teams in the league. And because they have maybe the best half-court offensive hub ever, they very rarely take the bad shots that are effectively live-ball turnovers. So I just don't see OKC doing to the Nuggets like they did to the Warriors in games 3 and 4 in 2016.

[rk2023]

Westbrook and Durant would certainly get to the rim a good deal—though KCP and Gordon would do as well as anyone defending them—and Jokic is not a major rim protector.

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Yeah, I agree with this. Jokic’s mere size is still a pretty significant deterrent at the rim, and his positioning is pretty good such that he can be that deterrent with a good bit of frequency. I think we actually saw this a lot in the postseason—particularly in the Finals. The Heat legitimately didn’t really want to go at Jokic—it was genuinely pretty frequent for the Heat to get into the paint and see Jokic and pass the ball out. That said, I do think he avoids contesting some shots near the basket for fear of getting called for a foul—which is in a sense a necessary evil when your center is also your best offensive player. Overall, though, I do agree with your assessment.

In terms of this particular matchup, though, I think Jokic would be less of a deterrent than he was against the Heat, because the athleticism of guys like Durant and Westbrook was at a different level from the guys on the Heat. In essence, I don’t really know that Durant or Westbrook would be all that deterred merely by Jokic’s size.

How much and how effective do you think Denver’s defense could make matchups a 4 v 5 due to Andre Roberson in this theoretical series?

[Doctor MJ]

Who wins in 7?

Just to riff on the question a bit, a few points:

1. I think it's reasonable to look at 2016 as a particularly strong year for contenders with 4 champion worthy teams (Cavs, Warriors, Thunder, Spurs).

2. I think it's critical at this point to never assume teams from earlier eras would win easily over later teams. Anyone who doesn't understand the tipping that happened in the game in the past few years has missed out on the most important thing to understand.

3. I do find it interesting to see the reactions specifically to the Denver Nuggets winning the title. There was a grand skepticism surrounding Nikola Jokic in the years leading up to this, and while it bugged me because I saw the genius in his game, I was on record with concerns about how his defense would hold up against series competition. For this reason I was reluctant to rank his peak as too high. I thought he had a serious case as both the GOAT Peak RS player and GOAT Peak offensive player, but the defense is a limiting factor to be exploited, and the question was how badly it could be exploited with a competently built team around him.

In the '22-23 playoffs it held up remarkably well...and yet people remain skeptical.

4. Now I still have caution after just seeing a guy do it once, specifically because now the entire rest of the NBA will aim their cannons at Jokic and the Nuggets. The true test for how great he/they are will come from their ability to keep this up.

Jokic has already established himself as an all-timer, but the Mount Olympus of basketball is about the dynastic runs, and while I'm not betting against the Nuggets, nor am I taking it as a given.

5. I do find it a bit frustrating when people talk about pick n' rolling Jokic to death at this point. I think if it was easy to do, it would have been done in these playoffs. People saw it in previous years and thus think it's a realistic goal, but this is a team game. The question isn't whether you can burn any defensive player if his supporting cast is weak enough - you can - the question is really whether you can build the requisite scheme/cast to make a good-enough defense so that the offense can overpower the opponent.

Seems like the answer is a Yes.

6. I don't think Bill Simmons claim that the Nuggets are the best team since the Curry-Durant Warriors is crazy at all. I'm not going to say it's a given, but I do think that how a team dominates in the playoffs against whatever opposition is the main thing to look at here, and the Nuggets were dominant in a way that frankly only the '19-20 Lakers were in the time post those Warriors, and on those Lakers, their 3rd best player was a lesser version of the Nuggets 5th best player. That's kinda crazy.

7. Over to the Thunder - emphasizing again that this was a chip-level team that could have won title(s) which would have changed all sorts of things:

I think we have remember that this was a team with glaring flaws. They had 6 core pieces, and 3 of those guys had major playoff concerns:

The #4 man was a young Adams. I love Adams, but there's a reason why he spent so much time on the bench in the playoffs in '21-22 after arguably his finest regular season. Against Jokic we'd expect he'd not be benched, and his strength would be an asset, but realistically the reason he gets benched in the playoffs isn't because his strengths are no longer strengths, but because his game is limited for the modern NBA.

The #5 man was Dion Waiters. Waiters fell out of the NBA entirely during what's typically prime years for quality NBA players.

The #6 man was Andre Roberson. Similar story.

Then you get into the fact that the Thunder were just always strategically poor, which I'm long on record in blaming the stars. I have way more faith in Malone's ability to figure out adjustments with his crew, than I would any coach with Westbrook-KD.

Put all that together:

Could the Thunder win the series? It's possible, but I think we should be very careful about building that Thunder team up into an unstoppable machine in our minds when that's never actually what they were.

And meanwhile, caution regarding the Nuggets is wise, but what they just did is really something.

[AEnigma]

Both those Spurs teams and those Thunder teams were caught in the league’s transition period. They were much more reflective of the 2009-14 NBA than they were of the 2017-23 NBA, whereas the opposite is true for the Cavaliers and Warriors.

I am not really caught up in issues like that. The 2014 Spurs would probably lose to this Nuggets team, but in a historical sense I would place them a lot higher (not sure what their ELO is or whatever, but I suspect the Nuggets fall short).*

However, acknowledging that the Nuggets have a significant absolute advantage schematically over less offensively developed teams does not mean people need to oversell the nature of that absolute advantage. I have always liked the joke that the 2008 Celtics are the greatest one-title dynasty ever, and the way people are talking about these Nuggets is extremely reminiscent. They earned the right to be discussed among title teams, but let them reach the step after that before crowning them as a basketball-solving dynasty.

*[N.b. More interesting to me are questions like, “How successful could the 2006 Suns be if given an offseason to prepare for the modern league?” Nash/Raja/Marion/Diaw/KurtThomas with Barbosa and Tim Thomas off the bench is a very modern structure, and while I still would like to shore up that front-court a bit — someone like Rob Williams could be beautiful there — that overall is a team I think could compete well.]

[SK21209]

That 2016 Thunder team is the most physically imposing basketball team I've ever seen. Just absurdly big and athletic. They could stay big with Adams primarily guarding Jokic and Ibaka playing off Gordon to protect the rim, or smaller with Ibaka guarding Jokic and KD playing off Gordon. Roberson is a pretty good matchup for Murray and Russ actually defended pretty well at that stage of his career too. The Spurs ran them off the court in Game 1 of the 2016 WCSF, but after that they locked in and were incredibly difficult to score on.

The most glaring difference between these teams, though, would probably be execution down the stretch. I think the 2023 Nuggets are special not because their ceiling is particularly high compared to other championship teams, but because their floor is so high. Jokic gets you a good look on almost every possession. In contrast, those Thunder teams were prone to really sloppy play down the stretch of games.

That's how I'm thinking about this series; a 2016 Thunder team with an incredibly high ceiling but prone to sloppy play vs. a rock-solid and consistent 2023 Nuggets team. I lean 2016 Thunder, it took truly incredible shotmaking from Steph and Clay to win that series even with the Thunder's late game issues.

[lessthanjake]

I think that this is something that deserves to be touched on more because Jokic showed to be plenty competent protecting the rim in these past playoffs. He can't protect the rim like Giannis, JJJ or AD who can cover a lot of space and wipeout defensive breakdowns. But if you can shrink the court, he can be a very effective rim deterrent by just using his size.

I was always hopeful that Jokic can be more like Marc Gasol on defense by getting better at positioning and using his size and (finally) having better defensive talent around him. I still think he can get quite a bit better on defense but this past playoffs was a bit of a revelation of how good he can be on that end. Another thing that doesn't get touched on much is that the increased physicality permitted in the playoffs allows Jokic to be a lot more aggressive on defense and less fearful of picking up ticky tack fouls. The fact that the Nuggets way outperformed on defense in the playoffs compared to the RS is indicative of that.

Yeah, I agree with this. Jokic’s mere size is still a pretty significant deterrent at the rim, and his positioning is pretty good such that he can be that deterrent with a good bit of frequency. I think we actually saw this a lot in the postseason—particularly in the Finals. The Heat legitimately didn’t really want to go at Jokic—it was genuinely pretty frequent for the Heat to get into the paint and see Jokic and pass the ball out. That said, I do think he avoids contesting some shots near the basket for fear of getting called for a foul—which is in a sense a necessary evil when your center is also your best offensive player. Overall, though, I do agree with your assessment.

In terms of this particular matchup, though, I think Jokic would be less of a deterrent than he was against the Heat, because the athleticism of guys like Durant and Westbrook was at a different level from the guys on the Heat. In essence, I don’t really know that Durant or Westbrook would be all that deterred merely by Jokic’s size.

How much and how effective do you think Denver’s defense could make matchups a 4 v 5 due to Andre Roberson in this theoretical series?

Yeah, they’d surely sag off of Roberson. And that would definitely help them contain Westbrook and Durant before they got to the basket. Roberson only played like half the time though, and they wouldn’t be able to do that as much in the Waiters minutes. The Nuggets would have problems, but I don’t think they’d have *enough* problems to overcome the Nuggets offense.

[BelgradeNugget]

Is this serious question? I mean I loved that Thunder team but I'm not sure they would be able to win one game against the Nuggets. And here is why.

1. Rusell Westbrook - one of the players with highest motor in the history of the game, best transition scorer, terrible in half-court.
His splits for 2016 PO's 26/7/11 with 41/32/83 splits. How to guard him in half-court? Stay under the basket. Let him shoot. And if you dare him to shoot he will, because of enormous ego, miss 7 jumpers only to talk **** when he hits 8th. Defensively focused for 10 secs on shot-clock. Could have been DPOY with his lenght, quickness and athleticism, never was good because of focus. Sometimes it looks like he would have good defensive play challenging players that were in position to score because of his previous mistake. Guarded by KCP

2. Andre Roberson - great defender and one of the worst offensive guard in the history of game. Ben Simmons is Steph Curry for him. 5.6/5.6/.8/1.3/1.1 shooting 47/32/40

3. Should I mention KD averaged 28/7.1/3.3 shooting 43/28/89. Should I say bad? AG would guard him as he did in this POs

4. OKC's offense was your turn, my turn with Westbrook and KD

5. From the bench Dion Waiters. 8.4/2.6/2.3 shooting 42/38/68. Not great. Why they play him, because of his defense or they didn't have better player on the bench?

6. Nuggets Jokic 30/14/10 on 55/46/80. Crazy? Yes. Murray 26/6/7 on 47/40/93. Crazy? Yes. Some people suggested helping off of AG. He shoot 39% from 3. Better then any OKC's player in 2016 POs except Ibaka. Lakers tried to play off of him, we saw how it worked in game 4 of WCF and in game 4 against Miami. Should I mention KCP was 38% from 3?

7. Murray/Jokic 2 man game is the most ungradable play in the NBA with AG on dunker spot and MPJ and KCP in Corners.

8. Bruce Brown off the bench 12/4/2 shooting 51/32/86, better than any OKC's bench player

9. Nuggets had KCP and AG for Westbrook and KD, and when guarding KD could help off of Westbrook - non shooter, or Roberson and Adams. Only player who could help with spacing was Ibaka

10. Jokic eat alive Gobert, Ayton, AD, Bam, what people think 22 yo Adams would look guarding him?

11. Nuggets had playoff run on par with GSW and Spurs. Is league so bad or they are so good? They went through the best teams in the NBA. Bucks and 76ers fired their coaches after POs because with those coaches they were bad. Boston?

12. Nuggets had 1st O and 4th D in PO's. Good?