What in the Hell Can the Nuggets Do?

[Richard Miller]

Denver has to play better defense, their personnel is fine. They just have been getting torched lately on the defensive end. Jokic fans will never admit it, but having no rim protection and struggling in pick and roll against good teams is a problem for them.

Because it's not. They are mostly losing because they get barraged with 3s, not because of whatever rim protection. They need to either shoot more 3s themselves (unlikely) or stop other teams from shooting 40+ threes

[hardenASG13]

Denver has to play better defense, their personnel is fine. They just have been getting torched lately on the defensive end. Jokic fans will never admit it, but having no rim protection and struggling in pick and roll against good teams is a problem for them.

Because it's not. They are mostly losing because they get barraged with 3s, not because of whatever rim protection. They need to either shoot more 3s themselves (unlikely) or stop other teams from shooting 40+ threes

I don't watch them enough to know if that's true, but they've been giving up lots of points to some bad teams. Caught a good amount last night, if the Cavs set a high screen with a big they could get all the open 3s, or really whatever they wanted. It looked really easy for them.

[Snake3]

Denver has to play better defense, their personnel is fine. They just have been getting torched lately on the defensive end. Jokic fans will never admit it, but having no rim protection and struggling in pick and roll against good teams is a problem for them.

Because it's not. They are mostly losing because they get barraged with 3s, not because of whatever rim protection. They need to either shoot more 3s themselves (unlikely) or stop other teams from shooting 40+ threes

I don't watch them enough to know if that's true, but they've been giving up lots of points to some bad teams. Caught a good amount last night, if the Cavs set a high screen with a big they could get all the open 3s, or really whatever they wanted. It looked really easy for them.

Yeah, it was easy for them. They don't have good screen navigators or rim protection. They don't have the personal to play the same defense as they did last year. Last year they had KCP, CB and Justin Holiday as the point of attack. This year, Westbrook and CB. But KCP was better at navigating screens. CB was better at 1on1 matchups at times.

Mitchell was hunting for Jamal last night. And whenever they go downhill, Jokic ain't gonna stop him if they have a good floater game. So, it's tough.

There are assets out there they could get. But most of them are old. And I don't think Booth wants that cuz he wants to develop the younger guys

[Bergmaniac]

Denver has to play better defense, their personnel is fine. They just have been getting torched lately on the defensive end. Jokic fans will never admit it, but having no rim protection and struggling in pick and roll against good teams is a problem for them.

Their personnel is not fine defensively. AG is their only really good defender but he's missed quite a few games. Braun started strongly on that end but has been much worse lately. Watson is their only other guy who is a very good defender. The 36 year old Westbrook has played way too many minutes and has been mediocre to terrible on that end. Murray has never been a good defender and he's moving worse than usual this year. Their backup centre is the corpse of DeAndre Jordan.Strauther tries hard on that end but he constantly makes mistakes and often gets torched.

[BelgradeNugget]

Is anybody here who understud why Malone starterd Russ instead of Watson? You play team with two 7' starters + 6'9 Dean Wade on SF and replace PF with PG. Russ took 2nd more 3s per 36 in this game for Nuggets behind MPJ and in front of Murray. And those 3s were not forced.
Atkinson's game plan was to force Russ to shoot 3s when on court. Was it Malone's game plan? So Atkinson outplayed Malone in this chess game. Simple as that. Malone gats outplayed a lot.

[BelgradeNugget]

One more observation about Nuggets play. They take the least number of 3s per game. In made 3s thay are 27th. Malone will say we do not have many good 3pt shooters. Well, it doesn't explain the fact that Nuggets 2 best 3pt shooters MPJ and Murray are taking 6.3 and 5.8 3s per 36 while in 2022-23 they were taking 9.1 and 7.3. That is 4 less 3s per 36 for your 2 best 3pt shooters, while all teams around the league are taking more. Why? From my point of view Nuggets offense is read by the league. No adjustments. Everybody know what to expect from them.

If a team want to shoot more 3s it has to play spread pnr with pick set far behind 3pt line so if defender goes aroud the screen offensive player has space to make few steps to the basket and still stay behind the 3 pt line. Nuggets set screans right on the 3pt line so if offensive player want to avoid getting blocked from behind he goes inside 3pt line for long 2.
When they run screen action for MPJ catch and shoot same thing. Right on 3pt line, to get space to shoot he must go inside for long 2. They used to play a lot of spread pnr, not so many now.

So, if orcestra is out of sinch don't change the players think about the conductor.

[mowcrowbar]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

[Optms]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

[Richard Miller]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

Donkey and Clay were washed, but current Murray is elite Don't you ever get tired of hating on Jokic?

[BelgradeNugget]

Read on Twitter

[Snake3]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

Dray was still all defense, and Wiggins was an all-star that year.

Murray could become elite come playoffs. He is not that in the regular season. But lets not act like he is all-star lvl or there aren't better options. He has potential to reach that lvl, but he isn't that consistently. Like I wouldn't take him over Booker, Mitchell, SGA, Luka, Curry, ANT, Trae Young, Brunson, Fox, Ja, and Dame. I'm not even sure he is better than Maxey sometimes, but he should be or at least around that level.

But imagine one of those players playing with Jokic? Mitchell with Jokic? Maxey? Dame? ANT? Curry?

I think Murray should be better than what he is. And he is playing better lately, but I don't know how consistent that is. One that that doesn't go away is he tough clutch shot making. No matter how bad he is playing at times, he still has that in him.

[MyTake_1]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

Yes Curry is the GOAT, Jokic is just a pretender and Bron is nobody, have it your way.

[LeBronSpaghetti]

Read on Twitter

Interesting because people keep saying CB is a bad screen navigator. This seems to suggest the opposite.

[JM00n69]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

Watch on YouTube

[KokoKaizer]

I suggest to be bad enough to give their pick to Orlando

Otherwise, I don't care

[7seventynine9]

The Nuggets have 3 guys in the top 20 in apg. That's kinda crazy. Their offense is definitely not the problem, though maybe they could afford to shoot some more 3s. Michael Porter leads the team in 3PA/36 at 6.4, which is good for 99th in the NBA. You would think with their ball movement they would get more open 3s. 2 seasons ago, Porter was at 9.1/36. Murray is at 5.8 this year, 2 seasons ago he was at 7.3.

But when you look at them as a team, this year they are at 30.8 3PA/G. 2 years ago, they were at 31.2. On the flipside, 2 years ago opponents were averaging 33.1 3PA/G, this year it's at 39.1. Teams are outscoring Denver by 7 points per game on 3 pointers this year. Denver has a 3.1 point advantage in FTs, and a 6.8 point advantage in 2s for an overall point differential of 3.0 points.

[Snake3]

The Nuggets have 3 guys in the top 20 in apg. That's kinda crazy. Their offense is definitely not the problem, though maybe they could afford to shoot some more 3s. Michael Porter leads the team in 3PA/36 at 6.4, which is good for 99th in the NBA. You would think with their ball movement they would get more open 3s. 2 seasons ago, Porter was at 9.1/36. Murray is at 5.8 this year, 2 seasons ago he was at 7.3.

But when you look at them as a team, this year they are at 30.8 3PA/G. 2 years ago, they were at 31.2. On the flipside, 2 years ago opponents were averaging 33.1 3PA/G, this year it's at 39.1. Teams are outscoring Denver by 7 points per game on 3 pointers this year. Denver has a 3.1 point advantage in FTs, and a 6.8 point advantage in 2s for an overall point differential of 3.0 points.

Yup. Their opponent 3pt A/G is a problem.

Their perimeter defense that needs to be fixing. Some podcaster that said that the among below average at rim protecting and below average at defending the 3. That just can't do. They shouldn't be that bad. The rim protecting is a lost cause of Jokic limited mobility. AG could make it better. If the nuggets can find a player that could give solid rim protecting, that's cool. But I don't think they can.

Last year, they were better at running guys off the 3pt line. Last year, they were second in terms of opponent 3pa with (31.5 3pa) and second when it comes to 3pt makes (11.2 3pt makes). They were top ten in terms of defending the 3, with opponents shooting 35.5%. This year, they are among the worst at defending the 3. Teams are shooting 39.1 3pa against them, while making 14 of them. Teams are generally are shooting more this year.

You can't allow that and lack of rim protection at the same time. Transition defense is also bad. It's wild to think KCP had that much impact with them. But I don't think it's just KCP, but him losing didn't help. They are other point of attack guys that they could get, who could navigate around screens but I don't think they will get them. Booth doesn't seem to be concern about the defense as much as he is concern about the offense on the bench. I could understand it, but the defense probably needs more attention first. So, it probably won't get address. The team just have to give better effort. Be at least average.

And as you said, their volume of 3pt shots is lacking. However, with Jokic they have the best offense in the league and the best offense in nba history in terms of Ortg. Whenever he goes out, they have the worst. That's insane.

It seems like the tactics is just to outscore the other opponent.

If they could get guys that could put in effort on defense and is good at it, then some of their problems can be fixed. They don't really have to address the 3pt issue if they find the right pieces. They could try to get Keon Ellis if the Kings do blow it up. They could get DSJ, but he can't shoot. They need another wing defender, but I don't know where they could get one. And I doubt they will get defenders anyway, but they definitely need something.

[Expoking]

Give Jokic a reliable allstar next to him. He's probably the only player to win a chip without a second all star in the team in a long time.

Curry literally won a chip against the Celtics with a washed donkey and Klay so not true.

Meanwhile, eye test and stats all say Murray is an elite second option come playoffs, so again, more misinformation.

Murray has been an elite second option 2 times in the past 5 years. Of course a lot of that is due to injuries but it's still true. In those 2 post seasons, the nuggets got to the WCF and won a chip. If Jokic got this level of help in the post season consistently Denver would perennially be contending similar to how the Spurs always did. This is because Jokic is the best player in the world and to this point, still hasn't had 1 bad playoff series in his career. Ironic that you talk about misinformation when you post a take as wrong as yours was.

[TorontoBarneys]

Murray is starting to play very well lately. Let's see if they do something at the deadline to boost the roster.

[BelgradeNugget]

Ther is one easy fix to improve Nuggets defense. Stop fuc*ing around. Focus. Play serious basketball. And not on defenese, on offense. Whoever wacthed Nuggets this season saw how unserious they were especially in the begening of the season. Which resulted in much more live-ball turnovers. They averaged 12.6 TO's per game last season (7th in NBA). They are averaging 14.6 now (15th). Which resulted in 13.6 opponent fastbreak pionts per game in 2023-24 (10th) and 17.3 this season (26th). That is 3.7 points more. Their defense per 100 (defrtg) is 114.1. (19th in NBA). Since games are close to 100 possesions if we take 3.7 points off of their defrtg, it would have been 110.4 good for 11th in the league. Last year their defrtg was 112.3 (8th best).

Now if you have Westbrook he will make turnovers (1.4 more than Reggie Jackson had), but Jokic and Murray are averaging 0.7 more combined. Cut on that and improvement will come. Add a little more focus on defense and things will be OK.

One more thing. They are trying to prepare Strawther and Watson for playoffs. They are improving. But Strawther still has the worst defrtg among Nuggets players in rotation. Strategy is to be patient, you must live with results for now. Or if he doesn't improve come playoff time they could cut Cancar and sign Justin Holiday. He was good for them in Strawther's place