Playoff Rotation

[NuggetsWY]

Gordon may be our best defender but he will not be the best choice to cover Lillard - that's my opinion and that of many other people.

Gobert is the best defender on the Jazz, but that doesn't mean he is the best choice to cover Kyrie Irving. Scottie Pippen was arguably the best defender on the Jordan-Bulls but he was hardly the best defender against Jabbar.

Just saying ...

This lines up with my thinking. You will see multiple screens to free up Dame and peel off Denver's guards. That leaves Gordon and he has a reputation for being one of the best perimeter defensive players in the league. He is not Gobert trying to guard a center but Gordon is ideal for switching onto a shooting guard particularly because the Blazer are starting a 6'3" small forward, so Denver guards and Gordon will be switching a lot.

The modern NBA (and somewhat throughout history) has always been about screens to free up shooters. So bigs end up trying to cover smalls and vice versa. You are totally correct in my opinion, that Gordon is better than many bigs, but many teams will switch back as quickly as possible so matchups are better. The Nuggets don't do that very often. So our bigs spend more time trying to cover quicker players. It can be disastrous but truthfully it can work out - with solid team/help defense (another thing Denver just isn't so good at IMO).

I just disagree with your statement "one of the best perimeter defensive players". Can we modify that to "one of the best perimeter defensive front court players"? I do believe that is probably what you meant - or am I wrong. (Because I think we are saying the same thing.)

[The Rebel]

Gordon may be our best defender but he will not be the best choice to cover Lillard - that's my opinion and that of many other people.

Gobert is the best defender on the Jazz, but that doesn't mean he is the best choice to cover Kyrie Irving. Scottie Pippen was arguably the best defender on the Jordan-Bulls but he was hardly the best defender against Jabbar.

Just saying ...

This lines up with my thinking. You will see multiple screens to free up Dame and peel off Denver's guards. That leaves Gordon and he has a reputation for being one of the best perimeter defensive players in the league. He is not Gobert trying to guard a center but Gordon is ideal for switching onto a shooting guard particularly because the Blazer are starting a 6'3" small forward, so Denver guards and Gordon will be switching a lot.

The modern NBA (and somewhat throughout history) has always been about screens to free up shooters. So bigs end up trying to cover smalls and vice versa. You are totally correct in my opinion, that Gordon is better than many bigs, but many teams will switch back as quickly as possible so matchups are better. The Nuggets don't do that very often. So our bigs spend more time trying to cover quicker players. It can be disastrous but truthfully it can work out - with solid team/help defense (another thing Denver just isn't so good at IMO).

I just disagree with your statement "one of the best perimeter defensive players". Can we modify that to "one of the best perimeter defensive front court players"? I do believe that is probably what you meant - or am I wrong. (Because I think we are saying the same thing.)

Gordon has long had a reputation as being a good perimeter defender, nothing about front court defense, just good perimeter defense. He also spent most of his career at SF guarding the better 2/3 with Fournier being on the other, so he has guarded a lot of the premier guards in the league.

If you look at his tracking stats after watching him closely the last few weeks Gordon has always done his best against jumpshooters, allowing an average of about 34-35% on long 2s and 3 point shots which is actually pretty good guarding 2/3s around the league, but he has been terrible at or near the rim. Oddly this year his perimeter defense has fallen off, especially since joining the Nuggets. A lot of that has to do with him guarding a more big men since he came here than he ever did with the Magic.

[TunaFish]

Read on Twitter

[skywalker33]

Given this backcourt, easy to see how we'll miss Gary Harris here

[GeorgeSears]

According to Malone, Barton might be back soon but PJ is going to be out for a while. So I'm assuming no PJ for this series and we'll be lucky if Barton is available as well.

I was hoping PJ would come back for this series.

I am starting to get a bit worried now.

[FilNugsFan]

Wow! Howard really earned himself some significant playing time after those career scoring highs before the end of the regular season. I like it!

[NuggetsWY]

Wow! Howard really earned himself some significant playing time after those career scoring highs before the end of the regular season. I like it!

Agreed, but scoring is what he's supposed to be best at. What impressed me about him is his defense. No, he's not a "stopper" and at his height, he's never going to be a super-defender. But he is totally aware of what's happening when his man doesn't have the ball. His head is on a swivel and he's always looking to step in the way of someone that has a clear path to the basket.