Let's discuss the upcoming Denver series

[FNG]

The Nuggets are the defending world champs, and they appear to be playing as well now as they did last year. Plus they beat us 4 out of 5 games in last year's playoffs, and have arguably the best player on the planet. Further, Vegas has them as a heavy favorite to win this series at a minus 225, as well as a 5 1/2 point favorite in game 1. So why then (other than blind homerism and/or stupidity) are all of us so far picking the Wolves to win this series? Let's go on the record and discuss here.

First of all, I would argue that Denver is largely the same team they were a year ago, while the Wolves come into this series much better than a year ago. For one thing, we will have Jaden and Naz unlike last year. In addition while I don't believe any Nuggets have improved greatly this year (in all fairness, they were already great), I would argue that Ant, Rudy, NAW and Naz are all playing at a much higher lever than they were last season.

Secondly, while repeating as champions happens, human nature is that the challenger is always going to be hungrier. This group of Nuggets has already won, but this group of Wolves (and others for decades) have not. I think we will be much more intense throughout the series.

The teams split their 4 meetings this season, but in the only game in which all 10 starters were healthy, the Wolves won by 21. I'm going to ignore the other three games. Denver is not nearly as good without Murray, and the Wolves are not as good without KAT and Rudy. But obviously a key injury to either team will change the calculus.

So, how do we think the Wolves will line up on defense? Tim suggested that last night that Jaden will be on Murray with Ant on Porter Jr. and that may be right. I understand how that might be effective, but I'm really concerned about Ant giving up 6 inches in height against a sharp-shooting 3-point shooter. Ant is a very good on-ball defender, and I want to see him on Jamal and the taller Jaden on Porter Jr. Rudy should take the non 3-point shooting Gordon allowing his to lurk near the basket, and KAT will try to guard Joker. This may be a problem for two reasons. First, we can't afford KAT getting in foul trouble, and guarding Joker will be a challenge. Secondly even though KAT has good size, he will be giving up 30-35 pounds to Joker. Rudy is bigger and stronger than KAT, but we need him to be around the basket more. KAT needs to step up and be smart for us to win this series (and typing that sentence almost makes me change my prediction to Denver in 5). We need you more than ever, KAT!

But what really is going to win this series for us is our bench. The Wolves bench in the final game last year (with 3 guys injured) was Prince, Knight, Rivers and Nowell...let that roll around in your head a while! This year we will have NAW, Naz, SloMo coming off the bench, as well as either Morris or JMac backing up Conley. The Nuggets counter with Braun, Watson, Jackson and Holiday...gratefully gone are Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, who both provided a lot of value last year. No Nugget bench player is averaging more than 1.6 baskets per game in the playoffs, and Braun leads the bench with a whopping 4.4 PPG. In contrast the Wolves have NAW (12.3 PPG in the playoffs) and Naz (9.5 PPG). The Nuggets arguably have a better starting lineup, but the bench is a total mismatch. We need to wear them down.

What do others think?

[Jester1534]

The key to me is let Joker get his and do anything and everything to stop Jamal Murray.

In games Where Jamal Murray score 18pts or less the Nuggets are 12-9 and in games he score over 18 they're 36-6.

If you can Make Porter and Aaron Gordon have to beat you and if you win the Non Joker Minutes you can win this series.

[FNG]

The key to me is let Joker get his and do anything and everything to stop Jamal Murray.

In games Where Jamal Murray score 18pts or less the Nuggets are 12-9 and in games he score over 18 they're 36-6.

If you can Make Porter and Aaron Gordon have to beat you and if you win the Non Joker Minutes you can win this series.

Good stat, jester, and I agree with your premise about letting Joker get his. The Wolves seem to agree with you with their approach to defending him...don't double team him to try to take away his ability to find the open man. Holding Murray to less than 18 sounds like a tall order...Ant, NAW and Naz will have their hands full.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

I like using statmuse to parse data. Here are the stats from our games against Denver this season. If you click on each result you can see the team stats and player stats for each game.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=timb ... +2023-2024

A couple quick takeaways, and then I may try to re-watch a couple of these games.

The first game in November looks relevant because both teams were basically at full strength, while all the other games were either missing Murray or KAT. We had a big FT disparity in our favour and they were ice cold from 3. Blowout win. I might try to watch that one because everybody was on the court.

At the same time, that was a long time ago, and all the other 3 games came in a few week stretch from late March to early April. We shot the ball better in those games, especially from 2, but we also hit 13 threes in that last game (when we were cold as ice from the line). We protected the ball better in those games. Ironically, the game we turned it over more in is the game we blew them out. We got really outrebounded in the second game (an L) without Rudy and KAT, but that's not particularly relevant with them both available. We shot better than them in the 3rd game and won (Reggie Jackson was cold, although DJ came off the bench for them, turned back the clock, and give them a boost). We were still out rebounded a bit in that game with Rudy back, but not as bad. Then in the last game, Jokic just killed us with solid contributions from Murray and MPJ. Naz missed a lot of shots in that game and we couldn't rebound well enough to win.

Ok, those are just some quick takeaways. I encourage you guys to look through those stats too, to see if there's anything else worth checking out. I'll try to look at a bit of film in tomorrow.

[Q-is-here]

The key to me is let Joker get his and do anything and everything to stop Jamal Murray.

In games Where Jamal Murray score 18pts or less the Nuggets are 12-9 and in games he score over 18 they're 36-6.

If you can Make Porter and Aaron Gordon have to beat you and if you win the Non Joker Minutes you can win this series.

Yup, I agree with this approach. Make Jokic their leading scorer. Force him to work on offense versus just picking us apart off double teams. This has been reasonably successful in the past so I don't know why we'd change it now.

Porter seems to have come into his own lately and is more of a threat, so we can't discount him. He is an elite shooter. I think the ideal defense makes Jokic, KCP, and Gordon scorers. Do everything possible to lock up Murray and Porter.

[Q-is-here]

I like using statmuse to parse data. Here are the stats from our games against Denver this season. If you click on each result you can see the team stats and player stats for each game.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=timb ... +2023-2024

A couple quick takeaways, and then I may try to re-watch a couple of these games.

The first game in November looks relevant because both teams were basically at full strength, while all the other games were either missing Murray or KAT. We had a big FT disparity in our favour and they were ice cold from 3. Blowout win. I might try to watch that one because everybody was on the court.

At the same time, that was a long time ago, and all the other 3 games came in a few week stretch from late March to early April. We shot the ball better in those games, especially from 2, but we also hit 13 threes in that last game (when we were cold as ice from the line). We protected the ball better in those games. Ironically, the game we turned it over more in is the game we blew them out. We got really outrebounded in the second game (an L) without Rudy and KAT, but that's not particularly relevant with them both available. We shot better than them in the 3rd game and won (Reggie Jackson was cold, although DJ came off the bench for them, turned back the clock, and give them a boost). We were still out rebounded a bit in that game with Rudy back, but not as bad. Then in the last game, Jokic just killed us with solid contributions from Murray and MPJ. Naz missed a lot of shots in that game and we couldn't rebound well enough to win.

Ok, those are just some quick takeaways. I encourage you guys to look through those stats too, to see if there's anything else worth checking out. I'll try to look at a bit of film in tomorrow.

Drew, here are the takeaways I got from last year's playoffs and the regular season:

- Try as long as possible to play single coverage on Jokic and force him to work hard to score. Let's hope the refs don't over-protect Jokic, as you just have to get a body on him. KAT and SloMo are probably going to be the primary defenders on him. We should minimize the amount of time Naz guards Jokic because a) he's just not a good defender against other bigs, and b) I think the officials won't let him even touch him without blowing the whistle.

- Make games a living hell for Murray. Press him full court, ball denial, be physical with him even if it leads to some foul problems, never have someone not named Jaden-NAW-Ant guarding him, go at him on offense, etc. To Jester's point, they are really reliant on him to be their 1B guy.

- I think they will start Gordon guarding Ant and Porter on KAT. Gordon is a better defender than anything Phoenix threw at Ant, so Denver may not need to help as much. Can KAT make Denver pay for putting Porter on him instead of Gordon?

- Because Jokic is so valuable to the team offensively, he simply cannot get into foul trouble. As a result, he's really good at not biting on pump fakes, walling up, and generally avoiding silly fouls. However, he can be taken advantage of in first halves when he plays conservative on defense. We really want guys to be going downhill (even KAT!) and try to attack them as much as possible in the paint.

I think this is a big KAT series on both ends of the floor. While we need Ant to be the best player for us, we can't afford more than one or two mediocre or bad games from KAT. Against Phoenix, I thought he played very well in three out of four games, but was just in too much foul trouble. We need 30-35 MPG of "great KAT" in at least 4 or 5 games to take the series IMO.

[FNG]

Q, Malone has often said (as well as many of the Nuggets) that KCP is their best defender (Watson is mentioned too, but he is offensively challenged). He's often given the task of defending the opponent's best guard. So, I would be quite surprised if he doesn't start out on Ant. I see Denver going like this:

Jokic on Rudy
Gordon on KAT
Porter Jr. on Jaden
KCP on Ant
Murray on Conley

On the other side of the ball, my biggest concern is what we do with Joker if (when?) KAT gets in foul trouble. Naz hasn't been effective in the playoffs and is too small to keep him out of the paint, so I imagine SloMo would be the first option. But I recall how effective Garza was on Joker in the game all three of our centers were out. I wouldn't be completely surprised if he got some minutes if KAT gets in trouble.

[Q-is-here]

Q, Malone has often said (as well as many of the Nuggets) that KCP is their best defender (Watson is mentioned too, but he is offensively challenged). He's often given the task of defending the opponent's best guard. So, I would be quite surprised if he doesn't start out on Ant. I see Denver going like this:

Jokic on Rudy
Gordon on KAT
Porter Jr. on Jaden
KCP on Ant
Murray on Conley

On the other side of the ball, my biggest concern is what we do with Joker if (when?) KAT gets in foul trouble. Naz hasn't been effective in the playoffs and is too small to keep him out of the paint, so I imagine SloMo would be the first option. But I recall how effective Garza was on Joker in the game all three of our centers were out. I wouldn't be completely surprised if he got some minutes if KAT gets in trouble.

Yeah, I could see them match up that way too, but I wonder if Ant has too much strength for KCP and will be able to bully him, especially with the refs allowing more physicality. We'll I see I guess.

Not sure about Garza playing....I doubt Finch will go that deep into his bench.

[Q-is-here]

Yet ANOTHER one of Porter, Jr.'s brothers got in trouble. Sheesh, what a bunch of knuckleheads....

Didn't affect MPJ against the Lakers, but in the past couple of weeks he's had one brother sentenced to jail for killing someone while drunk driving; another brother banned for life from the NBA for betting on games; and now a third brother that got busted for a DWI last weekend. The latest one to me is especially egregious after his older brother literally killed someone doing the same thing.

[Leado01]

Hands straight up and move your feet KAT.

I agree that we will likely use KAT on Jokic. Isn't it ironic that in our first two series we're likely defending the oppositions best player with KAT?