Is this the secret to breaking the Denver Nuggets defense?

Key Highlights

• The regular season is important, in part, because it gives us glimpses of schemes/tactics that could be used in the playoffs
• Michael Porter Jr. is a better low man defender than Jamal Murray
• If you attack Jamal Murray on defense, you can defang the Murray/Jokic two-man tandem

A common complaint I hear from people who refrain from watching the NBA for a majority of the season is that the regular season is too long and largely inconsequential, and that the real action doesn’t unfold until the playoffs. And while it is true that a team like the Miami Heat can go from mediocre in the regular season to world-beater in the postseason, I largely resent this line of thinking.

That train of thought is akin to someone saying that the only part of movies that matters is the very end. And let’s be clear: if you only watch the end of movies, there is no helping you.

But for us regular folk, the beginning and middle portions of films are littered with subtle plot points that help guide us toward the final resolution. They give us hints about how it will all end and provide us with a reason to stick along (usually via emotional attachment to the characters) until the final credits role.

Why The Regular Season Matters

Bringing this all back to professional basketball, the NBA regular season (if you watch closely enough) provides teams with a chance to lay little strategic eggs that may end up being very relevant during the game’s second season.

Along with fighting for postseason eligibility, teams use the regular season to test out certain coverages/schemes against specific players/opponents. And sometimes, other teams identify these tactics and use them against that same team/player in a playoff series. After all, it is a copycat league.

And despite ultimately losing their Christmas Day showdown against the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors may have provided a blueprint for “breaking” the defending champion’s rock-solid defense.

Some Much Needed Context

Nikola Jokic, for all that he does well, is not a horizontally or vertically gifted defender. That means that the Nuggets typically can’t deploy him in switch or drop coverages.  So, their base coverage involves Jokic playing at the level of screens.

The good news with that is that at the level coverage gives you a lot of the benefits provided by switch and drop schemes without their drawbacks (but that’s a different topic for a different article). The bad news is that this coverage comes with the highest degree of difficulty.

Denver seems to have conquered this daunting task, as evidenced by their tenth-ranked defense. Some of this is due to Jokic’s great hands and Head Coach Michael Malone’s guidance (the Nuggets’ defense rotates well and plays with a ton of effort). But a large part of their success is because of the size Michael Porter Jr. offers at the low man position.

Porter has never been a great defender, but his length (6’10 with a 7’0 wingspan) makes him adept at tagging rollers from the low man spot. And his unique abilities are what make the Nuggets better than most other teams who run a high volume of at the level coverage (like the Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings).

It’s All About The Details

Anyway, early on against the Warriors, he was continuing to star in this defensive role. Making plays around the rim like this:

But later on in the game – whether they were doing so intentionally or not – the Warriors started aligning their offensive players in a way that made Jamal Murray the individual occupying the low man spot. And considering the fact that Murray is significantly smaller than Porter (6’4 with a 6’6 wingspan), his low man defense just doesn’t hit the same.

This adjustment is meaningful for two reasons: 1) it makes the Denver’s at the level coverage far less effective (Murray contesting shots is less impactful than Porter doing so), and 2) it puts Murray in foul trouble.

During the Christmas Day game, Murray picked up four fouls through three quarters. This limited him to just under 33 minutes in a very competitive contest (the second-lowest total of any of the Nuggets’ starters). For some reason, the Warriors didn’t try attacking Murray in this way too much in the fourth quarter. But the point still remains.

By manipulating the floor so that Murray is in the low man spot instead of Porter, you can hurt the Nuggets’ defense, and their offense. You see, by putting Murray in foul trouble and limiting his minutes, you also solve the Jokic/Murray two-man riddle. A dynamic that (so far) no team has been able to find a true answer for.

As we already mentioned, even with this strategic wrinkle on their side, the Warriors still fell to the Nuggets. However, this year’s Warriors’ team is just a middling bunch (15-15) who was playing without their second-best player. But what will happen if a better/healthier team tries a more focused version of this tactic on the Nuggets in a playoff series? Who knows, maybe this will be the factor that ultimately decides the 2024 NBA champion.

Now do you think the regular season is important?