No one is this bad on defense

1. There are complexities to the game of basketball and there are subtleties hidden in the tiny details of how an NBA team structures their defense. But few of those subtleties matter when a team is as incapable of keeping the ball out of the paint as the Denver Nuggets were against Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night.

2. One rule of thumb when a player has the ball on the low block is to never cut behind them toward the same side corner. Bol does that here and it leads to a Nikola Jokic turnover.

3. Facu Campazzo does so many of the little things at an elite level.

4. Both Jokic and Jamal Murray took unnecessary gambles that failed and led to easy buckets for the Hawks.

5. While the Denver Nuggets backcourt looked awful against the Hawks, Zeke Nnaji stood out for how well he read the rotations defensively. Extremely impressive defensive performance from Zeke.

6. Sometimes the game broadcast will pick up Michael Malone screaming out something that provides a little insight into the team’s coverage or play calls. In the clip below, you can hear him giving his team a heads up about Atlanta’s play call and then calling out the team’s PnR coverage.

7. RJ Hampton has a great first step and he knows how to use it.

8. Jamal Murray was horrible defensively in this game.

9. But he was in his bag offensively.

10. I thought that Jokic did a great job of looking for Michael Porter Jr. on offense throughout this game.

11. Porter’s ability to cover a lot of ground is underrated, especially when he is the low man in help.

12. This is the most frustrating call in the NBA and it is one that the league needs to fix.