Crowded paint, creative play design, and a passing savant

1. Some turnovers are solely the result of a sloppy play or a missed reads. Others are heavily influenced by poor spacing that allows the defense to double the passer, crowd passing lanes, and eliminate large portions of the court. The turnover below is a great example of how easy the Nuggets are to defend when they place non-shooters alongside each other on the weakside and don’t build in counters to make the defense pay for clogging up the paint.

2. One way to better space the court is to place Aaron Gordon in a spot where he commands a lot of gravity: the dunker. Below, you can see how little of an effect he has on the spacing when he is in the corner.

3. Jokic’s passing is a gift to the world.

4. Michael Porter Jr. running off of a Jokic DHO or pindown and elevating into his shooting motion will create a real sophie’s choice for the defense. Jump out at him and you let Jokic slip to the basket, like in the example below. Don’t jump out at him and it’s an open 15-footer for one of the league’s best shooters.

5. Speaking of unguardable actions, this play has generated A+ looks every single time the Nuggets have run it over the last 10 games.

6. One of the keys of Jokic-ball is offensive rebounds that are created when the defense is stretched out on the perimeter. It isn’t effective to just send a bunch of bodies to the glass on any given possession. That type of offensive rebounding leaves the team vulnerable in transition. But if you drag the rim protector out onto the perimeter and force the rest of the team to scramble to rotate and guard the perimeter, the paint is open for one or two players to crash the glass.

7. Aaron Gordon has great size and strength to be a threat on quick-hitting duck ins. You probably don’t want him taking too many slow, deliberate post-ups but quick hitters like this are great.

8. Michael Porter Jr. needs to improve his strength but he also has the tools to be an elite duck in threat.

9. Here are two great examples of Will Barton and Porter using solid timing and cutting/driving angles to force a switch.

10. Porter still needs to improve his court awareness. In this clip, he drags the center back to Jokic, allowing the defense to switch back to their preferred defensive assignments. Jokic is clearly frustrated by it.

11. The Nuggets have run some variation of this play where they get one big clearing out and the other stepping up into a PnR. What makes this play interesting is that to get to the PnR, the Nuggets place JaMychal Green in the “Iverson” spot to setup the play. I would wager this is one of the only times in Green’s career that he has made this Iverson cut to start a play.

12. There are two great examples of high-low passes in this clip. The first is from Gordon who has great touch on these passes and the size to always see over the defense. This should become a real weapon for the Nuggets since Jokic is impossible to defend if you can punish defenses for fronting him.

The second clip is a great example of a weakside big flashing to the foul line to open up a high-low opportunity.

13. Porter is so light on his feet and so bouncy that he is able to contest shots at the rim that completely surprise opponents.

14. This is a weekly reminder that C Corner, one of the Nuggets’ staple actions, generates good looks even when the defense reads and defends the play correctly.

15. These two clips provide a great example of how there is a counter offensively for everything a team does defensively. In the first clip, the Nuggets catch Jakob Poeltl with a sneaky backscreen that leads to a shot at the rim. In the second clip, Poeltl jumps into the paint anticipating the backscreen but instead Jokic flares out to the wing and the screen is set in front of Poeltl.