Three offensive adjustments the Nuggets can make to ensure a Game 2 victory

Nikola Jokic stared DeMar DeRozan down as he came over to apply the double-team like an outfielder looks a fly ball into his glove.

Jokic dribbled the ball twice with his right hand, surveyed the defense as he put his backside into Jakob Poeltl and like clockwork DeRozan shuffled down the lane to force the ball out of his hands. Denver’s All-Star center flung a one-handed sidewinder to Will Barton, who found himself wide open at the top of the key after DeRozan sank towards Jokic. Barton fired from 25-feet away. Bang.

The sequence developed just as the Nuggets and Jokic drew it up.

“They were going under (screens) on pretty much everything. They were double-teaming,” Jokic said after the Spurs’ 101-96 Game 1 victory. “They didn’t surprise us. I can say that.”

The same pattern was recycled time and time again over the course of Saturday’s loss. The Nuggets would enter the ball to Jokic on the block, the Spurs would send a double, and Denver’s big man would find a wide-open shooter. But Barton’s 3 early in the third quarter that cut the Spurs’ lead to five was one of only six triples the Nuggets hit that evening.

The 21.4% 3-point shooting performance was the Nuggets’ fourth-worst shooting night from 3 this season. Denver shot 5-of-17 on wide open 3s (closest defender at least six feet away) in Game 1, and went 0-9 on open triples (closest defender 4-6 feet away). Some of those open 3s will fall in Game 2, but the Nuggets can still make other small tweaks to their offensive game plan to ensure a win Tuesday night.

More first-quarter patience

The Nuggets didn’t look nervous in Game 1, but more so excited and that energy infiltrated Denver’s first two possessions of the game. First, Jamal Murray dribbled down the floor off the game’s opening tip and attempted an off-balance transition 3 on a zero-pass possession with 21 seconds left on the shot clock. Barton then took a Spurs miss the other direction for a difficult layup attempt through two San Antonio defenders on a fast break where the Nuggets didn’t have an advantage.

The Nuggets were able to settle in after a hectic first quarter, but it didn’t lead to more made shots. Still, Denver looked more comfortable as the game wore on than it did over the opening 12 minutes of play where the Nuggets shot just 29% from the field and only hit two of their nine 3-point attempts.

“After the first minute or so you get up and down you’re like, ‘OK, this is normal basketball,'” Malik Beasley said.

The Nuggets had a quick trigger later in the quarter too.

This Torrey Craig first-quarter 3 was exactly the shot San Antonio wanted Denver to take. The Spurs were glad to let Craig — a 32.4% 3-point shooter this season who actually hit 2-of-3 triples Saturday — launch fairly early into the possession too. It was natural for the Nuggets to come out tight in what was many of their first playoff games. They should have more patience in the first quarter of Game 2.

Jokic and the double-team

Dive into the advanced stats from the Nuggets’ Game 1 loss and it’s evident how impactful and involved Jokic was in his first career playoff game.

Jokic made 91 passes against the Spurs, up from the 70.5 he averaged throughout the regular season, and 35 more than Ben Simmons who made the second-most passes over the weekend’s eight Game 1’s. The All-Star center also created 32 points for the Nuggets Saturday off his 14 assists, also a league-best by a healthy margin among Game 1′s. Jokic joined Wilt Chamberlain as the only two centers with 14-plus assists in a playoff game and is the second Nugget (Fat Lever) in franchise history to record a 14-plus assist game in the postseason. If Denver had been able to shoot its season average from 3 Jokic could have flirted with 20 helpers.

But a portion of the narrative coming out of the Nuggets’ Game 1 loss was Jokic’s nine field goal attempts that led to 10 points. Michael Malone was asked postgame if he would have liked to see Jokic shoot the ball more.

“Every time he put it down there was somebody right there,” said Malone referencing how often the Spurs sent double-teams Jokic’s way. “They trapped him every time. I think Nikola has a high IQ, he’s going to make the right play and unfortunately, we didn’t make them pay for double-teaming. I think if we’re making shots it becomes a lot harder to double team him consistently. They stayed with it because we couldn’t make a shot.”

Jokic played a well-rounded floor game in the series opener. He navigated the Spurs’ double-teams perfectly, waiting for the exact moment when San Antonio’s defenders took the one extra step towards him before firing a pass to one of his shooters.

When presented with a 1-on-1 matchup Jokic looked to attack, but with how badly the Nuggets struggled from 3 and the perimeter Denver wouldn’t have been upset if its big man was a little more selfish around the hoop in Game 1 where points were at a premium.

There were times throughout Saturday’s matchup when it looked like Jokic was waiting for the double to come instead of trying to attack the basket before it arrived. Making a move on Poeltl on the possession below or trying to get to the line before the double-team came could have been a more lucrative option than a Murray 3, who at this point in the game had missed seven of his 12 field goal attempts. Still, it’s a quality look from the corner for someone who hit 37% of his triples this season.

Quicker moves around the basket before the Spurs double could get Jokic more shots from the paint in Game 2, which will be a necessity if the Nuggets continue to misfire from 3. You would have liked to see Jokic look to shoot this one too late in the fourth quarter and perhaps try to get to the free-throw line instead of dumping the ball off Millsap. Aldridge is almost playing Jokic for the pass here rather than the shot.

Run ’em up

One of the more revealing stats from Game 1 was the Nuggets’ zero fast break points. The Spurs and Nuggets played at the 22nd and 26th-slowest paces in the league respectively this season so you didn’t expect this series to be a shootout at the O.K. Corral by any means, but Game 1 was played at a crawl as San Antonio placed a premium on getting back and limiting Denver’s transition opportunities. The Nuggets and Spurs’ first matchup was the slowest paced Game 1 of the weekend.

Despite playing at a slow pace the Nuggets still averaged 12.6 fast break points per game this year which ranked 15th league-wide. But the Spurs did a good job of retreating back down the floor as soon as they shot to set up their defense, which was designed to limit transition opportunities and let the Nuggets hoist as many mid-range jumpers as they’d like. San Antonio hung its bigs back and protected the rim on most of the Nuggets’ pick-and-rolls, giving a generous cushion to Denver’s guards as they dribbled downhill and found themselves consistently wide open from around 13-17 feet. It led to the Nuggets attempting 18 mid-range shots per NBA.com Saturday. Over the course of the season, they averaged 12 per game.

The Nuggets hit a healthy 44% of their mid-range attempts in Game 1, but the Spurs were more than happy to let Denver shoot it from there. A higher number of transition opportunities in Game 2 could open up San Antonio’s defense and give the Nuggets more chances to get all the way to the rim before the Spurs are able to get set.