Torrey Craig was once a "horrible" defender; now he's locking up DeMar DeRozan and giving the Nuggets new playoff life

SAN ANTONIO — In the playoffs, where adjustments made by coaches and players ultimately decide the outcomes of series, Michael Malone’s decision ahead of Game 4 just gave the Nuggets a new lease on their postseason lives.

After struggling through the first three games of the first-round series, Denver’s coach removed Will Barton from his starting lineup and replaced him with the defensive-minded Torrey Craig, a decision that proved to be one of Malone’s best moves from his Coach of the Year worthy 2018-19 campaign. Around 30 minutes after Denver’s 117-103 Game 4 win, a victory that returned the series momentum and home-court advantage back to the Nuggets, Craig sat at the podium as the unlikely hero of his first career playoff game where he held DeMar DeRozan to just 19 points.

“He’s a really talented player. He’s a tough cover because he’s so skilled,” said Craig. “But I just tried to be aggressive with him, just tried not to give him anything easy, tried not to let him get in a rhythm. He’s a great mid-range and mid-post player, so I was just trying to stay disciplined and make every shot tough and make him feel me the whole night. I think I did a pretty good job of that.”

After DeRozan averaged 25 points across the Nuggets’ and Spurs’ first three matchups, Malone thought Craig was Denver’s best option against San Antonio’s high-scoring guard. Moving Craig into the starting lineup would also allow Gary Harris to guard Derrick White for most of Saturday’s Game 4, which was another decision that proved to be the correct one. Harris held White, who scored a career-high 36 points, mostly on Jamal Murray in Game 3, to a series-low eight.

Craig logged 37 minutes in Game 4, the most he’s played since Jan. 23, and his physicality bothered DeRozan. Asked postgame if it felt any difference with Torrey Craig defending him, DeRozan replied with a simple, “No.”

Everyone else did. Craig did an expert job of staying attached to DeRozan Saturday. He tailed the rangy wing around and in-between San Antonio screens all night, and didn’t let him get comfortable in the mid-range areas of the floor where the Spurs’ forward prefers to operate. As he’s done all season, Craig’s defense injected an energy into the game that was absent in the Nuggets’ Game 3 loss.

“Just energy, physicality, but he’s done that all year,” Paul Millsap said of Craig. “That’s his game, and that’s our message to him, every game: Be who you are.”

What was surprising from Craig’s night was his ability to stretch the defense. Craig, a career 32% 3-point shooter, knocked in a career-high five triples on only seven attempts Saturday, continuing his hot shooting from the past two months. The University of South Carolina-Upstate product shoot better than 40% from 3 in both March and April.

The improved 3-point shot is a product of Craig’s work ethic. After his first 3 went down, a high-arcing moonball from the left corner — the same spot on the same hardwood where Spurs’ great Bruce Bowen who’s jersey hangs in AT&T Center’s rafters swished one triple after another throughout his San Antonio career — his confidence continued to grow. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around Craig was launching long-range contested daggers from well beyond the 3-point arc a season after he shot just 29.3% from 3.

“I remember saying to him last year, Bruce Bowen, a guy that played here,  guard multiple positions and he became a prolific corner 3-point shooter. You’ve got to add that to your game if you want to be in the league for a long time,” Malone said. “And then now it’s a question of if you’re going to take that message to heart. Our player development coaches do a great job. Torrey deserves the credit because he’s put the time in, so now he’s not just a one-trick pony. I can guard, but we’re playing 4-on-5 on offense. That’s not the case.”

Craig never stopped shooting this year even after he only converted on 41 of 141 (29%) 3s  over the first five months of the season. That’s not easy to do on a deep Nuggets roster that caused Craig to spend most of the season on fringes of Denver’s regular-season rotation with a relatively short leash. Organizational-wide confidence in Craig’s floor game helped him navigate those early-season struggles from long-range in the same way that it aided Millsap when the Nuggets’ starting power forward periodically lost his rhythm from 3 this year.

“Being a player who’s struggled being in that situation, I know that you have to have people around you who’s got faith in you and confidence in you. And this group has confidence in each other,” Millsap told BSN Denver. “It doesn’t matter how bad he shoots the basketball or how bad anybody shoots the basketball. We want you to continue to shoot it. You’ll shoot yourself back into it and that’s the type of team we are.”

Craig’s defense may have given the Nuggets new playoff life, but it nearly derailed the forward’s pro basketball career. Over his first three seasons at USC-Upstate, Craig admitted that he was a “horrible” defender. He only cared about scoring and maintaining the 17.2 points per game that he averaged during his junior season with the Spartans. But NBA scouts from the Magic and Pacers began to filter through his practices to get a read on Craig’s potential NBA prospects and got the message across to the 6-foot-8 forward that if he wanted to get to the next level, he had to commit on the defensive end of the floor.

During Craig’s senior season, his scoring average dipped to 16.2 points per game, but he took it upon himself to guard the opponent’s best player. Fast forward to the Nuggets’ first win in San Antonio since 2012, when Craig was a sophomore in college, and how he’s able to limit DeRozan over the rest of the series has become one of the key storylines that will determine just how far Denver can advance in the postseason.