"Do your job": How the short-handed, injury-riddled Nuggets are staying afloat

Michael Porter Jr. didn’t feel like playing basketball on Sunday. The news of Kobe Bryant’s death had filtered through the Nuggets locker room only about an hour before Denver was set to take on the Houston Rockets. It left Porter and his teammates devastated.

The tragedy was stunning. Bryant, a hero to many on the Nuggets and throughout the league, was gone. A helicopter crash in Calabasas, California took his life along with his daughter, 13-year-old Gianna, and seven others. The emotions were still too raw. The loss of Bryant felt too wide-reaching. Basketball seemed unimportant.

But Porter and his teammates played. Monte Morris said it was what Bryant would have wanted.

“I tried to go out there and play for him,” Morris said. “It was hard, but me knowing him, his mentality would have been the same.”

Two and a half hours later the Nuggets, who were without two starters — Jamal Murray and Paul Millsap along with key reserve Mason Plumlee — put the finishing touches on a crucial win over the James Harden-loss Rockets. The victory was significant. Denver evened the season series with Houston at 2-2 and prevented the Rockets from clinching the head-to-head tiebreaker which could have decided playoff seeding if the two teams finished the regular season with the same record. Currently, seeds 2-7 in the cluttered West are separated by just 5 1/2 games.

Even without Harden it was an impressive win. Russell Westbrook came into Sunday’s matchup averaging better than 33 points over his last seven games, and Denver still had to slow Clint Capela and Eric Gordon who had hurt the Nuggets in the past.

Denver pieced together a workmanlike win. Nikola Jokic logged 38 minutes and recorded his ninth triple-double of the season. Jerami Grant finished with a season-high 25 points on 8 of 12 shooting and sunk all three of his triples in arguably his best showing of the season. Torrey Craig, who played timely defense and provided some needed offense with Murray and Millsap out, tallied seven points and is averaging 12 points per game over his last three outings. Porter and Morris both played big roles off Denver’s bench in the 117-110 win.

The Nuggets didn’t play great defense Sunday but locked in when it mattered, holding the Rockets to 21 points in the fourth quarter and turning Houston over seven times.

It was synonymous with the hard hat, bend but don’t break mentality Denver has adopted as of late. The Nuggets haven’t had their opening night starting lineup since Jan. 6 but managed to go 7-3 in their last 10 games while missing two starters. The Nuggets also went 2-2 down three starters — Murray, Millsap and Gary Harris — earlier this month.

The injuries couldn’t have come at a worse time in their schedule. The Nuggets played three-straight back-to-backs over a six-game stretch earlier this month and still have their toughest back-to-back of the season — at home versus Utah and at Milwaukee less than 24 hours later — to come on Thursday and Friday.

Michael Malone has had a simple message to his players while playing short-handed, the same one he delivered last season when the Nuggets were without two and three starters for a period of time: no excuses, do your job.

“This is my fifth year here and I think every year we’ve had injuries where we’ve had valuable players miss a number of games,” Malone said. “I think it’s always an approach. If I sit here in front of you guys and say, ‘Woe is me. We’ve got injuries. How are we going to win?’ That trickles down to the locker room. And you’ve never heard me say that and you never will. Our attitude always is find a way, no excuses.

“If Jamal is out, well that gives Will, Monte, P.J. a chance to run the team. If Paul and Mason are out that gives Vlatko, Vando, Jerami, whoever else chances to get backup five minutes. Do your job, as simple as that. Go out there and do your job and I think our guys have done a great job with that over an extended period of time.”

That’s what the Nuggets did against the Rockets. They did their job.

“He’s going to find him”

We’ve hit on the burgeoning chemistry between the Nuggets’ interim starting frontcourt while Millsap remains sidelined (that’s assuming he returns to the starting lineup when healthy) often on all DNVR platforms over the last several weeks, and Denver’s latest win was another example of a two-man pairing that’s getting more and more comfortable playing with one another by the game. Sunday’s matchup represented the 10th consecutive game that Jokic and Grant have started next to one another and on the season the duo has logged 575 minutes together.

In those minutes the Nuggets are sporting a poor -4.5 Net Rating, but that number is trending up. Over the last 10 games, Denver has only been outscored by 1.4 points per 100 possessions with Jokic and Grant on the floor together. The negative Net Rating has a lot to do with the Nuggets’ most-used lineup over this latest stretch — the Morris-Barton-Craig-Grant-Jokic five man unit — which has started four of the last 10 games and is getting outscored by an average of 13 points per 100 possessions across 76 total minutes.

“The more they play, the more it continues to improve, the more comfortable they get,” Malone said of the Jokic/Grant combo. “Nikola’s playmaking and his unselfish mindset, who wouldn’t want to play alongside an guy like that where if you space the floor, if you cut, if you move, he’s going to find him.”

In their win Sunday, Jokic assisted on five of Grant’s eight baskets and Jokic set up Grant on all three of his triples. Their half-court chemistry is starting to shine, and how the two are playing off one another in transition has been exciting too.

Watch Grant signal to Jokic just as he’s crossing half-court and while his defender Danuel House Jr. has his back turned that he’s going to slip the screen and run towards the rim. Jokic can do the rest.

Jokic and Grant’s transition chemistry also showed up two nights earlier in New Orleans, when a Grant drag screen early in a second quarter possession resulted in the long-limbed forward catching another lob from Jokic at the rim.

“I put Nikola in every action conceivable,” said Malone. “When Nikola can bring the ball up court in transition and Jerami can set a drag screen and now Jerami’s on the rim. You’re going from your starting center to your starting power forward for a lob dunk. Not many teams have that capability but those two, the more they play, the more comfortable they get and it’s been really fun to watch.”

More than just a scorer

“I think he’s an underrated playmaker,” Malone said of Porter earlier this month. “The great thing is I think he’s showing everybody that hey, I’m not just a scorer, I’m not just an elite scorer. He’s proving he’s a very, very effective rebounder. His defensive discipline has really improved and gets better almost every game. Offensively, yeah he can create his own shot whenever he wants but when he draws two to the ball he’s very unselfish and he finds the open man He’s a complete basketball player and that’s why his future is so bright.”

Halfway through Porter’s rookie season I’m completely sold on him as a scorer and three-point threat. He puts the ball in the hoop as effortlessly as any rookie that I’ve watched since Kevin Durant and as a shooter, Porter has been the Nuggets’ top long-range marksman since he began getting more consistent playing time post-Christmas Day. Porter is shooting a team-best 42.9% from 3 since Dec. 26 and has the second-best field goal percentage (52.2%) on the Nuggets behind only Plumlee since that point in the schedule.

Porter has tallied at least 15 points in five of his last six games and is shooting 53.8% from three-point range over that stretch. On the season, he has a 60.1 Effective Field Goal Percentage and if Porter plays in more than 60 games this season (Porter would have to appear in 25 of Denver’s final 36 games to breach that mark) and continues on his current pace, he’ll become just the fifth rookie in Basketball Reference’s database (Mitchell Robinson, Steve Johnson, Otis Thorpe, and Plumlee) to record at least a 60 EFG% and play in more than 60 games in his first season.

But enough about his efficient scoring. Porter, as Malone eluded to, is doing work as a rebounder this year. Here’s a quick outline of his rookie season on the glass so far.

• Porter’s 21.6 Defensive Rebound Percentage ranks second in the entire league among all non-power forwards and centers behind only Luka Doncic. That mark ranks first among all rookies.
• Porter’s 14.3 Total Rebound Percentage is also first among rookies who are playing at least 12 minutes per game.

He knows how to use his 6-foot-10 frame. Four of Porter’s nine rebounds against Houston came on the offensive glass. But check out this defensive board from Sunday where Porter overwhelms P.J. Tucker with his size.

And about Porter’s defense, he is improving as Malone said. Personally, I have no doubt that because of his length and pure basketball instinct that Porter can eventually be an average to above average defender.

His length is really giving opponents trouble. Tucker would normally go up for an uncontested right-handed layup here but senses Porter on his back and goes to the other side of the basket for an awkward jump-hook, which Porter also contested.

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Three-card Monte

Maybe Morris is just more comfortable off the bench? He started at point guard for Murray during the first three games that he missed and shot just 8 of 28 (28.6%) from the floor. Morris has come off the bench in the Nuggets’ last three games with Murray still out and posted stronger numbers, shooting 15 of 30 (50%) from the field. His assist numbers have been steady throughout.

From beyond the arc, Morris is red-hot. He’s shooting 39.8% from three-point range on the season and has converted on seven of his last 15 attempted from distance. Morris is playing like one of the best backup point guards in the league again.