How a smallball lineup featuring Wilson Chandler propelled Denver past Miami

Denver Nuggets’ coach Michael Malone is a man that sticks to his guns. He even said at shootaround the morning of Denver’s 95-94 win over the Miami Heat that he wouldn’t be reactionary with his rotations if the Heat stayed small and the Nuggets were finding success.

“I don’t believe in just matching up to match up,” Malone said when asked if the Heat’s smallball would prompt him to play a similarly sized lineup. “I’m not going to react because they made a change in their lineup.”

They’re doing that because obviously we’re doing something that’s giving them trouble and they’re trying to respond by going small,” he continued. “Now if our big lineup was not able to hold and we’re struggling, then I’ll definitely make the change.”

For most of three quarters, Malone stuck with his four-man frontcourt rotation. Paul Millsap and Nikola Jokic started with Kenneth Faried and Mason Plumlee backing them up. And even though Denver’s bigs were producing and Millsap and Jokic combined for 27 first-half points, the Nuggets still trailed by seven at the break.

With Denver leading 73-71 at the 1:48 mark of the third, Malone inserted Chandler for Millsap and for the first time all game, the Nuggets’ versatile 6-foot-9 swingman manned the power forward position. Denver then forced a Miami turnover on the subsequent possession when Plumlee drew a charge on James Johnson and registered two straight blocked shots on back-to-back Heat possessions holding Miami scoreless for the rest of the quarter.

The Heat then missed two long jumpers and committed one turnover over their first three possessions of the fourth before ending a three-and-a-half minute scoring drought on a Kelly Olynyk three.

“I’m a big fan of smallball,” Chandler said from his locker after he tallied 11 points on 4-9 shooting in 34 minutes.

With Chandler at the four and Denver alternating between Plumlee, Jokic, and Millsap at center, the Nuggets went on a 14-7 run to build a nine-point lead. Miami would eventually chip away and make the game close down the stretch, but Chandler’s versatility gave Denver some breathing room.

That smallball look isn’t something Denver has gone too often this season with four traditional bigs in Millsap, Jokic, Plumlee and Faried all getting playing time, but in need of a shakeup, Malone went to a familiar combination that the Nuggets found success with a year ago.

“They play quite a bit of smallball with Johnson or Winslow at the four with a big with Whiteside or Olynyk and I thought Wilson was fantastic,” Malone said. “That allowed us to switch a lot, gives us a lot of versatility on the defensive end of the floor and offensively I think Wilson’s, really probably if you ask him, more comfortable as a four. But I thought our defense overall was really good and playing small definitely helped us.

Denver was flying around on defense, switching on the perimeter and made things difficult on Miami during that stretch.

“Yeah, it’s true,” Chandler said confirming his coach’s belief that he’s most comfortable playing power forward.

Emmanuel Mudiay, who scored 12 points off the bench for Denver played well during the Nuggets’ second-half run. Eight of Mudiay’s 12 came during the third and fourth quarters and the point guard didn’t turn the ball over once during the second half after one giveaway in both the first and second quarters.

Last year, some of Denver’s most efficient lineups featured Chandler at the four alongside Danilo Gallinari. The combination of no Gallinari, no Juancho Hernangomez, who could play a similar role but remains out for the next couple of weeks with mono, and the four traditional bigs have pushed the Nuggets away from that smallball look.

“I think we have a lot of mismatches when we go small like that,” Millsap said. “I’ve played the five spot all my life so I’m familiar with it.”

Maybe after their success against Miami, the Nuggets will give those lineups another look.