Nuggets Film Room: Why couldn't Denver defend the three-point line?

The Denver Nuggets have shown steady improvement in three seasons under head coach Michael Malone. When Malone got to Denver in 2015, he was tasked with clearing away the smoldering wreckage left over from the Brian Shaw era and constructing something new. The Nuggets won 33 games in Malone’s first season, 40 in his second and 46 in year three. They’ve come a long way since an ESPN writer skewered them as a “rudderless” organization in November 2014.

The Nuggets are pointed in the right direction now. But to get where they really want to go — snapping a five-year playoff drought is the first step — they need to show they can adequately defend the shot that’s becoming a bigger and bigger part of the game every year: the three-pointer.

Opponents sank 37.8 percent of their three-point attempts against Denver in 2017-18, the highest mark in basketball. That was nearly identical to the 37.5 percent opponents shot from behind the arc in 2016-17 and the 37.0 percent they shot from deep in 2015-16. The Nuggets have done a pitiful job of defending the three-point line under Malone’s watch. If that doesn’t change, the odds are they’re watching the first round of the playoffs at home again in 2019 instead of participating in them.

The Nuggets don’t have the length or athleticism to snuff out threes like the Celtics or 76ers; Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic couldn’t survive playing either team’s switch-heavy brand of basketball at this point in their careers. But Denver could at least defend the three-point line respectably by being more focused and tweaking its scheme.

Too much help, too slow closing out

There are few things Malone seems to despise more than opponents scoring in Denver’s paint. In his post-game addresses, points in the paint is high on the list of statistics that Malone likes to rattle off to quantify how his team performed. You can almost see the steam coming out of his ears after games after games when Denver gets sliced up inside.

In an effort to prevent that from happening, the Nuggets like to pack the paint with bodies to dissuade ball handlers from knifing to the rim or hitting the roll man. Watch how much help Paul Millsap and Will Barton provide on this pick and roll involving Russell Westbrook and Jerami Grant.

The Nuggets clump together inside like grapes on a vine as Westbrook heads downhill. That gives Alex Abrines, a 38.0 percent three-point shooter, more than enough space to get a clean look off.

The Thunder drilled 20 three-pointers in that March 30 game — identical to the numbers of treys the Miami Heat connected on 11 days earlier against Denver. The Nuggets endured one of their toughest losses of the season March 19 against Miami. They shot a blistering 18 for 38 from three-point territory but still lost in double overtime because they allowed the Heat to go 20 for 36 from deep.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Denver watched its six-point lead get sliced in half when long-range specialist Wayne Ellington knocked down a wide-open look from the right side of the floor.

Ellington got free because the Nuggets were so worried about the threat of James Johnson diving to the basket. Wilson Chandler over helped and couldn’t get back to Ellington until it was too late.

Generating clean three-point looks was not a difficult task against the Nuggets. Shooters hung out along the perimeter when Denver packed the paint and took advantage. Dirk Nowitzki, who in the twilight of his career has embraced the nickname “Big Mummy,” lit the Nuggets up for 17 points on 11 shots on March 6.

It’s never a good sign when you’re getting roasted by a player compares himself to someone who’s been artificially preserved for thousands of years.

Denver often relied on this conservative pick and roll coverage when Jokic was on the floor. It’s possible Malone was worried about Jokic getting beat in space. Trusting Jokic to hold his own in pick and roll coverages could help Denver defend the three-point line better. Jokic must also show he’s deserving of that trust. He’ll need to do a better job of learning to help and recover because constantly giving up looks like these are hurting his team.

Mental mistakes

In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Boston Celtics limited the high-scoring Cleveland Cavaliers to 83 points. They frustrated the Cavaliers not only by switching ball screens but by also switching again when Cleveland tried to exploit mismatches.

via GIPHY

Watch Marcus Morris slide along the baseline to take Terry Rozier’s place to check Kevin Love. Strategy such as this requires all five players on the floor to be in lockstep with one another; there’s no margin for error. It’s difficult to imagine a team as undisciplined as Denver pulling something like this off.

The Nuggets committed so many unforced errors. They went under screens when they should’ve gone over. Josh Richardson, a career 37.8 percent three-point shooters, cans one here when Chandler lets James Johnson get between them.

It wasn’t uncommon to see Denver players fall asleep off the ball. In the clip below, Murray completely turns his back on Yogi Ferrell, violating a basketball rule — see both man and the ball — that’s about as old as James Naismith himself.

Another basic basketball principle: close out with your hands up. Barton fails to do so here, and Goran Dragic makes him pay for it.

Denver made a number of embarrassing defensive mistakes during that double-overtime loss to the Heat in March. How many times do you have to get burned on a simple dribble handoff on the opening seconds of a possession before you figure it out?

Perhaps the sting of narrowly missing out on the postseason two years in a row will make the Nuggets hungrier, more focused. They clamped down to allow 106.8 points per 100 possessions during their final seven games of the season when they were fighting for their playoff lives.

“You can always say you can buckle down, but you actually have to do it,” said Torrey Craig, who was one of the few plus defenders on Denver’s roster. “I guess during that six-game win streak we had nothing to lose. Our backs were against the walls. So we just came out and competed and played as hard as we could to give us a chance. There was a motive to play good defense.”

The Nuggets need to figure out a way to play with that desire over the course of 82 games. They don’t need to develop into a top-10 defense to make the playoffs. They just need to be somewhere in the middle of the pack. They won’t get there if opponents are lighting them up from behind the three-point line for a fourth season in a row.

“To be a playoff team and a good team, you’ve got to have that balance,” Millsap said. “We want to have that balance offensively and defensively. We want to be good on both ends. We showed some flashes of that this year. With the talented guys we have, we still feel like we can do that.”