The Denver Nuggets are still the sole owners of the eighth seed in the Western Conference, gripping a half-game lead over the Portland Trailblazers, and now take on the Memphis Grizzlies for the second game of a back-to-back looking to extend their lead in the race for the eighth seed.
Regular season game No. 48 | Denver Nuggets (21-26) vs Memphis Grizzlies (29-21)
Pepsi Center, Denver, Colorado | 7:00 PM MST | TV: Altitude
Containing Mike Conley
The Nuggets’ largest defensive issue at this juncture in the season is their inability to keep anyone from blowing by them on the perimeter. Head coach Michal Malone has reiterated this fact over and over again and until the Nuggets find a way to disrupts guards and wings and stop playing”olè” defense they will continue to be one of the worst defenses in basketball.
In the loss to the Lakers on Tuesday night the Nuggets gave ups combined 66 points between Lou Williams, D’Angelo Russell, and Nick Young with many of those buckets coming on clean drives to the rim. Russell took advantage of the Nuggets struggles staying in front of him and feasted on Denver by using the pick and roll with Ivica Zubac over and over again. The Nuggets had no answer.
Now Denver has to deal with Mike Conley meticulously picking them apart in the pick and roll with Marc Gasol or JaMychal Green. If the Nuggets have any hope to slow the Grizzlies, who have won three of their last four games while averaging almost 107 points per game in that span.
Denver will have to rely on Gary Harris to begin stepping up on the perimeter the way he did last year and find a way to keep Conley in front of him. If the Nuggets allow Conley to do what he wants it will be a tough task to slow the Grizzlies.
Point guard rotation
With Emmanuel Mudiay set to return to the Nuggets as soon as tonight against the Grizzlies, or at some point this week, Denver will have a tough decision of how to distribute point guard minutes. It is far too early to give up on Mudiay but both Jameer Nelson and Murray have performed admirably with Mudiay missing time with back pain.
Murray is coming off of a 14 point outburst in which he showed off his innate ability to run an offense unit. Murray’s ability to understand the pace of the game and know when to force the issue or make the simple pass is beyond his years. Taking him out of his natural point guard position and relegating him to being a spot-up shooter may limit his development and it seems he has forced Malone to play him back up point guard minutes.
Malone has to figure out the best recipe to keep the Nuggets contending while also developing potential future pillars of the organization. Murray has forced his way into the rotation so if that means that Mudiay plays closer to 20 minutes a night as opposed to 30+ then so be it. Murray has shown the ability to help Nuggets secure wins and that needs to be developed and encouraged. Look for Murray to continue playing more minutes at point guard regardless if Mudiay is in the lineup or not.
