There is a play from last preseason that has stuck in my mind all year long. In it, Aaron Gordon set a ball screen for Nikola Jokic, forcing a switch and catching Karl-Anthony Towns who jumped on the high side of the screen, leaving a wide open paint for Gordon to roll to the basket for an easy dunk. Gordon freezes for a moment, and misses the window for the pass.
Characteristically, Jokic doesn’t hide his displeasure.
Fast forward a year and 5-4 PnRs have become a staple of the Denver Nuggets playbook. The Nuggets run this action in a variety of unique ways, with different setups and floor spacing. But for any action to become unstoppable, the participants must first learn how to adjust to every variable the defense can throw at you. If the on ball defender jumps high, as they did in the first video, then the roll should happen immediately. If the defender goes deep under the screen, pin them below.
Over the course of last season, Gordon and Jokic developed a nice chemistry on this action and learned a variety of reads and counters to make on the fly in order to punish whatever choice the defense makes. For example, in the clip below from last season, Kevon Looney denies Jokic the ball in an effort to blow up a potential PnR. Gordon reads it and becomes the release valve, allowing Jokic to run an impromptu “blind pig” backdoor action which Gordon reads. Even more impressive is that Jokic sets Looney up to the right before running off of the handoff to the left, forcing Looney to take the long route to the paint before conceding the layup.
These reads are simple enough in concept but difficult once you account for the dozens of micro differences and possibilities each possession creates. Chemistry is often a team’s ability to collectively read and react to those micro differences in micro seconds.
But those reads become simplified as the margin for error widens. Michael Porter Jr. represents the widening of that margin for error. On Friday, Denver ran the same action that they ran in the first clip above. “5-4 Knicks,” a version fo the 5-4 PnR that spaces the court with a single shooter on the weak side wing forcing a single defender to rotate over to help on the rolling Gordon. This action was effective last season with Will Barton and Austin Rivers as the single side floor spacer. But once you replace those two with Porter Jr., the backside helper is placed in a lose-lose conundrum.
Porter misses the shot but the film certainly shows the coaching staff an action that should generate wide open looks for Porter Jr., wide open dunks for Gordon, or wide open drives for Jokic. And once you replace Bruce Brown with Jamal Murray, the number of favorable outcomes off of a single, basic, and simple action increases exponentially.
This is perhaps the most promising thing to come out of the preseason; Denver’s ability to put defenses in compromising situations off of entry actions. Defenses are hesitant to switch a guard onto Porter Jr. because he is tall enough to shoot over them. They are reluctant to switch a guard onto Gordon because he is strong and athletic enough to finish over them or out-rebound them. So a simple splits action off of an elbow entry forces defenses to show on the back screen rather than switch.
It’s just a slight show by Andrew Wiggins but it’s enough for the 6-10 Porter to release to the three-point line and elevate for an unblockable three-point shot. One action. Two passes. Three points.
That is the thing that stood out the most through three preseason games with Jokic, Gordon, and Porter Jr. on the court together. It was evident 2 years ago when the trio established a 122.2 offensive rating in a little under 600 minutes together. And has only become more more obvious now that Jokic has evolved into a two-time MVP and Gordon and Porter have begun to figure out where they fit within the flow of the Denver Nuggets offense.
