“The List” is a brand new series that serves as a companion piece for the “Notebook” episodes of the Locked on Nuggets podcast and the DNVR Nuggets podcast. In this edition, I share some notes on a concerning collapse against the Sacramento Kings.
1. Gary Harris exploded for 18 points in the first quarter, setting a season-high in just 11:07 of play thanks to plays like the examples below. Pay attention to the way that Buddy Hield positions himself to trail Harris off of the handoff with Nikola Jokic. Harris reads Hield’s commitment to trail the handoff so he makes a quick curl cut toward the basket.
2. Jamal Murray is an under rated post defender for a guard.
3. “Single-side tags” refer to the situations when a defense is forced to send help on the pick-and-roll (PnR) from a help-side defender who is alone on one side of the court. The single-side tag guy is alone on an island guarding his man but is forced to choose between helping the rolling big or sticking close to his man, usually a spot-up three-point shooter. Forcing a defense into a single-side tag is akin to placing a chess player in checkmate. There are no good options. You can only pick your poison. So to prevent these situations, on-ball defenders must recognize those situations early and try to force the ball-handler away from the PnR.
4. Defense at the NBA level can be incredibly complicated. Every player on the court is a threat to shoot, drive, or pass so defenders must make multiple reads in quick succession.
5. One of my biggest pet peeves in basketball.
6. Will Barton has been great defensively this year but he made a critical error in the final minutes of regulation when he left Hield open on the wing. Hield had been struggling with his three-point shot through three and a half quarters but got this open look to go and then hit another one shortly after.
7. The last play of overtime was a failure of execution and game plan.
0 Comments (2 conversations)
chmorley
Great article, Adam.
Ready to move on to the next game.
fgzo12
Adam, on that last play at end of OT where Jamal ran under the basket near the baseline…
I realize that the play called for him to look for Barton on the baseline after the screen from Gary and the play was not a great design and left no outs for Jamal, but do you think that he should have/could have just improvised? He may have had a shot off the PnR (although not a great one), almost behind Jokic, instead of waiting to come off the screen. I know Jamal doesn’t know that the play would be a disaster like it was until he ran through it but i think he had a window at 4.0 – 4.2 seconds remaining on the clock where they were switching where he could have fired up a 3 during their switch. You’ve mentioned his footwork (or lack thereof) often times is an issue when trying to take these types of 3’s of of a PnR. Is this yet another example? Jamal wasn’t prepared to improvise and take this shot because he was so focused on the play (which didn’t have enough time after it failed for Jamal to do anything anyway). Had he prepared better to potentially take this shot, he could have just abandoned the play. (Doesn’t matter now of course, but i’m curious if you see this).