BROOKLYN — As the Denver Nuggets filed into the visiting locker room after the 105-102 loss to the Brooklyn Nets in Barclays Center on Sunday night, they did so with a near consensus understanding of why they just dropped their fourth game in five days. The Nets had their way in the paint, to the tune of a 66-22 advantage and their head coach wasn’t pleased with the effort.
“They dominated in the paint,” Michael Malone said. “That third quarter was a joke. They had, I think, 26 of their 29 in the paint. It seemed like it was layup lines out there. We took away the three-point line, but there was no resistance at the rim.”
The Nets are a drive-and-kick team, one that gets nearly 40% of their shots at the paint, and a similar percentage from three. They force the defense to pick their poison. Denver picked the paint.
“Same thing that happened in the Boston game,” replied Malone when asked why Brooklyn was able to dominate down low. “One-on-one containment. Some of it was pick-and-roll, we adjusted our coverage because of their three-point shooting, (and) that allowed their guards to get downhill and we had little presence at the rim. All night long, it was easy layup after easy layup.”
When discussing rim protection, the casual fan’s inclination is to blame the rim protector. But Denver’s rim protector, Nikola Jokić, was a sitting duck in the lane for most of the game as the guards struggled to contain one-on-one, and hard closeouts on a strong three-point shooting team weren’t followed by multiple efforts.
“You’ve got to make multiple efforts,” backup point guard Monte Morris said in the visitor’s locker room. “When you run the guy off, and somebody steps, you’ve got the have that guy’s back. It’s everybody being linked as one, and if you make two efforts, we’ve to make that third effort. We knew going in they were a good team who could make you scramble. So we just should have brought it a little more.”
Another factor in the lack of paint protection may have been the lack of Jokić’s de facto bodyguard on the defensive end. Millsap played just 8:20 in the second half, as Jerami Grant and Juancho Hernangomez logged 15:32 and 12:37, respectively.
“I don’t have the answer,” Jamal Murray told the media when asked what is required to do a better job of protecting the paint. “I just know there are too many layups. I’m on the court, and I’m taking the ball out of the net four and five times in a row. As I said, if we’ve to take a foul, if we’ve got to box somebody out harder, I don’t know. But it was just too easy for them all night.”
Jokić echoed Murray’s uncertainty, telling the media he’s not sure why they’ve struggled in that regard for two consecutive games now. “Hopefully, the coaches know,” he said plainly.
But there’s a difference between an explanation for a loss and a trend. Morris pointed out after the game that this hasn’t been a problem for what’s been a top-tier defense for most of the season:
“We’ve protected the paint before with big athletes like (Spencer) Dinwiddie and things like that,” he said. “We just have to figure it out. Every game is different. Personnel is different. We knew they had a lot of shooting but they were trying to bait us with their low man with Jarret Allen and DeAndre (Jordan), so every game is different. But I don’t see it being a continuous trend. … it was just one of those nights when we didn’t execute our game plan and play Nuggets defense.”
Morris is right that this hasn’t been an issue, but that might be what makes the loss particularly frustrating. The problem seems to change from game-to-game.
Denver is off to a solid regular-season start—14-7 is nothing to sniff at, but it’s nothing to write home about either for a team that has made it clear they have bigger expirations than a second-round exit this season. Denver wants to win a title. They have not looked up to that task as we’ve just passed the unofficial first quarter mark of the regular season.
Earlier in the year, the Nuggets couldn’t knock down their threes. They attempted a season-high 42 in this game and hit 18 of them. But wouldn’t you know, they scored just 22 points in the paint as they struggled to get to the rim and finish once doing so.
“Let’s be honest, we don’t have a lot of one-on-one breakdown guys,” Malone told reporters after the game. “That’s not the makeup of our roster. We’re a team that wants to execute and move the ball and then look to attack. I thought offensively the 18 threes were great, 25 assists not bad, but inside the three-point line, we really struggled to finish and make shots. So we will have to try and be better heading out to Philly to close out this road trip.”
There have been so few complete games from this team that instill confidence in a deep playoff run. And the few we’ve seen haven’t jumpstarted any continued stretch of complete basketball. If it isn’t the three-point shooting, it’s the simple looks at the rim. If it isn’t an aerial assault by the opposition, it’s been an ass-kicking in the paint.
The Nuggets are playing whack-a-mole right now, and the rotation is changing on a game-to-game basis as Malone scrambles to plug each new leak that’s sprung.
Morris and the Nuggets may be confident that they’ll find a way to fix the latest issue, but how sure can we be that will jumpstart sustained success?
There’s no need to grab a reading from the proverbial panic meter at 14-7. There’s no need to even bring it down from the attic. But something isn’t quite right with this team, and the lack of an easy answer might be what’s most concerning of all.
