Moving from a bench role where he was counted on for 15 or 20 points a night to starting at small forward where his main responsibilities fall elsewhere, the Denver Nuggets’ first six regular season games have been an adjustment for Wilson Chandler. And while Denver still needs the swingman to shoot with confidence and act as an integral part of their offensive attack this year, he’s not needed to be the go-to scorer game-to-game like he was a year ago.
“As a starter, you got to focus more on team execution,” Chandler told BSN Denver earlier this season. “Whereas last year on the bench, I was probably the first or second option (on offense).”
Just like a car needs all of its’ parts intact and moving as one to operate at peak performance, Chandler still needs to be an effective offensive player for the Nuggets to achieve a level that’s close to the league-leading one they were playing at for the majority of last season.
Chandler has been a rock on defense so far this year for Denver but hasn’t been able to break out on the offensive end of the floor until his outing in Brooklyn, when he tallied 18 points on 7-11 shooting. Most importantly, Chandler shot 2-3 from three-point range after starting the season just 1-9 from deep.
Prior to Sunday’s resurgence, Chandler hadn’t reached double-figure scoring once this season and was shooting just 12-36 (33.3 percent) from the field. Against the Nets, Chandler shot the ball with confidence and with Denver trying to push the pace and get out on the break more often, Nuggets’ coach Michael Malone was surely happy to see both of Chandler’s threes come in transition.
“Settling down, seeing his shot go in a couple times,” Malone said after the win about what was different for Chandler against Brooklyn via AltitudeTV. “We tried to get him going, tried to go to him a few times in the post, tried to get him a wing iso, and once he saw that ball go in, I think just like Jamal (Murray), it was a relief for him and he started shooting into a much bigger basket than he had been previously.”
If you saw Chandler isolated on the wing or block like Malone mentioned postgame and wondered if that was what the Nuggets were going for on offense, it was by design. Malone has gone on record and said he’ll often look to call plays this season to get Chandler going if it looks like the forward is struggling to get involved at the start of games.
That was Malone’s strategy against Brooklyn when Chandler went scoreless in the first quarter. He called this play for the 6-foot-9 forward with just under four minutes to go in the second and after Chandler backed down the smaller Joe Harris, he responded with 15 more points over the next 22 minutes that he spent on the floor.
On the year, Denver’s ranks just 17th in offensive efficiency but they’re moving in the right direction. Prior to their win over the Nets, the Nuggets were 22nd and Denver has a matchup Monday night on a back-to-back against the Knicks — another team who like the Nets isn’t exactly known for their defense.
Meshing big men Paul Millsap and Nikola Jokic has been a work in progress for the Nuggets this season, but they’ve also had to incorporate Chandler and second-year point guard Jamal Murray into their starting lineup. The latter had his breakout game of the season against the Nets too and scored 26 points on 8-14 shooting and knocked down two jumpers from beyond the three-point line ending his streak of 16 consecutive missed threes.
Although he’ll be called upon for his defense more so than his offense this season, Denver will need performances like Sunday night’s from Chandler if they want to approach the gaudy offensive stats and efficiency that they posted last year.
