The Denver Nuggets are zeroing in on Jusuf Nurkic

1. Jusuf Nurkic is the key to this series. When he is effective, the Blazers are effective. He is a +54 overall in a series that is almost perfectly even and has fouled out in all 3 of the games that the Blazers have lost. The Nuggets can’t count on him to foul out of game 6 (although they will do plenty of things to try to force him to foul) but they can limit his effectiveness on offense by being aggressive in their backside rotations in the PnR.

Watch how much ground Facu Campazzo covers on these two possessions. The Blazers are constantly placing Facu, Monte Morris, and Markus Howard into the low spot in an effort to force them to be the players that must rotate to stop Nurkic, each of them giving up up over 100 pounds to the 7-foot center. But Facu does a great job of getting over quickly and aggressively in a dead sprint, pushing Nurkic’s landing spot outside of the paint.

2. Aaron Gordon is less aggressive on these possessions but is stronger and able to bang a bit better in the paint. Still, Gordon could steal a lesson from Facu and push Nurkic’s catch a hair further up the court.

3. Markus Howard needs a lot of work on this action. Notice how he slides his feet to get over compared to Facu’s dead sprint.

4. Michael Porter is pretty good in this spot as the low man. Below he does a nice job of getting to the spot early while not over-pursuing the closeout. The deflection saves a basket.

5. If step one is getting the low man to rotate as quickly as possible to meet Nurkic outside of the paint, step two is having the next level defender prepare to “help the helper,” or split the difference between the two floor spacers or cutters furthest from the ball. The Blazers love putting Facu in the help spot and Porter in the secondary help spot where the reads are quicker and more difficult to read in real time. This is doubly true when a defense runs a well-timed exchange like in the clip below, which causes Porter and Gordon to hesitate just long enough to open up a pocket.

6. One other detail that is essential for defending Nurkic on these rolls to the basket is to force him to his left. It isn’t a fool-proof method for stopping him but his efficiency drops quite a bit when he is forced to his right hand instead of his left.

7. This is true on post-ups as well.

8. Monte Morris provided a much-needed spark on offense in game 5, scoring a playoff career-high 28 points. Monte is a much bigger threat as a scorer off of PnRs with Jokic than the team’s starter, Facu. Facu has made just 5 of 13 field goal attempts within 5 feet of the basket, the 4th worst mark out of 72 players to attempt at least 10 shots from that zone in the playoffs. The Blazers know that they can sag off of him and still contest his attempts at the rim well enough to limit his impact.

That scoring threat off of the bounce in the PnR completely changes the way the Blazers defend and puts pressure on Nurkic to defend the paint without fouling while closing out on Jokic on the pick and pop without giving up the three or the blowby.

Because of that, I expect more Monte minutes alongside Jokic in game 6.

9. The contrast on these two attempts couldn’t be more stark. On the first, Gordon turns a near-certain bucket into a low percentage fadeaway. In the second, he draws the 6th foul on Nurkic.  With Nurkic hyper aware of foul trouble in game 6, the Nuggets need Gordon to challenge Nurkic as often as possible, even if he gets his shot blocked 3 or 4 times.

10. Another way for the Nuggets to draw fouls on Nurkic is to force him to defend pindowns off ball. This is especially true when the pindown action is between Jokic and Porter. Again, the Nuggets don’t need to foul Nurkic out to win, but they do need to take him away from Jokic and/or the painted area as frequently as possible.

11. I love this play and I think it should become a staple of Denver’s offensive attack for years to come, but with one tweak. Watch how open porter gets off of the double pindown, also known as a “strong” pindown. Porter elevates into his shooting motion with so much gravity that the defense is forced to overcommit to him, leaving a wide open lane for Millsap to roll. The two weren’t ready that wrinkle on this play but it is an action straight from the Golden State Warriors playbook that would fit perfectly alongside Porter’s skillset.

12. Don’t take Jokic for granted. These would be the best pass of the career for about 99% of all centers to ever play the game at any level. Jokic threw both of them in one game.

13. Smh.