The Denver Nuggets defense and the most valuable shots in basketball
By Max Carlin
The Denver Nuggets’ curious relationship with basketball’s most valuable shots could have dire consequences for the team’s defensive ceiling.
Basketball is a war of efficiency. If you can use your possessions more efficiently than your opponent, you win. If not, you don’t.
Certain shots are inherently more efficient than others, and one can often intuit which those are. An open shot, on average, produces more points than a closely contested one; a shot closer to the rim produces more than one farther away.
Among the innumerable types of shots, two stand alone as the most inherently efficient: corner 3s and shots at the rim. Logically, you’d want to maximize your attempts from these locations. Some teams, like the Houston Rockets, have taken that to the extreme:
Unsurprisingly, the approach works. Houston’s offensive rating of 108.4 is tied for third-highest this year. A comparably aggressive approach last year generated the league’s second-highest offensive rating of 111.8.
As defenses would prefer not to turn all opponents into the juggernaut that is the Houston Rockets, it follows that they’d aim to minimize attempts of the inherently efficient variety.
This season, the Denver Nuggets have clearly taken that directive to heart. Through 11 games, the Nuggets’ opponents are attempting a league-low 27.5 percent of shots at the rim.
The Nuggets aren’t letting opponents get to the rim; they’ve taken away one of the two most efficient shots in basketball, quite the achievement for a team that had the league’s second-worst defensive rating last season.
The catch? There are two fundamentally more efficient shots, and the Nuggets are allowing the second-most attempts from the corners. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, the two shots are inextricably linked:
As Miami Heat guard Josh Richardson drives into the paint, he gets swarmed. There are four Nuggets in the paint. Of course, he’s not going to shoot it. Instead, he kicks to a wide open Justise Winslow for the most valuable shot in basketball.
This phenomenon was far from isolated to that play:
As Goran Dragic drives, four Nuggets again stand between the ball and the rim. No one in his right mind — except maybe Russell Westbrook — is thinking, “Yep, looks like a good time to attack the rim.” Dragic, therefore, dishes to a wide open Wayne Ellington in the corner.
What’s more, the consequences of packing the paint extend beyond the corner 3s. The Nuggets are allowing the third-most wide open threes, which is easy to understand through possessions like this:
Caris LeVert has a good look from the corner, but dishes to Sean Kilpatrick with miles of room. As seems customary for the Nuggets, four defenders stand between a driving Spencer Dinwiddie and the rim prior to the initial kick to the corner.
Or take this one, in which three Nuggets swarm noted high-flying, rim-attacker Kelly Olynyk:
Not only are both Nikola Jokic and Mason Plumlee at the rim, certainly providing enough defense against fearsome Olynyk, but Wilson Chandler also feels the need to abandon his man, James Johnson, at the top of the key.
Honestly, I’ve got no explanation for what Chandler is doing here. It’s just pitiful, boneheaded defense — something he seems notably prone to. The result is yet another wide open 3, because when was the last time Kelly Olynyk tried to finish over three guys?
That’s the common theme you get when watching the Nuggets’ defense. Why would anyone ever try to finish over three or four guys when there are always open 3s available?
Worst of all, I’m not confident the Nuggets can do all that much to remedy the situation.
Denver’s roster is lopsided. Ideally, Paul Millsap, Trey Lyles, Juancho Hernangomez, Chandler, Darrell Arthur, and Tyler Lydon are all power forwards. Jokic, Plumlee and Kenneth Faried are centers. Nine of the Nuggets’ 15 players are bigs.
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Ill-fitting as all these bigs are together, the Nuggets simply have no choice but to play them together. The frontcourts in the Nuggets’ four most-used lineups: Jokic and Millsap, Faried and Jokic, Millsap and Plumlee, Jokic and Plumlee. These are not modern NBA pairings.
Millsap is the only one of the above bigs comfortable guarding on the perimeter. More importantly, he’s the only one mobile enough to guard both the perimeter and the paint. And therein lies the problem: the Nuggets are constantly playing plodding, immobile duos. These immobile duos are perfectly capable of clogging up the paint and preventing shots at the rim, but ask them to prevent open 3s and you’re asking for trouble.
The Nuggets have options. They can and will defend smarter, ceasing to collapse so aggressively any time anyone approaches the paint. Head coach Mike Malone also has to alter his rotations.
The two center lineups have to go. One of Faried or Plumlee needs to be removed from the rotation. Whether they’re better players than the likes of Lyles, Lydon, and Hernangomez (when healthy) in a vacuum is irrelevant; Malone must prioritize fit. While it’s likely unrealistic given the roster imbalance, I’d even give Millsap some run at center, as he allows opponents to shoot just 46.8 percent inside of six feet — he’s a true rim protector.
Ultimately, these are Band-Aids for a wound that needs stitches. Barring serious roster reconstruction, the Nuggets will have no choice but to play immobile, paint-bound bigs. Those lineups will continue to deter attempts at the rim, while creating great looks elsewhere.
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The consequence of the inevitable shot distribution imbalance is not likely to make Nuggets fans happy: the defense is capped. Currently 18th in defensive rating, the Nuggets are not likely to get much better; they can’t. The corner and open 3s they’re giving up are too inherently efficient to overcome.