Denver Nuggets: 3 takeaways from tough Game 7 loss vs. Blazers

3. Nuggets need more frontcourt depth

During this series, the Blazers were able to bring out four players that could play the power forward and center spots capably. Meanwhile, the Nuggets had Jokic, Paul Millsap and Mason Plumlee, who had his limitations exposed on multiple occasions. During this offseason, they need to go about addressing that need. Big men are always possible to find on the open market, but Denver has to go pursue them.

For the Blazers, Enes Kanter was fasting and not drinking water during timeouts for Ramadan, yet he still played 40 minutes while scoring 12 points with 13 rebounds. For comparison, Jokic was the only Nuggets player to hit 40 minutes, and the other two bigs had 32 and 19 minutes between the two of them. This guy had no food or water, yet he was still able to play more and be more effective than the other two for Denver.

Jokic showed that he can play extended minutes in the playoffs if he needs to, but the team needs to have capable backups to come in and give him a breather without getting blown out during those minutes. Plumlee was a -7, which was tied for the second-worst mark on the team. Denver should add at least one big this offseason, and it would be a huge miss if it didn’t.