A Complete Autopsy Of the Enver Nuggets' Efense

WOOOOF.

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

You see what I did there? See, they’re the Enver Nuggets, because there’s no “D.” Get it? It’s a joke! A pun1 A colorful play on words! Get it?

OK, so anyway.

Denver’s loss to the Spurs in Cup Play was the first game this season where I felt they got beaten in a way that exposes real problems.

The Warriors game on opening night was the Dubs’ home opener, and they lost in overtime.

The Blazers game, I’ve talked about my issues with the officiating late.

The Bulls game was a flat-out stupid loss, and the Kings loss was a back-to-back after their biggest win of the season.

But the Spurs came into Ball Arena and flat-out beat them because Denver couldn’t defend. They wouldn’t defend against the Bulls and Kings. They couldn’t defend against the Spurs.

Denver scored 136 in regulation and lost at home for the first time since 1990. Think of all the bad teams Denver has had between then and now, and realize it’s still been 35 years since that happened.

I’m going to break down the problems as they spin forward. You can’t go back and undo this loss, but we can try to understand whether this is who they are, who they are right now, or if it’s more complex.

IT’S THE TURNOVERS, STUPID

Let’s start here: the Nuggets gave up 17 turnovers last night. The Spurs scored 30 points off those turnovers, for a 1.77 points-per-possession mark.

This is central to understanding it. You can honestly toss the ball all over as long as the opponent doesn’t score off them. It drags down your half-court offense, but if that’s good enough, you can survive pretty easily.

But if your possession goes to 0 points per possession and the opponent goes to 1.7 points per possession, and that happens 17 times, the math is pretty simple.

So if the Nuggets don’t turn the ball over as much, or if they got back and got stops in transition, they probably win that game.

You can just stop there, honestly, if you want to. The Nuggets had better efficiency in the halfcourt (slightly) and basically the same efficiency in transition (1.41 for the Spurs, 1.40 for the Nuggets, with many of those created off turnovers).

The defense doesn’t have to be awesome if they don’t turn the ball over that often or get a few more stops on them.

IT’S THE INJURIES, STUPID

The Nuggets are without their two best defensive players in the starting lineup. Gordon and Braun rank No.1 and No.2 in defensive EPM on the Nuggets.¹

The data is pretty clear so far this season, and it points to Jokic. I understand how much fans do not like that framing given how great he is and everything he does for the team. But if we’re going to talk about the defense, it’s impossible.

To prove the point, here’s the data this season for AG, CB, and Jokic together, and apart, from worst to best.²

This data, in limited minutes, suggests:

• The Nuggets with AG next to Jokic are great defensively

• CB is additive defensively. While their 109.9 together is worse than the Jokic-Gordon 104.2, that’s mostly against tougher opponents and lineups in starter-vs.-starter minutes.

• CB and Jokic without AG is not great.

• Jokic without either is a nightmarish hellscape of failure

Here’s the raw plus-minus since AG went down.

They have a 130.6 defensive rating with Jokic on the floor these past four games, and a 112 without him. I don’t know how you look at that and think that it’s the surrounding talent. What, is Spencer Jones making him a worse defender?

(The Nuggets’ turnover rate is higher with Spencer next to Jokic, which is to be expected with his inexperience.)

You can splice down some things and find that Jamal with Spencer without Jokic has been awful in 29 minutes, but the worst three-man defensive lineup since AG went down is Jokic with Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones at 134.4.

That simply cannot be that bad.

One more note on this, the culprit in those “points off turnovers” differentials? Zeke Nnaji. With Nnaji on the court this season, the Nuggets give up 23.1 points off turnovers per 36 minutes. With him on the bench, that number drops to 11.9.

Even then, all this analysis to basically assign blame misses the point. The Nuggets might be better defensively with AG and CB back, but they’re not coming back for three weeks. They might be worse with these other players, but they have to play someone.

So there are two questions:

• Who should play to improve the defense?

• Who needs to play better defensively?

IT IS, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, NIKOLA JOKIC, STUPID

If you’re going to have a sacred cow, there’s no better than Nikola Jokic. I completely understand how much Nuggets fans want to stick up for Jokic, cover for Jokic, and defend Jokic, especially with how stupid some of the prevailing attitudes on the internet are about him, even after three MVPs and a title.

That said, the Nuggets are in a position where their ability to cover for him is more exposed than ever.

Jokic wasn’t the sole reason the defense was terrible Friday night. But there are certain things that are causing problems.

After rewatch, clip by clip, my general takeaways from the defense vs. the Spurs:

• Jokic was passive, getting caught in-between and neither hedging/showing nor effectively dropping. He was not an active rim protector, even more passive than usual.

• The Nuggets’ communication around trying to compensate was terrible.

• The Nuggets overhelped too often trying to compensate for Jokic’ lack of rim protection, which once again gave up the worst shots to give up in the modern NBA: high percentage catch-and-shoot threes.

• Zeke Nnaji’s awareness was bad

• Tim Hardaway Jr. too often overhelped and the X-outs were nonexistent behind him

Let’s work backwards.

These are the three most consequential late game possessions and it’s the same one on all three. Tim Hardaway Jr., playing because the Nuggets couldn’t get stops anyway so they might as well play their offensive guy, per Adelman, helps down repeatedly to “tag” various rollers, leaving wide open high-percentage three-point shooters.

First clip, Jonas Valanciunas is in drop here and manages it pretty well. Jamal Murray gets over the screen and keeps a hand on the ballhandler’s hip.