Here’s the TL;DR on my thoughts after the Nuggets’ first three preseason games.
The Good
Jamal Murray carried the offseason and training camp leadership and intention into these games. He’s competed on defense, his jumper looks clean, and he’s got the best explosiveness we’ve seen in a while.
AG’s jumper looks great. If his 3-point percentage holds up year over year, that transforms the Nuggets’ ceiling by making all five starters a floor spacer.
Christian Braun’s point-of-attack defense was night and day from Game 1 to 2. Against the Wolves, he was passive and caught off guard by the speed of Rob Dillingham and Bones Hyland. Against the Raptors, he was much more physical and really dominated both ends in his role.
CB is 4-of-4 from three-point range in preseason. If he shoots 100% from 3 this season, it will be a good year. Kidding, but seriously, if his numbers get above 40% with how good he is as a finisher, he doesn’t even need to add anything to his floor game.
The Cam Johnson fit showed up in the second game and started to make sense. It’s still a process, though, and don’t be surprised if he starts the season slow because of the adjustment curve.
Peyton Watson’s handle is indeed improved, and he looks more comfortable creating offense on his own.
DaRon Holmes is making shots and bringing the kind of energy you need. I’m already gearing up for “Holmes needs to play more!” to be the rallying cry for fans.
I talked about this on Locked on, but there’s a real disconnect oftentimes between what fans see and how teams and coaches feel about players in Holmes’ position.
You’re seeing the small shifts in familiar sets for the Nuggets with various players in better positions. The offense, as expected, is going to be more than fine and very likely elite.
THE BAD
The defense looked much better vs. the Raptors, but there are still big gaps.
Some of this is that preseason is going to be a bad environment for them because of how the defense is built.
The Nuggets are going to have to have high energy to defend well. That seems obvious, don’t you always? But the answer is no.
If you just switch everything 1-5, it’s actually pretty low in terms of energy expended. Rotation and help defense is more exhausting physically and mentally because you cover more ground and have to keep track of more sequences mentally.
So if you’re not giving A-effort because it’s preseason — and you shouldn’t— then it’s not going to look good. But this might honestly be how I examine the defense this season. Was the defense closer to preseason effort or playoff effort?
Jokic doesn’t look in great shape. He looks slow and isn’t hardly contesting anything at all defensively.
… He is averaging 25-12-8 per 36 minutes and a +6.4 on-court net rating.
So, you know, shut up, Matt.
I actually don’t care about any of the offensive stuff (and it’s been good), because Jokic just kind of tries stuff in preseason, as he should. He’s testing things with teammates and mechanisms.
And he’s not going to give fouls in preseason or push his body.
I just have concerns about how he’s looked in certain spots and if teams will apply a lot of defensive pressure, even more relative to normal standards, early in the season.
That said, in the second quarter of the Clippers’ game, he put the hammer down and was sprinting up and past the Clippers, showing what it looks like when he engages.
Cam Johnson has been involved in the most possessions defensively of any starter. It has been notable to me how often he’s wound up on-ball in actions.
Some of it is by design, because Cam Johnson is able to guard the guys in-between Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon. Gordon can guard big powerful forwards (Kawhi, LeBron, Luka), Christian can guard most creator guards, and then Cam can guard the in-betweens like Brandon Ingram.
But some of it is not that way and teams are choosing to attack Johnson to some success. I’m curious to see how much teams test him since the Nuggets are less worried about sending him help compared to MPJ.
Julian Strawther just isn’t there defensively, and I have a sneaking suspicion he could wind up further down in the depth chart than I was hoping.
The second unit is going to struggle with ballhandling, which is why you’re going to see Murray stagger with the second unit again.
I’ve wanted them to break that stagger up over the years, but with Valanciunas, it’s fundamentally different. And the coaches have said the synergy with JV and Jamal has been “great.”
I really do not like jumping up and down on guys when they’re in difficult positions, but I’m just not sure what the point for the Nuggets is in giving Zeke Nnaji even spot minutes at this point. Holmes may be behind the learning curve, but he doesn’t seem as uncertain.
That said, Nnaji really is trying to rebound in his minutes, which is an upside.
Tim Hardaway Jr. is 2-of-14 in preseason. I don’t really care about shooting percentages in preseason, or before December 1st, honestly, but it’s certainly not a good note.