What Exactly Is Wrong With Denver's Defense?

A million little cuts

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It’s never simple.

I understand why people gravitate toward the idea that things are simple. It cuts through all the unnecessary consideration of multiple things interacting with one another, constantly bouncing back and forth like neurons bouncing back and forth through synapses. It’s messy and complicated, and we don’t like that.

But when you’re looking at something like NBA defense and the movements of five players trying to act upon a string, communicating, connecting, and covering for one another to move in line with or preferably ahead of the speed of a thrown ball, it’s just not simple.

It’s not just Jokic, but it definitely is. It’s not just Porter, but it definitely is. It’s not just scheme, but it definitely is.

If you made me make it simple, though, This would be the simple version.

WHY THE NUGGETS SUCK AT DEFENSE

• Defenses have put their three worst defenders in actions to defend together, and none of the three have over-performed defensively, which has exposed their scheme.

• They have little to no trust in one another.

• They do not run back in transition. Like, ever.

If you want a good example of how damaging the defensive fall-off for Denver has been?

Last season among all teams in losses, Denver had the 2nd-best defense. Their floor was incredibly high, relative to the league, even if their ceiling was way lower.

This season? They are 29th among all teams in defensive rating in losses.

Let’s take these one at a time.

THE SCHEME

The entire issue this season boils down to this sequence:

That’s it. That’s the one.

The scheme Denver has adopted since 2018-19 was to use “at the level” or “up to touch” defense in pick and roll involving Jokic.

Jokic meets the ballhandler at the level of the screen, stopping his drive and allowing the ballhandler’s defender to recover. This, theoretically, allows time for everyone to recover, forcing the ball out of the primary creator’s hands and forcing either, ideally, a reset of the play or other rotations to force tougher shots.

Notice that when Reaves stops here, Knecht is ready if he needs a reset, if the Nuggets pressure the ball.

But Jokic is caught in no-man’s land. He’s caught between trying to pressure Reaves and intercept the pass (you’ll notice him drop his hand to try and pick off the pocket pass) and recovering back to the rolling Koloko.

In the time that Jokic spends in between, Koloko short-rolls into space. Reaves is able to use the space Jokic afford to send the pass.

Two things to notice on what happens after.

First, Aaron Gordon is on the strong side. So his assignment is to stay home and the weakside defense should help. So the sequence takes Denver’s best rotation defender out of rotation.

Second, MPJ has to help down, or Koloko is strolling for a dunk. Jamal Murray then has to theoretically recover all the way to the corner to contest that three-pointer, forcing the ball to swing to his man, where theoretically someone else will help the helper’s helper.

But that space is just too much. MPJ meets Koloko but it’s an easy pass for Koloko to swing to the corner for a three-pointer.

You don’t want to give up a layup or dunk. You don’t want to give up free throws. But after that, you don’t want to give up corner threes.

Denver gives up the sixth corner 3-point attempts per game this season. They are 20th in corner-three opponent frequency¹ and 22nd in opponent corner-three percentage.

Denver learned in 2019 that using Jokic at the level was the best way to use his talent defensively. He’s got quick hands and is comfortable attacking the ball and managing space.

He struggles more in drop coverage because of his indecisiveness and slow foot speed. At times, it genuinely looks like he’s just watching guys shoot layups:

But this year, the trend has reversed itself.

Denver has allowed 1.03 points defending pick-and-roll actions with Jokic in drop coverage this season, compared to 1.06 at the level per Second Spectrum data provided to The Dig. They’ve been better in drop coverage.

This is fascinating to me because clips like the one above are part of why I feel Jokic is having the worst defensive season of his MVP tenure (2020-ongoing).

But the numbers refute this and say it’s actually the better approach. Why? Because it helps prevent possessions like this²:

Now, notably, drop tends to slide into icing, which uses drop while pushing the ballhandler away from the middle of the floor, and Denver gets shredded at 1.09 in that coverage with Jokic.³⁴

I want to go back to the first clip. Notice how Gordon is stuck away from the play? That’s a consistent theme. Gordon is almost never in that position to make the rotation. It’s always Murray, Porter, or occasionally Christian Braun.

Gordon’s on-court defensive rating with Jokic isn’t good (114.9) but it’s not awful like it is without Jokic. Same for Jokic without Gordon. But the numbers also show very clearly that unless you have Gordon to make up for Porter-Murray, it’s a disaster.

What’s the answer to the scheme? There mostly isn’t one. The Nuggets will have to use more drop in the postseason, just as they’ve used more drop in the regular season. They need to not overhelp. They’ll use some zone.

But fundamentally, the scheme that put the Nuggets in the best position for years is no longer working because the personnel is slightly worse, both in terms of the players who are no longer on the roster and the ones who remain.