NBA Playoffs Small Sample Efficiency Check: Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets took care of business, but did we learn anything new?
All it took was five games for the first-seeded Denver Nuggets to take care of business against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Their +9.2 net rating is the second-best in the playoffs, and there is a sizable gap between them and the third-place Phoenix Suns. At a glance, everything in the Rockies appears fine. They smoked an eight-seed who were without their best player, Karl-Anthony Towns, for most of the season and weathered Anthony Edward’s assault on Towns' claim to that distinction. From 10,000 feet or 5,279 feet above sea level, the Nuggets easily beat a team that was likely better than their seed and got a superstar-level performance from one of their key players, but there are a few concerns worth monitoring.
The Nuggets’ Defensive Metrics, Concerns, and Optimism
The Denver Nuggets are not defensive juggernauts. Their 109.7 defensive rating, a +4.5 improvement from the regular season, is the fifth-best mark of the postseason, but it’s singularly a product of one game. In game one, the Nuggets held the Timberwolves to an offensive rating of 85.8, and in games two through five, they held them to 122.1, 113.1, 114.6, and 115.1 points per 100 possessions. While a Nuggets fan will point to Anthony Edwards going nuclear after a game one dud, they’re conveniently omitting Towns’ disastrous performance throughout the series. The Timberwolves weren’t an offensive force in the regular season either, as their 113.7 offensive rating ranked 23rd.
The question is if Timberwolves exposed the Nuggets’ defense, or if sometimes great players hit a ton of shots. The answer is a little bit of both. The Timberwolves saw their share of shots around the rim decrease and be replaced by shots three to ten feet compared to the regular season. The backbone of the Nuggets’ defense is built on preventing rim attempts to protect Nikola Jokic, and in large part, they were successful. Outside of Edwards deciding to be unguardable, which is the whole point of Anthony Edwards, the Nuggets’ defense was largely effective at preventing and then contesting the shots they wanted, except for one area.
The Timberwolves were highly effective at generating corner threes against the Nuggets. During the regular season, the Nuggets gave up their fair share of corner threes, but allowing the Timberwolves to get 30.4% of their threes from the corners is a concern. (Corner threes are closer to the basket and converted at a higher rate than above-the-break threes) One of the reasons the Nuggets are susceptible in the corners is because of how they protect Jokic defensively.
Jokic isn’t a strong rim protector and struggles to defend in space, but he has great hands and is good at defending passing lanes. To hide his defensive deficiencies and amplify his strengths, the Nuggets have Jokic aggressively defend pick and rolls on the perimeter. The hope is that Jokic can force a pass sideways and effectively end the pick and roll, but when it fails, it can lead to ugly-looking possessions where the ball handler escapes Jokic and has a free run at the rim. In these situations, either a layup follows, or the Nuggets rotate over to protect the rim and leave the corners open.
If Jokic was more effective in drop coverage or space, his teammates wouldn’t have to rotate as much and could stay home on the corners. The Timberwolves were able to exploit this, but not as effectively as others will. A better team could see the ease with which the Wolves generated corner threes and double-down on the tactic. The playoffs are about matchups and exploiting deficiencies. Having a defensive hole in one of the most valuable areas on the court counts as a serious concern.
The other area where the Nuggets looked exploitable was at the free-throw line. Their .201 defensive free throw-to-field goal attempt rate (FT/FGA) was ninth in the league, but they saw that figure balloon to .225 against the Timberwolves even as playoff FT/FGA (.192) dipped below the regular season rate (.208). Even more concerning is that the Timberwolves saw their defensive FT/FGA of .225 from the regular season drop to .196 in the playoffs, so it wasn’t a situation where the Nuggets saw more whistle-happy referees. In tightly contested playoff series, losing the free throw battle can cost you games.
While the Nuggets’ defense has more holes than your traditional contender, they did do some things well. First, they kept the Timberwolves’ effective field goal percentage (eFG%) in check. A 52.5% eFG% isn’t superlative, but it’s far lower than what the Timberwolves managed in the regular season (56%), and they kept it to 54.7% in games two through five, so it isn’t just game one weighing it down. The most consequential defensive skill is preventing shots from going in, and the Nuggets did that well enough against the Timberwolves.
The one area where the Nuggets were superlative was on the defensive glass. Their 80.5% defensive rebounding rate is the third-best of the postseason and helped to offset some of their deficiencies. Great defense is worth nothing if you don’t end the possession with the ball. All told, the Nuggets’ first-round series against the Timberwolves showed that their middling regular-season defensive performance is likely to follow them into the playoffs. That’s not great news, but if your offense is good enough, it doesn’t matter.
The Nuggets’ Offensive Metrics, Concerns, and Optimism
The Nuggets claimed the Western Conference one seed through the strength of their offense, and against the Timberwolves it looked as potent as ever. Their offensive rating of 118.9 is the third-best mark of the playoffs and a +1.3 improvement of their regular season efficiency. One area of concern is their drop-off in 2-point efficiency. Their 57.3% eFG% during the regular season was the best in the league but dropped to 55.2% against the Timberwolves even as they shot better from three. The culprit was their drop in 2-point efficiency, going from 57.5% to 53.4%.
While a concern, there isn’t much to suggest the Nuggets will suddenly stop hitting shots, as the primary reason for the drop was Nikola Jokic having a single uncharacteristically poor 2-point shooting performance. Jokic took by far the most 2-point attempts for the Nuggets and went 37 of 77 (48.05%) for the series. However, his 5 for 21 shooting performance inside the arc in game five dragged down 57.14% shooting entering the game. For the season, Jokic was at 67.5% on 2-pointers so the dip is real, but considering the explosion in usage and overall shooting volume in the playoffs, a drop in efficiency isn’t a huge concern.
Even with a dip in shooting efficiency, the Nuggets still improved their offensive efficiency relative to the regular season, and it was all about taking care of the ball. Their 11% turnover rate was a massive improvement from their 13.1% regular season mark. A 2.1% improvement in turnover rate may seem small, but teams score 0 points per turnover. Adding two more shots per 100 possessions is massive when you average over a point per shot.
Perhaps the most consequential development from the Nuggets’ first-round series was the re-emergence of Jamal Murray. Murray had an up-and-down season in his return from a torn ACL. His 20.0 points per game with just below league-average efficiency is valuable regular-season production, but it’s below an All-Star level. Against the Timberwolves, Murray was back to his best, averaging 27.2 points per game on improved efficiency as he made tough shot after tough shot. While it’s unlikely Murray maintains this level of production throughout a deep playoff run, the Nuggets have sorely lacked another shot creator outside of Jokic. If Murray can split the difference between his regular season production and what he showed in this series, it drastically raises the Nuggets’ ceiling.
A small but funny note about Murray’s explosion against the Timberwolves.
In the NBA bubble, the Nuggets and Murray made a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals. In the first round, Murray absolutely torched the Utah Jazz for 31.6 points per game in a seven-game thriller. The lone link between the bubble Jazz team and the 2022-23 Timberwolves is Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley. In the playoffs, Murray has averaged 29.75 points per game against Gobert and Conley-led teams and 22.35 in all others.
The Nuggets “Are Who We Thought They Were”
The Nuggets showed that who they were in the regular season was no fluke. They’ll rack up points with the best of them and play below championship-level defense. This isn’t a bad defensive team, but they need Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray to be excellent all playoffs on offense to make a deep run. Even with one shooting clunker, Jokic leads all players in playoff box plus-minus (BPM), offensive BPM, and win shares per 48 (WS/48), and Murray clocks in at seventh in OBPM and WS/48 and eighth in BPM.
The Phoenix Suns will ask far more questions of the Nuggets than the Timberwolves were able to muster, but your confidence levels in the Nuggets should remain unchanged from where they were entering the playoffs. The defense could cost them a run to the finals, but the offense might just be too good for it to matter in a Western Conference rife with questions.