Friday provides the Denver Nuggets with a look at a playoff opponent, and perhaps their biggest threat in the Western Conference, on the road.
Denver (51-25) and the new-look Phoenix Suns (41-35), who revitalized their roster at the trade deadline by adding former MVP Kevin Durant, face off in one of the most exciting remaining regular season games on the NBA calendar. Denver is 2-0 in the season series against Phoenix, though both games occurred before the Suns acquired Durant in February.
The Nuggets are on the heels of a tough 107-88 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, a game in which the group went just 4-of-28 from three-point range, effectively sealing their fate. Denver was, of course, without their star, Nikola Jokić, who was a late scratch just before tip-off due to calf tightness.
Friday's game in Phoenix represents the second half of a back-to-back for the Mile High crew—and one on the road, at that. It’ll be an uphill battle for Michael Malone’s squad, though his team has performed admirably this season on back-to-backs with a 6-4 record, per StatMuse.
Phoenix, meanwhile, is coming off a wire-to-wire 107-100 victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, led by a 29-point showcase from Devin Booker. The Suns are currently riding a three-game winning streak after losing 6 of their 7 previous games when Durant was sidelined with an ankle sprain. Durant did make his return on Wednesday against Minnesota, and though he didn’t have a particularly great outing going just 5-of-18 from the field for 16 points, the Suns are a perfect 4-0 when he plays.
This isn’t the first time that Durant’s team has blitzed opponents with him on the floor. Durant is 617-365 over his 14-year career, a .628 winning percentage. The Nuggets, too, have a player of that caliber. Denver is a lifetime 335-218 (.606 winning percentage) with their two-time MVP, Jokić, as a starter.
Here’s to hoping we get a clash between two of the best at their craft.
INJURY REPORT
Denver:
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — Questionable (Non-Covid Illness)
Vlatko Cancar — Probable (Left Ankle Sprain)
Collin Gillespie — Out (Right Leg Fracture)
Nikola Jokić — Questionable (Right Calf Tightness)
Jamal Murray — Questionable (Left Knee Injury Management)
Michael Porter Jr. — Questionable (Left Heel Injury Management)
Jack White — Probable (Health and Safety Protocols)
Lock down the midrange
The key to the game for Denver is pretty simple, or at least on paper. The Nuggets must dissuade the Suns from getting to their preferred spots. Namely, erase the midrange for Phoenix on their home Footprint Center floor.
While the rest of the league has zigged toward a shot profile that encourages looks at the rim and three-pointers (and free-throws), the Suns are pulling the ultimate zag. Phoenix is the #1 midrange shooting team in the league—1st in short-midrange shot frequency (4-to-14 feet in distance) and 2nd in long-midrange shot frequency (14 feet to the three-point line) according to Cleaning the Glass tracking data.
That’s what having three Hall of Fame players—Chris Paul, Durant, and Booker—all of whom butter their bread in the in-between zone of the floor, can do for an offense. Durant is in the midst of the greatest midrange shooting season in NBA history, knocking in an absurd 56.4 percent of his 298 midrange shots. His co-star, Booker, has also been remarkably efficient, canning 49.5 percent of his 305 attempts from the midrange. Paul, too, has been excellent in his 17th NBA season, coming away successful on 46.8 percent of his midrange tries.
(The Nuggets have a midrange maestro of their own. Jokic ranks fourth in the NBA among players who have taken at least 40 midrange shots this season.)
Shutting down the Suns’ three-headed midrange monster won’t be easy. The Suns design a variety of looks—complex pick-and-roll sets, plays at both elbows, and movement to and from the post—to get their stars midrange shots. But there are options for Denver defensively.
One could be to throw multiple defenders at Durant and Booker, particularly, and allow less threatening options to take long-range shots.
That’s something Dallas did on March 5 in the Mavericks’ narrow 130-126 loss to the Suns. Dallas dared players like Josh Okogie, Torrey Craig, and Ish Wainright to fire away to their heart’s content from distance.
Here’s what that strategy looked like.
Dallas had their big men, especially Dwight Powell, play higher up the floor against Suns pick-and-rolls so that they were positioned to halt shots from the midrange. On top of this, the Mavs would have Craig or Okogie’s defender (many times, Luka Dončić) shift over into the painted area to cover for if Phoenix’s stars found a clear path to the rim. This produced a whole bunch of missed corner threes when the Suns were forced to pass.
A similar defensive strategy was adopted on isolation possessions and in transition.
If Phoenix’s lead creators found an advantage on the fastbreak, as Devin Booker does here, Dallas would throw a second defender his way and worry about the rest later, another way to produce corner threes from selected options.
Or, if Phoenix ran designed sets for its stars, like this ‘pick-and-pop' play in which Craig screened for Durant and then relocated to the top of the three-point arc, Dallas would ignore everything that Craig was doing and instead use his defender to trap Durant along the sidelines.
The strategy worked for the most part: Okogie was 0-of-8 from three, Craig was just 1-of-4, but Wainright went 4-of-5. Still, though, their combined 5-of-17 (29.4 percent) from deep certainly worked in Dallas’ favor—and it could pay similar dividends for the Nuggets if they were to adopt this game plan.
Pinching in at the elbows to erase the midrange and force the pass out, helping early in the painted area on drives, and utilizing their big men in more aggressive pick-and-roll coverages are all possible options for Denver to coerce the Suns into a similar shot diet; one that strays away from midrange shots for its stars and centers around three-pointers from Phoenix’s supporting cast.
All stats per StatMuse, Cleaning the Glass, or NBA.com unless stated otherwise.
TUNE-IN: 8: 30 p.m. MT, NBA TV and 92.5FM