Nuggets Film Room: Gary Harris’ terrific off-ball movement
By Tom West
For the fourth episode of Denver Nuggets Film Room, a summer series breaking down specific aspects of the team, here’s a look at Gary Harris’ off-ball movement and how he gets great shots.
Gary Harris took another step forward in 2016-17, precisely as he has every season of his NBA career so far. The 22-year-old shooting guard had career-highs across the board in points (14.9), rebounds (3.1), assists (2.9), field goal percentage (50.2), PER (16.5), True Shooting Percentage (61.1) and became the Denver Nuggets’ best three-point shooter. He shot better than ever from deep with a 42-percent stroke from beyond the arc (eighth in the league) with 1.9 makes per game.
I’ve already written about Harris’ excellent cutting ability in an earlier episode from this series (which you can read about here), but it’s his off-ball movement near the perimeter and around screens that has helped him become so effective in addition to finding high-percentage looks from Nikola Jokic’s dimes on cuts.
Last season, Harris shot 46.6 percent on catch-and-shoot threes, per NBA.com, which accounted for 1.7 of his 1.9 makes per game. That’s seriously good. Besides him improving his stroke year by year from 20.4 percent as a rookie, 35.4 in 2015-16, to his new high of 42 in 2016-17, he’s gotten better and better at finding good shots.
Besides the playmaking of Jokic that Harris has to work with, whether he’s receiving passes or taking hand-offs, a lot of Harris’ success comes down to great shot selection and off-ball movement to find space.
This three is incredibly simple, but shows how Harris is watching the ball and thinking about his positioning, rather than just waiting for a pass to come his way. After Juancho Hernangomez moves inside and takes away Otto Porter from helping in the corner, Harris notices that his defender, Bradley Beal, has lost sight of him, so moving into the extra space in the corner gives Mason Plumlee a non-contested pass to make and Harris has room to bury a corner three:
Here, you can see how Harris contributes to the Nuggets’ overall high level of movement. A sudden burst of speed lets him go past DeAndre Liggins at the perimeter before Harris continues to the corner and sets up at just the right moment to receive the ball on a nice kick-out pass from the driving Jameer Nelson:
When the ball moves across the court with such speed and players are penetrating and kicking passes around, Harris helps make everything click and finish with good shots. In fact, he ran an average of 1.14 miles per game on offense last season, per NBA.com, just 0.1 miles behind the well-renowned shooter and off-ball runner that is J.J. Redick.
Harris works well with hand-offs, too. He combined well here with Jusuf Nurkic (oh, how things have changed) to send his defender, Ben McLemore, the wrong way before reversing and using a step-back to create even more space:
Harris doesn’t just need to stand perfectly still to be a threat. He can hit shots on the move as you can see above and has serious range.
The next clip is a perfect example of Harris’ shot selection and patience. Rather than bombing a three right away due to the nearby pressure of Seth Curry, Harris takes an extra dribble and kicks the ball to Emmanuel Mudiay. That forces the defense to move a little more, and once Mudiay pump fakes past J.J. Barea and Curry drops back to help, it’s easy for Harris to pop back out to the top of the arc in more space and hit his shot:
He’s just so comfortable as a catch-and-shoot threat, even when he has to fire in a hurry on the move with a defender leaping at him:
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Sometimes, Harris only needs to stand still on the wing and wait for someone to kick the ball to him. But he’s always capable of finding gaps in the defense by moving himself.
Along with his cutting, which could be the best element of his off-ball movement, Harris has become a vital part of the Nuggets’ offense and at 22 he’s barely starting to approach his prime. Already, he’s taking strides forward every season and is using his movement to maximize his impact, with 78.3 percent of his field goal attempts coming within three feet of the basket or from beyond the arc. Not even Mike D’Antoni would have a bad word to say about that kind of shot selection.
Next: Could the Nuggets have the West's best frontcourt?
When considering Harris’ skill and development, it’s not hard to see why some Nuggets fans don’t want to break up the team’s core at all for a Kyrie Irving trade.