Denver’s defense necessitates an intervention

Denver’s defense has already improved drastically, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

If one were to go to NBA.com, they would see Denver is faring pretty well from a defensive statistical standpoint so far this season as of November 4, 2017. They would see they have a much improved defensive rating from year ago at 104.9 along with them averaging 7.6 steals per game.

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However, these stats are a bit misleading. Yes, the Nuggets are a much better defensive unit than they were a year ago, but there have still been times this season where holes in the defense have came back to bite them and even cost them a couple of games.

Denver is only averaging 3.8 blocks per game which is unacceptable with a front court featuring guys with length such as Paul Millsap and Nikola Jokic, who is actually somewhat of an improved defender believe it or not.

They are also allowing opponents to score about 40.4 points in the paint per game as well. This is not a horrible number, but not a great one either.

With a team with guys like Paul Millsap, Gary Harris and Wilson Chandler, one would think the defense would be a tad bit better. Granted, it is still early in the season, so it may just be a case of the team taking time to mesh defensively. And, yes being a top 10 defensive unit so far for this squad bodes extremely well going forward, but there is still a defensive intervention which must happen if they are going to compete with the top tier team in the West.

In games Denver has lost, they have allowed far too many points off of turnovers allowing opponents 19.7 points per game in this category. This would be a good place to start improving in order for the Nuggets to fix their defensive woes which have carried over from last season.

All in all, Denver looks like they are an improved squad so far and on paper, they are a better defensive unit, but remember, there is always room for improvement and sometimes the numbers can be misleading.

Next: Takeaways from Denver's win over Miami

Note- All stats were verified as of November 4, 2017 per NBA.com.