Denver Nuggets: Player grades for wins vs. Jazz, Cavs

Grades for starters vs. Jazz

PG Jamal Murray: B+

SG Gary Harris: B

SF Torrey Craig: B

PF Paul Millsap: B-

C Nikola Jokic: A

It was a pretty productive night for the starters, overall.

The back court of Murray and Harris combined for 39 points on 51.7% shooting. Murray was slightly better than Harris on the night, however, despite scoring one less point. He had a lower TO%, more assists, more rebounds, more FTs on fewer attempts, a higher ORtg, a lower DRtg, as well as a much higher BPM.

Overall, however, they put up pretty similar stats and had pretty similar shortcomings. Both need to work on their three-point shooting, as they each had as many makes from beyond the arc as Mason Plumlee on the night. That means they had as many three-point makes as the backup center who made his first career three after 19 attempts.

Torrey Craig continued to underwhelm on offense, but he was pretty pesky on defense. He was tasked with guarding Donovan Mitchell for much of the game, and he actually did pretty well. The former ROY candidate had 33 possessions against Craig, including 10 field goal attempts.

He made just 4 of those shots and didn’t make a single one of his 4 three-point attempts. While Craig was his usual self on offense(4 points, 0 for 2 on 3-pointers), he did his job on defense.

Paul Millsap had a largely insignificant game, but he was pretty pesky on defense. He put up a DRtg of 82, which was a game low, collected 4 defensive rebounds, and stole the ball 3 times. He was solid on offense, but nothing more than average.

He had 13 points on 60% shooting from the field and 33% shooting from 3-point range. He had the second lowest BPM on the Nuggets(-5), but other than that, another solid outing for the Anchorman.

Nikola Jokic was clearly the best player on the court Saturday night. Nikola proved that winning comes over individual statistics for him, dishing the ball out an astonishing 16 times with just 7 points. He became the first player this season to have 15+ assists in fewer than 30 minutes, and he became the first center in NBA history to ever accomplish that feat.

He also collected 10 rebounds, had a DRtg of 91, and a BPM of +8, the second highest on the starting lineup. The only things that kept him from a perfect grade were his poor shooting(33.3% overall, 0% from 3-point range) and his turnovers(4 total, TO% of 28.8%).

If he can improve on those two aspects in future games, he will likely have a few games bordering the level of his perfect triple-double against the Suns.