Denver Nuggets: If they can take away the turnovers

Denver Nuggets: If they can take away the turnovers.

Denver Nuggets Lose 4th Straight

The Denver Nuggets dropped their 4th game in a row against the Houston Rockets. A real shame considering the problems that have been going on in Houston. Ideally, the Denver Nuggets would have used this game to bounce back from their recent losses.

With the Denver Nuggets being near the top of the Western Conference, the best case scenario for Denver is they win enough games to hold on to an upper position in the West. Taking it to an even higher level, when they get reinforcements (e.g. IT, Will Barton, and Michael Porter Jr come back).

Until then however, the Denver Nuggets really will need to pay a lot of attention to detail. As each lost (and even won) game tells a story, providing insight into their strengths and weaknesses. Denver’s ability to strengthen the latter (and the former for that matter) will affect how well the Nuggets perform this season.

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Terminate the Turnovers

The biggest theme of the story of last night’s game was undoubtedly, the Nuggets’ turnovers. Turnovers have been a consistent thorn in the side of the Denver Nuggets. Troubling them from the preseason right through to this game. If the Nuggets are to make life easy for themselves, they need to terminate their propensity for turning over the basketball.

In a game where the Nuggets lost by ten points, shot 44% from 3 and 50% from the field, the Nuggets added to the already difficult task of containing the likes of James Harden, Chris Paul, Clint Capela etc, by giving Houston 25 points off of 16 turnovers.

Currently, when the Nuggets play, their defense does a great job of forcing turnovers.

Unfortunately, the Nuggets are turning the ball right back over again on the offensive end. Cancelling out the good work of their defense. Presently, Denver have the tendency of matching the turnover ratio of their opponents.

Last night was just the latest example of this with Denver having 16 turnovers compared to Houston’s 15. With Denver turning Houston’s 15 turnovers into 19 points.

The Turnover Battle

Given how close all of the Nuggets’ losses have been. In stands to reason that if the Denver Nuggets can win the turnover battle, they will more easily win (the war) basketball games. As predicted, the Nuggets defense is significantly better this season. Denver’s offense, whilst less potent than last year, has still been good for 5th in the NBA according to the NBA’s Advanced Stats, which basically means this Nuggets team has a lot going for it.

However, the Nuggets are also 8th in the NBA in terms of turnovers per game. Simply put the Nuggets must go from beating themselves (by turning over the ball), so that they can beat the competition.