Denver Nuggets vs Sacramento Kings: Main takeaways
By Peter Hooper
Denver Nuggets close.
The Denver Nuggets won their 25th game of the season to maintain their grip of the number one position in the West.
Furthermore, with the Denver Nuggets now being 25 and 11, they can even begin to challenge the (26 and 10) Milwaukee Bucks for the best record in the NBA. Nevertheless, the Denver Nuggets focus has to be the Larry O’ Brien trophy. A notable but altogether possible achievement, provided the Denver Nuggets master their weaknesses.
With that being said, let’s take a closer look at last night’s performance by the Denver Nuggets.
4 Areas Of Interest
Taking a holistic view of the Nuggets’ performance last night provides us with 4 important areas in last night’s game.
The first is points in the paint. As mentioned in my last article, the Denver Nuggets recently have come somewhat undone on defense. One of the best indicators of this is the number of points given up in the paint.
In Denver’s last few games, their near perfect offense is at best being equaled in the paint and at worse being outscored. Largely explaining why the Nuggets have found themselves in so many close games.
Last night, the Sacramento Kings had 52 points in the paint compared to 48 for Denver. Bolstering this point further is the fact that the Kings actually had more made field goal attempts than the Denver Nuggets (45-90 to 41-89 respectively).
However, the Nuggets (who often give up more free throws than they get) managed to offset this from the free throw line scoring 21 of 30 free throws compared to just 10 of 15 free throws for the Kings.
Ironically Jamal Murray, a.k.a. the ‘Blue Arrow,’ who was on fire from everywhere else missed 4 free throws (was 6 of 10 from the line) that could have given the Nuggets a bit more breathing room. Nevertheless, Jamal Murray still was arguably the biggest reason the Denver Nuggets won in the first place.
Additionally, given Sacramento’s ability to get good quality shots against Denver Nuggets (the Kings shot 50% from the field and 41.9% from 3), the Nuggets turnovers against the Kings were particularly costly.
The Kings turned 14 turnovers into 10 points. On a brighter note the Nuggets did win the turnover war as they scored 17 points off of the Kings’ 8 turnovers. However, ideally, the Nuggets avoid giving them 10 points back through turnovers of their own.
Last, but by no means least is fast break points. Whilst Jokic was the highlight of a fast break of his own.
As a team, the Nuggets win was tougher than it could have been because they gave Sacramento a massive 19 fast break points. Which is almost triple the fast break points (7) that the Nuggets themselves managed.
As always, Denver’s weaknesses are fixable, especially with this much left of the NBA season to go. Hopefully, the Denver Nuggets are big fans of us here at www.nugglove.com because we plan to do everything in our power to steer the Denver Nuggets in the right direction to a Larry O’ Brien trophy.
Finally in closing, Denver as previously mentioned have to do a better job of being prepared. The Sacramento Kings are the 2nd fastest team in the NBA. Giving up so many fast break points to a team known as one of the fastest in the NBA is definitely something for the team to look at.
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Denver can improve by putting effort into forcing opposing players and teams to take the shots they are bad at.
One of the big questions Mike Malone had to figure out is this: How do we slow down the Sacramento Kings? Having just played them last night, hopefully the answer is more apparent.
Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray were so effective that ultimately Sacramento’s speed was insufficient.
However, if the Denver Nuggets want to blow out teams, they must figure out how to force their opponents away from their strengths and into undesirable shots.
Assigning the Nuggets as Mass Effect characters. dark. Next
That sort of thing would be well received by Nuggets Nation tomorrow at the Pepsi Center against the Hornets.