Denver Nuggets: What happened in Game 3 in San Antonio

Will Barton needs to find his confidence

One thing has been very clear watching Will Barton play these past three games, Barton lacks confidence in his shot. over the past three games Barton is a combined 9 of 31 from the field and 1 of 13 from behind the three-point line. Playing Barton heavy minutes while he struggles with his shot and offensive execution is not a winning formula for the Nuggets.

Derrick White can’t be allowed to go off for 36 points

Derrick White is not the guy the Spurs signed to win them playoff games. A 36 point performance is great and is certainly welcome from the Spurs but they have won plenty of games without Derrick White improving his career high scoring watermark of 26 by 10 points. The Nuggets are a good team and should be able to handle the Spurs long line of role players in any contest they play and force players like DeRozan and Aldridge to be the starts the Spurs need them to be to win games against the Nuggets down the stretch.

Jamal Murray defense must improve

Jamal Murray was assigned the task of guarding White for most of the night for the Nuggets and while Murray shouldn’t be expected to be a lock down defender Murray should be held to a higher standard than letting a point guard who averages under 10 points a game to explode for 36 points. While the blame can’t be put all on Murray the Nuggets must find new ways to deal with all the plays the Spurs can run through White, or at least stop letting him drive to the right.

Jokic needs to be more assertive

The one knock that the media has rightly had about the Joker all season is his lack of assertiveness on the offensive end even when he is so clearly the Nuggets best bucket creating option on a vast majority of the Nuggets offensive possessions. While Jokic has posted great statlines in each of the first three games of the series including a team-high 22 points in game three on 8 of 14 shooting and 3 of 6 from downtown just proves that Jokic can and should demand the ball more often from his teammates and allowed to create like the All-NBA player we know he is.

Paul Millsap is still the Nugget’s X-Factor

Post-All-Star break it has been hard to find a better non-star forward than Paul Millsap has been down the stretch for the Denver Nuggets. Millsap gets to take a steady diet of undersized forwards like Rudy Gay in the post for easy looks at the bucket on high percentage looks, jule like Jokic the Nuggets should feed Paul Millsap the ball more in their upcoming games.

Beasley playing well

As much of a letdown as Barton has been in these first three games the one bright spot for the Nuggets is the performances of Beasley in the small amount of time he has gotten this series. Beasley in the series has had better performances than Barton in each of the first three games on less minutes and while shooting the ball with tremendous efficiency while we have all seen Barton struggle from every spot on the court. Beasley is shooting a combined 13 of 25 from the field and 8 of 12 from behind the arc in just 66 minutes this whole series. If there is one guy who looks like he is about to make a leap for the Nuggets in the playoffs it could very well be Malik Beasley.

The Nuggets face a difficult test in game four with the series arguably on the line if the spurs win the game to take a crucial three game lead with a game six still in San Antonio for the Spurs to fall back to as the Spurs are 34-9 at home on the season.