Nuggets: Player grades against Jazz after Game 2
By Rex Foster
Starters
Nikola Jokic: B+
It’s hard to give any player anything lower than an A after a high-scoring performance. Jokic keeps proving that he is the best center in basketball, dropping 28 points and grabbing 11 rebounds over Rudy Gobert – which is not an easy accomplishment.
However, Jokic could’ve easily scored more points against Utah. Yes, the Joker hit a little under 50% from the field, but most of his missed shots came in the paint; where he’s most efficient. It’s rare that Nikola missed a handful of shots in the post.
Out of all post-dominant scorers in the league, Jokic finds himself first in impact rating and offensive PIPM. I’m not too worried that Nikola will step up his efficiency for the approaching games.
On the negative side, Jokic seemed to be hellbent on getting his own, even when swarmed by Jazz players. As such a great passer, one would expect him to take advantage of the attention he was drawing. In addition, as a team leader, his body language could have been better as well.
Michael Porter Jr.: B
Like Jokic, it’s difficult to give Porter anything less than an A, especially after scoring 28 points and shooting 6-9 from 3-point range. Clearly, MPJ had a quality game on the offensive side of the court – exclusively when he had the ball in his hands. Out of the five starters, Porter Jr. had the best plus/minus rating with a -7.
Without MPJ on the floor, the Nuggets would’ve had a significantly worse game offensively. However, when Porter Jr. was off-ball in a half-court setting, there were times when he was looked uninvolved in the game.
When Jokic was off the floor, Denver struggled significantly to create movement and have a fluid offense. It didn’t help when MPJ was simply standing in the corner in the third quarter, waiting to have some sort of isolation play.
Porter Jr. is most efficient coming off of screens to hit a shot beyond the arc, or cutting inside the paint.
Jamal Murray: C-
Murray’s inconsistency issues continue entering the playoffs. After scoring 36 points in Game 1, Murray dropped a lousy 14 points in Game 2. There was nothing horrendous about Murray’s performance, it was just underwhelming.
Instead of Joe Ingles, Jazz head coach Quin Snyder had Royce O’Neale guard Jamal for a majority of the game. The decision obviously affected Murray’s ability to drive, and generate easy offense for himself. While O’Neale is a tough defender, it’s inexcusable for him to only shoot just a single free throw in Game 2, no matter how well he was being defended.
Hopefully, we can see something different from Jamal for the rest of the series.
Paul Millsap: F
Millsap had a horrible game against his former team to say the least. Defensively, Millsap was late on close-outs, switches, and rotations – which led to many wide open shots and clear driving lanes.
Offensively, Millsap only made two shots on five attempts. For parts of the game, it seemed like he wasn’t even a member of the team. As the oldest player with the most veteran presence, Millsap has to be more involved. Especially in a playoff setting.
Malone seemed like he had enough of Paul’s performance to bench him in favor of Jerami Grant, who is far more agile.
Torrey Craig: F
In the first half of the game, Craig was doing a solid job of locking down Donovan Mitchell who only scored 6 points and had a tough time getting to the rim.That said, Mitchell also looked more interested in getting his teammates easy shots than forcing his own offense in the first half.
In the second half, Mitchell scored 21 points on Craig’s head, including shooting 5-5 from 3-point range in the third quarter. A key reason for how Utah left Denver in the dust after halftime.
Not only was Craig unreliable defensively in the second half, he didn’t score a single point for the duration of the game. In fact, Craig only shot the ball twice and wasn’t involved offensively. To put the cherry on top of Craig’s less than memorable performance, he recorded more fouls (three) than assists (two) or rebounds (two).