Denver Nuggets: Five storylines in the Phoenix Suns series
By Sean Carroll
Denver Nuggets vs Phoenix Suns: Can the Suns stop Denver’s offense?
The Denver Nuggets were the league’s fifth-best offense this season and second-most efficient in the playoffs with a 125 offensive rating outside of garbage time minutes. The Phoenix Suns were the regular season’s sixth-best on offense and defense and now boast the third-best playoff defense.
Denver got up the seventh-most threes in the playoffs, nailing them at the fourth-best clip while the Suns have been the best at limiting three-point makes.
An unstoppable force meets an immovable object anyone?
Nikola Jokic is incredible, we all know that, and his playmaking is making his teammates better. Unfortunately, teammates this season refers to Austin Rivers and others as opposed to Jamal Murray, Will Barton, and others.
Denver was able to get past Portland with heavy contributions from the less experienced Nuggets like Rivers, Markus Howard, and Facundo Campazzo, but will it work against a better defense in Phoenix?
Maybe, Jokic might just be that good. But maybe the struggle of playing with all these injuries is just too much and a fully healthy Suns team runs laps around the injury-riddled Nuggets.
We’ll find out soon enough.