Denver Nuggets: 4 reasons for optimism in the face of disaster

Denver Nuggets reasons for optimism #1: Hang your hat on D

While the absences of Murray and Porter Jr. are huge blows to the offensive potential for this team, they’re not necessarily a negative on the defensive side. Neither player was known for their strong defensive effort, unlike Dozier, who will be a big loss on D.

Nonetheless, the Nuggets have been an excellent defensive team this year and it’s largely due to Jokic and Aaron Gordon. Jokic has completely changed the narrative on his defensive work and effort through the first month and a half this season, a topic Nugg Love covered in an excellent piece last week.

One of the highlights is that teams are scoring 17.1 fewer points when Jokic is on the floor than when he’s not. That’s a big number. He also literally won a game with his defence on this buzzer-beating blocked shot against the Houston Rockets.

Jokic had the unit locked in with him as the commander for the first month of the season, holding all but two of their first 13 opponents under 100 points. The Joker has always been a great rebounder, no matter what his defence may have been like in the past, and that has continued this season, as he’s led the Denver Nuggets to the third-highest defensive rebounding percentage in the league at 75.3.

Gordon has been excellent as well, hounding every team’s best player on a nightly basis and doing a bang-up job across the board. He’s taken on tasks from Luka Doncic, to Dame Lillard, to Trae Young, to Christian Wood, to DeMar DeRozan and he’s done well against most if not all of them.

Like he’s done with the rest of his game this season, Will Barton has also picked up his defensive effort and both Jeff and JaMychal Green are sound, experienced defenders, though they do lack any sort of shot-blocking danger.

Facundo Campazzo has been a pest as well, but he needs to be a little more of an effective pest: his 116.9 defensive rating is the worst on the team. The Argentinian veteran has the tools to get back in that defensive saddle though.

With Jokic at the controls on the offensive end creating all sorts of magic, the Nuggets won’t need to be the best defensive team in the league, just a solid unit. But, if they can get back to that pre-losing streak vibe where they were holding opponents to under 100 points on a nightly basis they’ll be in great shape, because the Joker leading his team to 100+ points is almost always a safe bet.