So much has been made over the years about the few minutes each game when Nikola Jokic takes a breather for the Nuggets. It has been an issue plaguing the team for most of his career, and while the team is oftentimes dominant with the 3-time MVP on the floor, they’ve been equally as pitiful when he sits.
We’ve seen many different iterations of the bench units, and both Michael Malone and David Adelman have experimented with ways to survive those bench minutes, but nothing has been consistently successful.
This season, the bench is completely revamped, and with a mix of youth, age, size, and athleticism, there’s some hope that this group can finally support the starters and keep this team afloat for a few stretches each night.
The early returns in preseason have been surprisingly solid, but things cratered badly on Wednesday night against the Clippers. Denver’s starting group jumped out to a 21-6 lead in the blink of an eye, but then the bench came in, and the lead was gone before the first quarter was even over.
Nuggets' bench was a disaster in loss to Clippers
The game ended in a 122-110 Clippers victory, despite the Nuggets winning the minutes while their starters were on the floor. Jokic and Jamal Murray were +4, and Aaron Gordon was +6, but on this night, the bench was a disaster.
Denver was -15 in Marvin Bagley’s 15 minutes, -14 with Julian Strawther on the floor, -12 for Tyus Jones, and -21 for both Cam Whitmore and Trevon Brazile. To make matters worse, Strawther left the game with an ugly-looking injury, and he’s supposed to be one of the only reliable shooters and scorers in that unit.
If there’s any saving grace, it’s that DeMar DeRozan and Spencer Jones didn’t play in this game. That’s likely going to be your sixth and seventh men, and hopefully, with DeMar’s offense and Spencer’s defense, the second unit will be able to offer more resistance.
Adelman needs to find a way to survive when Jokic sits
But this was ugly. There’s no other way to put it. And it’s not like the Clippers were trotting out some elite team; they were leaning heavily on rookies and role players to thrash the Nuggets.
It’s only one game, but this certainly put a damper on what has otherwise been a promising preseason. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but this has been a major issue for the Nuggets and will be one of the things that define this team and its chances for success this season.
If guys like Bagley, Strawther, and Jones are going to hemorrhage points when they’re on the floor, this season is going to go the same way as the last few. The starters will be overtaxed, and by the time the playoffs roll around, they’ll have nothing left in the tank. That can’t happen. Hopefully, this is a blip on the radar, but it’s a scary reminder of how things have looked and how quickly games can turn, even with an elite starting lineup.
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