Everyone knows that the Nuggets have a great offense, and everyone knows of the brilliance of Nikola Jokic, and to a lesser extent, Jamal Murray. But on the latest Game Theory Podcast with Bryce Simon and Sam Vecenie, they point out that in terms of three-man lineups, the Nuggets have 12 of the top 13 in terms of offensive rating - and the top two don’t even include Jokic.
Now, obviously, teams don’t play three players at a time, so even though Jokic or Murray may not be included in one of these three-man lineups, they could still be on the floor for a good chunk of that data.
But the point can’t be ignored, the Denver offense is absolutely humming, pretty much no matter who’s on the floor. Those three-man lineups are littered with the likes of Peyton Watson, Cam Johnson, Spencer Jones, Tim Hardaway Jr., and others.
The only reason we don’t see more lineups featuring Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun is that they’ve been hurt and haven’t yet reached the minimum threshold of 200 minutes played as a trio for this exercise. But once they do, make no mistake, the Nuggets will have even more combinations at the top of this list.
Nuggets' defense must catch up to offense
The Nuggets have the best offensive rating in the NBA by almost three full points, and that’s while missing multiple starters for a majority of the year. As long as Jokic is playing, they will always have an elite offense. The problem is on the other end of the court.
Denver is never going to be a defense-first team, but they still need to be respectable on that end to win a title. They started the year well, when everyone was healthy, but things have fallen off a cliff recently, and it’s just getting worse and worse.
After spending the first month or so in the top five in defensive rating across the league, they’ve plummeted all the way down to 20th. They’ve got some built-in excuses with the injuries, and there’s still time to turn it around, but frankly, that’s just not nearly good enough. Teams with below-average defense don’t win the championship.
When healthy, the Nuggets should have the personnel and coaches to make this work. The offense is so good that if they can even sniff the top 10 on the other end, it should be good enough. But they still have to put in the work and make it happen. Otherwise, it almost doesn’t matter how great the offense is.