When the Nuggets signed Russell Westbrook in the offseason it was a bit of a marriage of convenience. Both parties were in a tough spot and ultimately their needs aligned. The Nuggets had no spending power in the market, but they badly needed depth, veteran leadership, and ballhandling off the bench.
Westbrook had been kicked to the curb by his last few teams and had no market in free agency. He needed a team to give him an opportunity to play and revive his value and reputation. The Nuggets offered the role that Russ sought and a chance to win while he filled many of Denver’s roster holes on a minimum contract.
By all accounts, it has been an excellent marriage and the Westbrook experience in Denver has been a rousing success for both sides. He has played great and provided a lot of things the Nuggets were missing. He has also built an incredible chemistry with Nikola Jokic and their two-man game was carrying the team at times this season.
There’s still no solution for Westbrook’s playoff struggles
But on Saturday night, the Lakers exposed the downside of Westbrook and the reason that his last few teams haven’t been able to rely on him in the playoffs; they turned him into ‘the guy’. The swarming Lakers defense crowded Jokic all night and constantly sagged and doubled off of Westbrook, daring him to shoot and dominate the offense.
Russ was more than happy to oblige and made the right basketball play, as he was often left alone, but he also shot the Nuggets out of the game, which is exactly what the Lakers wanted to happen. Westbrook ended up leading the team in field goal attempts despite playing the sixth most minutes.
He managed to jack up 17 shots in 24 minutes, scoring an inefficient 17 points and dishing out just a single assist. This played right into the Lakers’ hand as they rolled the Nuggets, 123-100 in Ball Arena, snapping a nine-game winning streak.
Malone needs to make adjustments or Westbrook will be unplayable
The Nuggets needed to do a lot of things better on Saturday night and it’s unfair to blame Westbrook, but this has been the problem in recent years. Teams aren’t afraid of him and in the playoffs, they’ve been willing to “let Russ beat them”. Unfortunately, Russ gets trigger-happy and generally speaking, he’s not a good volume shooter.
This can get ugly in a hurry and Westbrook can shoot his teams out of games quickly. Malone needs to find ways to maximize his minutes, perhaps inverting the pick-and-roll with Jokic, and generally using Russ more as a screener and cutter when he doesn’t have the ball.
Either way, this has to be solved moving forward because more teams are going to start copying the Lakers’ approach and we are definitely going to see it once the playoffs start. If the Nuggets can’t solve that problem, they aren’t going to be able to leave Westbrook out there in a lot of situations.