There has been a noted shift in what works and what doesn’t in the modern NBA. In years past, it often felt like whichever team had the best player would ultimately prevail in a playoff series, but that has certainly changed. Now, more than ever, it seems like teams are winning with depth, and a lack of weaknesses is what wins in the playoffs.
We’re seeing it all across the league, but you don’t even need to look any further than the Nuggets and Thunder series. The headline coming in was the MVP-matchup between Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but both players have surprisingly struggled, and these last few games have come down to the supporting casts.
Sunday’s Game 4 was a total rock fight and turned into a battle of attrition. With Jokic having an off night, Denver was never able to find reliable offense in the fourth quarter, while OKC has a myriad of options for coach Mark Daigneault to waffle through, and ultimately, he pressed the right buttons and found enough production to pull out a massive win in Denver to even the series at 2-2.
Nuggets have 6 reliable rotation players
Unfortunately for the Nuggets, this league-wide shift is not working in their favor. Denver built their team around their core four players, and beyond that, they don’t have much. The Nuggets have been running their five starters and Russell Westbrook into the ground, and after that, coach David Adelman is basically grasping at straws.
Every minute of Peyton Watson, DeAndre Jordan, Julian Strawther, or anyone else has been an adventure at best and feels like a complete leap of faith. For the most part, it’s the top six guys, and anything else is an unexpected bonus.
When all of the Nuggets’ top six players play well, the team has a high ceiling, but their margin for error in each game is minuscule. On Sunday, Russell Westbrook had one of his off-nights and couldn’t make a shot. Michael Porter’s shoulder injury was giving him trouble, and he had a rough night as well.
That essentially left the team with four reliable players, and with Jokic having trouble, the team was drawing dead out there, which leads to scoring 87 points in a game at home; not a recipe for success in the playoffs against an elite team.
Nuggets must address depth this offseason, no matter what
Regardless of how the rest of these playoffs play out, it’s clear the Nuggets must address the depth situation this offseason. They don’t have a lot of resources in terms of draft picks or cap space, so they are going to have to get creative.
Maybe it means trading a key role player for multiple parts, maybe it means finally parting with a young, recently drafted player, or maybe it means an even bigger move and finally blowing up the core of the team.
There is no obvious move to be made, but it’s blatantly obvious that they can’t go through another season with such a thin roster.