For the entire decade, the Nuggets have been an elite offensive unit, but they’ve never been regarded as a particularly strong three-point shooting team. Yet, after trading away Michael Porter Jr., their best marksman in the offseason, they have eight different players shooting over 40% on threes this season.
The Nuggets are leading the entire NBA in three-point percentage, shooting a ridiculous 40.9% from deep, with all of Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jalen Pickett, Peyton Watson, and DaRon Holmes shooting at least 41.3% from long distance.
Add in Spencer Jones, who’s shooting 39.3% from three, and that’s almost the team’s entire rotation that’s providing elite efficiency from beyond the arc. The only players on the team who are currently top 10 in minutes played that aren’t singing the nets from deep are Bruce Brown and Jonas Valanciunas, who combine to attempt fewer than 2 threes per game.
The team has some amazing offensive engines in Jokic and Murray, so putting elite shooting around them is making this team impossible to guard. They are passing up good shots for great shots and consistently knocking them down with defenses unable to leave anyone.
Nuggets need to attempt more threes
If anything, Denver should be firing at a higher volume. Despite their laser-like accuracy, they are just 22nd in the league in three-point attempts per game. Part of their success is obviously shot selection, but it’s hard not to wonder if they could take advantage of their shooting even more.
They’re 10th in the league in made threes per game, but I think that number could climb even higher if some players had slightly itchier trigger fingers. Even if the percentages dipped slightly, but the volume went up, that’s a math problem that would work out in Denver’s favor, and make this team even more unguardable.
It’s also another wrinkle and dimension that could be helpful in the playoffs, especially when facing elite defenses like the Spurs and Thunder. Those teams are going to take away strengths, and we watched OKC hound Jokic last year relentlessly.
Being able to ping the ball around more and try to pull the Thunder defense out farther with floor spacing is going to create more room for the Joker to operate in the post and will open up the lane for drive and kick possibilities.
The Nuggets hardly need to change anything about their offense, but at the same time, they’d be crazy not to fully lean into this newfound advantage. It has certainly been helping the team thrive without Jokic, and it’s something they should be able to integrate and utilize even more moving forward.