Can Jokic's defense survive in the playoffs? | Enhanced podcast

But that ceiling is still not like the 25th best defense in the league. That ceiling is probably more like the 7th or 10th best defense in the league in the regular season. I mean, think about the Bulls last year as a comparison, right? I mean, they have Vucevic in the middle, but when your guard defense is that good with Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball flying around and hounding people, you can make up for some of what you lose in the paint with both point-of-attack pressure, so you have fewer breakdowns up at the point of attack on the ball, but also horizontal speed and recovery. And I think one thing that's interesting about the Nuggets as they get to full strength, as they actualize, if you will, with Michael Porter Jr. coming back, with Jamal Murray getting healthy. I mean, this is a really fun game last night with these guys starting to click a little bit, is they're actually kind of big. And you might be saying like, well, wait a second. That's weird. You just said they don't have a lot of vertical size and rim protection. Well, they don't because Michael Porter Jr. is like 6'10", and he's not a great shot blocker, but he's long, and his size helps on switches around the basket. So he's rotating, you know, the difference between a 6'4'' guy and a 6'10'' guy rotating to that big man after Jokic hedges behind the play is a big deal, and he helps with rebounding. And then you go down the roster, and you're like, wait a second. Jamal Murray himself is like a pretty big 6'3'' plus dude at the point guard. The rest of the guys in this rotation all play big. KCP at 6'5". Pretty big guard. Bruce Brown plays big at 6'5". I mean, Bruce Brown's the center, right? He's playing 6'4'' center. I don't know how many playoff minutes he'll get because last night it looked like he got moved down the rotation a little bit, but Christian Brown, who we I think talked about before, he's like 6'7", 6'6", 6'7", big. These guys can all switch. They're better at getting around screens, and the reason why he got booted down the rotation last night was Vlako Konchar. He's 6'8". He's playing more minutes. The guys, you know, you mentioned Jeff Green, 6'8", 6'9". Zeke Nagy, 6'8", 6'9". This is what's going to be out there in the playoffs around Jokic to some degree, and so I think the combination of recovery length, kind of horizontal length, and guys like KCP, especially KCP, and even Murray, Bruce Brown, whatever, getting around screens up at the point of attack, depending on the opponent, to prevent fewer breakdowns at that point in the play, I think can give you a defense that might be capped because you don't have the rim protection that we just talked about, but it's still good enough to win with the offense you get on the other side. So there's a couple of things here, because you bring up the Bulls. First of all, I think that Alex Caruso, and especially Lanzo Ball when he was healthy, really want to see him back. Lanzo Ball's such a good role player. But anyway, Lanzo Ball and Alex Caruso are leagues better than any wing defender on the Nuggets. Like, it's not even close. They're in a different stratosphere, right? And they even, you know, guys like Ayoda Sumo, I think he's a good defender when he was coming off the bench as well then, and along with those, I don't think they have the other weak defenders that the Nuggets have, right? Like, you talk about Michael Porter Jr. Yeah, he's big, he can slot down, but on the perimeter, I think he's kind of a mess. Like, he's not really good at gathering his lower body. He can't really stay in front of guys, he's not good against smaller, quicker guys. Bones Highland, you know, maybe we'll get into it more, but he's a mess defensively in a lot of different ways. So if you say, have, if you have a lineup with those three guys out there, that's three clear, I don't know, I'm saying, you know, Highland, who are the other two guys I just said? Jokic and Michael Porter Jr. These are some guys that have some weaknesses, have some warts, and I think, you know, this popped up in the the Christmas Day game between the Suns and the Nuggets, and there's this one point, I think it's in the fourth quarter, might have been overtime, not a hundred percent sure, Chris Paul calls up Michael Porter Jr.'s guy to get the switch, right? So Chris Paul has Michael Porter Jr. on him. Then he calls up Jokic's guy for another ball screen, so you have these two guys that aren't necessarily great at navigating, playing high pick and roll, and Chris Paul is able to just kind of dance in there. I think he ends up missing the pull-up jumper, but he gets a really good look. I think there's too many weaknesses defensively on the perimeter for the Nuggets. Who was on, was, was Bones Highland guarding Chris Paul on that play? I don't know off the top of my head. The only reason I ask is not about that play, it's just because I actually don't think in the playoffs you're gonna get minutes from that combination. It'll just be interesting to see how many minutes Bones gets in the playoffs, period, specifically because of his defense and exactly what we're talking about. Like, they, they usually hedge with Bones Highland. It's the same coverage they often use on the pick and roll to protect Jokic, where Jokic is guarding the screener, and he steps out, momentarily slowing the ball down, shows himself in front of the ball, and then the Nuggets defense recovers. We've talked about this. Minnesota did this with Karl-Anthony Towns last year, so we've got multiple videos on the Thinking Basketball YouTube channel where we've discussed this concept. They do this a lot with Jokic, but they also do it with someone like Bones Highland, because he's just a mess at the point of attack. Like, he's a little bit better finding out where to rotate to and, you know, position himself off ball behind the play, but on ball, he's got, he's got massive issues. He doesn't set up well. He doesn't react or use his feet well. He's very upright at times. He doesn't get around screens well. So, I just don't think you'll see that combination with them in the postseason, especially if they're healthy and you got guys like Murray playing big minutes. I wouldn't be surprised to see Porter Jr. I think his length helps, but given his injury history and his sort of specialization as a shooter, depending on the opponent, I could see him closer to like 30 minutes a game in the playoffs. And so you get more combinations where KCP is out there with Bruce Brown. KCP is out there with, I guess if Jeff Green's playing well, as another big body, right? But just some of the other bigger bodies that I just mentioned that are better defenders. And the thing about KCP and Bruce Brown, as I said, especially KCP, last night he was on one defensively. I mean, he can really get around screens. So when you play the hedge coverage, you don't unlock his ability to get around screens as much. When you say, okay, KCP, you just stay in the ball so we don't have to give up anything off the screen, then you can drop Jokic. Then you can play him in slightly different coverages. And against Miami last night, I don't remember if they zoned. I didn't see all four quarters of the game. I watched a good amount of it. But we've seen them sprinkle in some zones with Jokic where the length can help. Different curveball you can throw teams. We know they like the hedge. They also have like a high drop or Jokic up at the level where he can maybe keep the ball handler in front of him a little bit as he's backpedaling or as it moves sideways. But he can also high drop, right? He can also get up near the screen, maybe a step or two below the screen and drop from there. And when you do that, guys like Brown and KCP can use their skills to get around the screen, stay with the ball handler. You can switch the heat. Last night, an interesting thing is they ran a lot of staggers, a lot of double screen actions where, you know, you have two players involved. And so now Porter Jr., if he gets stuck on a screen, he can switch with KCP. He can switch with Bruce Brown. These are the combinations I'm thinking of that can help the Nuggets have successful defensive possessions in the playoffs against, you know, maybe not every single opponent they hit, but against a lot of opponents they're gonna play against. I want to talk about Bones Highland again for a second. So you think there's a chance that he starts getting fewer minutes maybe in the playoffs when, you know, when it's more matchup dependent, right? Absolutely, I think. He's at 21 minutes per game right now because you think of the old Lou Williams Montrezl Harrell thing with the Clippers, right? Like, regular season, night-to-night, you're a really good offensive player that is leaky defensively. And if no one tacks that, if no one, as you go through three, four games a week, no one really, really exposes that, you can get away with the little stuff you give back defensively, especially when you come off the bench in the second unit. In the playoffs, the rotations are shortened. There's fewer minutes against second units, and if you're Bones Highland and you have these defensive problems, you know, you still might get run because of your offensive pop. He's a good passer and shooter, and he can, you know, he's got some, as we like to say around here, he's got some offensive juice, and he's really fun to watch. But I can absolutely see him, kind of, if the rotation tightens up, being on the edge of the rotation in the playoffs. Thanks for listening. 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