HOUSTON — The Nuggets’ most unusual configuration seems tailor-made to counter the Rockets.
But they might have to start relying on it more often in general, if power forward Aaron Gordon is out for an extended period.
Nuggets coach David Adelman didn’t have a specific postgame update on the injured Gordon after a gutsy 112-109 win Friday at Houston, but he did suggest that possibility — that centers Nikola Jokic and Jonas Valanciunas could be playing more minutes together soon.
Gordon was ruled out with a right hamstring strain in Houston, the same type of injury he tried to play through in a playoff Game 7 last season.
“We’ll sit down again after tonight, with the discomfort that he had,” Adelman said. “We’ll find out what the severity is. … Aaron is a strong personality that knows what his body feels like, and so part of that conversation is his, too. The medical, the team, Aaron, and what’s right for him. Obviously, the goal is to get him to the end of the year, if we’re lucky enough to be in (the playoffs). That’s the most important thing to me, and obviously Aaron’s long-term health as a player. Love the guy to death. So yeah, we’ll make the best decision for him, with his counsel as well.”
Gordon was already dealing with discomfort in both hamstrings before Friday. He sat out Denver’s previous game in New Orleans. In Houston, he made it about three minutes before asking for a sub and going directly to the locker room.
“What Aaron is for us is enormous,” Adelman said. “So if he misses some time … other guys will fill in. They’ll do their thing. We’ll look a little bit different. We’ll play different lineups. We’ll play a different way. But we’ll still have our constants in there. And obviously we really, really need Aaron back as soon as possible, whenever he’s ready to come back.”
Adelman was already planning to use the double-big lineup at some point in Houston before Gordon’s injury. His hand was forced after it. Jokic and Valanciunas played almost eight minutes together in the win, which might’ve been the Nuggets’ most impressive of the season so far. They bludgeoned the Rockets with size, physicality and effort in the first quarter despite some clunky offense.
Those minutes were played entirely against Houston’s own double-big variations, which involved combinations of Alperen Sengun, Steven Adams and Clint Capela.
When Adelman tried it again early in the fourth, it wasn’t so successful against a smaller Rockets lineup.
All in all? Denver was a plus-two with the two centers roaming together.
“It’s tough to say, like, is it working or not, because every night we have different matchups,” Valanciunas told The Denver Post. “It’s tough when you have five guards, and you’re just chasing (them) around the 3-point line. That’s not what we do, me or Nikola. So if we have the right matchup, I think it’s working. … It’s gonna be different looks every game. But we’ve gotta invest some time. It’s been, I don’t know, three games maybe that we’ve played double bigs this season.
“… We’re still trying to figure out the spacing. It’s two bigs. It’s not like one is playing four (normally) and another was playing five. We’re both fives. And we both kind of take that space. So we’ve gotta figure out how to navigate that space and that timing.”
Investing time in it is easier said than done. The Nuggets rarely hold formal practices during the season. And when they’re playing a game, Adelman hasn’t had a third center available to him for most of the season — other than Gordon — because DaRon Holmes II has been on assignment in the G League.
That means Adelman’s balancing act, when he has wanted to play Jokic and Valanciunas together, has been that he also wants one of them on the floor at all times. Their sub patterns can only overlap for short stints.
“I think the idea that if they play together, they have to be at different levels at all times, they’re getting used to that,” Adelman said after the win. “Because both guys like to short roll, pick-and-pop a little bit, play second-side, and you’ve gotta be unselfish with that. If one of them is in a pick-and-pop, the other guy’s gotta dive, and he’s gotta get out of the way. But I like having both because they’re both so skilled.”
What the Nuggets gain in muscle offensively by playing both centers, they lose in mobility defensively. If they play a zone, then one of Jokic or Valanciunas is usually forced to defend out toward the corner, which can be an awkward area for a center.
“We are trying to figure it out,” Jokic said. “Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s really bad. I think we need to have more minutes to be there and to play in different positions, different type of players who we’re guarding. But I think we communicate on the floor.”
“There’s a good synergy there,” Adelman said. “And it’s something that, if we have injuries, you’ll probably see more of just because you’ve gotta have your best players on the court.”