That old adage about the NBA being a copycat league has aged into cliché at this point. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
One variable the Nuggets seem to be copying as a new season nears: Defensive physicality and the art of almost fouling. It’s an art mastered by the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
“We are trying to be aggressive,” Nikola Jokic said Friday at Ball Arena. “We’re trying to be, like, close to a foul — testing the refs to call the fouls. That’s something that we’re gonna try to do. That was the emphasis of the practice.”
The most accurate term for it is probably the one used by coach David Adelman this week: “junking it up” on defense. In two consecutive postseasons, Denver has been vexed by an opponent’s ability to junk it up and unable to return the favor. Minnesota implored Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels to devour Jamal Murray in 2024.
OKC took the principle to another level last season, collapsing into the paint and recovering to the 3-point line as efficiently as any defense in recent memory. Alex Caruso was the ace in the hole, pestering and prodding Jokic to death in Game 7.
The Nuggets are searching for ways to renovate their defense after it ranked 21st in the league. Junking it up more is one way to start.
“Just different ways to shrink on better players. Zone. Working all that kind of stuff, and then when we do zone, who’s on the court, what their responsibilities are at each spot,” Adelman said. “And we’ll continue to work on it. I don’t know if we’ll throw it out there in the preseason, but it’s something we have to continue to improve on, because I feel like in the past, a lot of times you’re trying to get so many things done on the checklist that you kind of tell yourself you’re gonna get to that eventually. And I think if we’re actually gonna do that successfully, we have to work on it daily.”
Adelman has alluded to zone defense a handful of times this offseason, after deploying it regularly during the playoffs as interim coach. He and his players have also described a structure that’ll be more heavily based around Jokic’s IQ and matchup-dependent decisions. Some games might call for Jokic to be “up to touch” against a ball-handler. Others might be more suitable for various levels of drop coverage.
“It’s something new, so we are kind of trying to adjust,” Jokic said. “But I think we see that it’s going to be really good, and it could help us a lot.”
The ideas are complicated, but the overarching theme is that Denver’s scheme will be less rigid than before. Regardless of how it looks in action, peskier ball pressure is a foundational tenet. To put it another way, better effort than last season.
“There’s gonna be mistakes in this, when we’re not all the way up (the floor) like we’ve been, where the rotations are kind of starting from the get-go of every play, which we were really good at for a long time,” Adelman said. “… We just think this group has the capability of doing some different things, giving different looks, which gives us more flexibility on the defensive end, both man and zone.”
The end goal is to close the gap, at least marginally, with Oklahoma City — a heavy favorite to repeat thanks to its ability to overwhelm with defense.
“Hopefully we can be the silent — how do you say it? — the silent knight,” Jokic said. “Silent horse. Dark horse.”
Gordon’s status
Aaron Gordon didn’t play Monday in the Nuggets’ second preseason game, but Adelman has no concern about the power forward’s health. Denver visits the Clippers for another exhibition on Sunday.
“I think Aaron, Jamal, guys that have had those minor lingering injuries (in the past), we have to get ahead of that,” Adelman said. “So it just felt like the right time for him to take a two-day break, and now he’s back at it.”
Gordon spent most of last season dealing with a calf strain, then he also suffered a hamstring strain in the second round of the playoffs.
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