The defending champions are officially on the ropes. Despite playing the first two games of their second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver, the Nuggets trail the series 2-0 after losing Game 2, 106-80. Minnesota earned that Game 2 victory despite the absence of presumptive Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, and their two remaining stars were the catalysts. Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns scored 27 points apiece, but it was Minnesota’s defense that really led the way.
Denver scored at least 94 points every 2023 playoff game it played, and was held below triple digits only twice. But the Timberwolves limited the Nuggets to 80 points in Game 2, and the superstar duo of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray combined to score only 24. It was worse on tape than it was on paper. The Nuggets looked rattled the entire game, complaining to officials and committing several frustration fouls.
The Nuggets lost one home game in the entire 2023 postseason. The Timberwolves have already taken two off of them, and if the Nuggets aren’t careful, the next time they return home they’ll be cleaning out their lockers for the offseason. Here are the biggest takeaways from Game 2:
Jamal Murray isn’t right
Jamal Murray hit two of the best shots of the first-round when he sank the Los Angeles Lakers with game-winners in Games 2 and 5, but it’s important to look at the rest of his postseason outside of those shots. Murray is shooting 57-of-152 from the field (37.5%) and 12-of-42 from deep (28.6%). He was scoreless in the first half of Game 1 against Minnesota. He proceeded to shoot 3-of-18 from the floor for eight points in Game 2.
Minnesota’s defense obviously deserves the credit for those struggles. Murray is really struggling to deal with all of the size the Timberwolves are throwing at him. Jaden McDaniels is bigger than basically any primary defender he’s ever seen. Anthony Edwards and Nickeil Alexander-Walker have both locked him up as well. But we can’t ignore the calf injury Murray has been dealing with all postseason. He struggled to even practice leading into this series, and right now, he has no answers whatsoever for all of Minnesota’s size.
The Nuggets aren’t a traditional superteam. They can’t just boost a healthy star’s usage up when the other one is injured. Denver’s offense is a highly intricate machine that can’t sustain the loss of any of its cogs. It all starts with the two-man game between Jokic and Murray. Michael Porter Jr., Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Aaron Gordon aren’t shot-creators. They live off of the looks that Murray and Jokic create. With Murray compromised, suddenly Jokic’s life becomes significantly harder because he doesn’t have access to all of the pick-and-roll tools he uses to generate good looks for himself. Suddenly, he’s forced to become a more one-dimensional post-up player, and that’s far easier for Minnesota to defend. Yes, the Timberwolves have the NBA’s best defense, but they’re also facing an offense that’s uniquely ill-equipped to adjust when any of its shot-creators aren’t quite themselves. The Nuggets get their offense out of two players. Murray struggling the way he has is making life harder for everyone on the team.
Minnesota’s defense starts on the perimeter
Minnesota’s best defensive game of the year just came with Rudy Gobert out. That’s not a knock on the soon-to-be four-time Defensive Player of the Year. In fact, it creates an important contrast with his former team that helps spell out what makes the Timberwolves so special.
Year after year in Utah, Gobert dragged the Jazz to top-five defensive rankings despite a complete and utter lack of point-of-attack defenders. Opposing guards would get into the paint at will, and Utah’s only hope was for Gobert to scare them back out of it. Inevitably, the Jazz would run into a team that could punish that lack of defensive depth. James Harden did it several times by combining his stepback 3-pointer and his incredible floater. He didn’t need to beat Gobert at the rim. The Clippers did it with spacing. They put five shooters on the floor and essentially told Gobert that he could either stay at the rim and cover the mistakes his teammates inevitably made at the expense of Terence Mann 3’s or contest Mann and leave the rim wide open. Gobert on his own is a very good defense.
But put his elite rim-protection with everything Minnesota has on the perimeter and you suddenly have a great, and perhaps historic, defense. You could argue that McDaniels, Edwards and Alexander-Walker are all better right now than any perimeter defender Gobert ever played with in Utah. They keep ball-handlers away from the rim before they ever meet Gobert, but Gobert’s presence allows them to play incredibly aggressively because they know their back is covered. This isn’t just a collection of great defensive players. It’s a great defensive team with a cohesive identity that, at least on a short-term basis, can withstand the absence of any of its key pieces.
Can the Nuggets find any reliable depth?
The Nuggets caught a scary sight at the end of Game 2 when Reggie Jackson, who was already dealing with an ankle injury, needed to be helped off of the floor. Though he’s had a pretty underwhelming postseason, Jackson is Denver’s only real shot-creator off of the bench. Christian Braun and Peyton Watson are energy guys and cutters. Justin Holiday only plays to shoot 3’s. With Murray hurt as well and Caldwell-Pope also dealing with an injury, the Nuggets are just running out of players.
It’s a far cry from last season, when Bruce Brown not only gave the Nuggets an excellent reserve, but a real changeup to throw into any lineup. If Porter Jr. wasn’t making 3’s, or if Caldwell-Pope or Gordon weren’t quite the right defensive matchup for the player they needed to stop, Brown at least gave Michael Malone another look. To an extent, Jeff Green offered similar versatility.
But right now, Denver’s starting lineup, which has been the NBA’s best five-man unit for the past two years, has no answer for Minnesota, and that’s exposing its lack of depth. Malone doesn’t have any alternative here. There’s no obvious adjustment to fix this. That’s what happens when your roster is so heavily geared towards five players. When they aren’t humming, the rest of the team can’t do much to fix that.
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