“Wow! Jock Landale is a truly dominant center! Not one of the Denver frontcourt players can box him out, Denver must lack an interior presence to negate his offensive rebounding.” 

And our extraterrestrial friend wouldn’t be wrong, either.

In the first two and a half minutes of the 4th quarter, the Suns took six shots while the Nuggets only took two, with Phoenix bench big Landale drawing three fouls (two while attacking the glass and one while sealing Christian Braun) in that stretch. The Nuggets’ Jeff Green-Aaron Gordon backline is structureless, flimsy against any sort of quasi-meaningful size. A strategy that, on a night where the typically dynamic Denver offense was unusually sluggish, may have lost Denver home court advantage against the star-powered Suns.

Enter, then, one Nikola Jokic. Jokic checked in with 9:25 to go in a game tied 73-73, the only points scored thus far in the frame was a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope three pointer. His first play upon checking in? A demeaning one-handed rebound, casually repelling Landale with his free arm, into a Jokic-Jamal Murray two-man game resulting in another KCP three point bomb. 

The Nuggets would go on to win 97-87, but within a 30 second frame, Jokic immediately stabilized both ends of the court for the Nuggets. In a critically important Game 2 with Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon combining to shoot 9/31, Jokic needed to be the best version of himself: the NBA’s foremost supercomputer processing solutions to his team’s needs on both ends of the floor.

Yes, both ends of the floor. For as much as Jokic has been the league’s most reliable offensive hub in 2023, the fourth quarter against the Suns demonstrated that his feel for the game is not limited to offense. When the Suns attacked Denver’s no-middle defense with Josh Okogie as the short-roller/decision maker, Aaron Gordon jumped on an Okogie fake and left Deandre Ayton wide open for the jam.

I’m unsure exactly what Jokic said to Gordon, but I would like to believe it was something along the lines of, “It’s Josh f****** Okogie man.” It clearly had an impact on Gordon’s strategy on the rotation to the short roller. Later in the quarter, still applying no-middle but this time blitzing the ball screen, Gordon shaded toward Okogie instead of committing, forcing the worst offensive option for the Suns to make an important decision late in the game. The result was a bad shot and a won possession for the Nuggets:

Jokic’s recognition of personnel and concepts is key to the Nuggets defensive strategy against the Suns. The moments where Devin Booker and Kevin Durant go nuclear are unstoppable, but exploiting weaknesses around the edges is how the Nuggets can contain Phoenix’s explosive offense. Despite his athletic limitations, he solves so many problems just by recognizing the offensive potency of each opposing player. 

Against Cameron Payne (who is decidedly not Chris Paul), Jokic relied on heavy drop concepts and his underrated strength to man the paint. Against Booker, he hedged until the defender had a chance to recover, forcing Book to at least consider making a decision and delaying his process while the weakside defenders got organized. And against Durant, Jokic hard blitzed the PnR to get the ball out of his hands and into Okogie’s. All the while retreating to the paint to establish early positioning for rebounds. Positioning, the thing that the Nuggets couldn’t stop Jock Landale from establishing without Jokic.

And offensively, Jokic has no equal. He had 39 points on 17/30 shooting in 41 minutes. When the Nuggets needed his completely singular skillset the most, he delivered. The earlier clip–where Jokic processes Booker’s rotation before he does and gets KCP a wide open corner look–is a small sample of how Jokic’s offensive mastery ushered the Nuggets to victory.

Poor, poor Deandre Ayton. Despite some pretty sound defense, or what would be sound defense against most centers, Jokic routinely found space to attack and took complete advantage of how Ayton was utilized in Phoenix’s scheme. In the PnR, Jokic took up just enough space to get the best shot possible without a meaningful contest from Ayton:

In one-on-one defensive contexts, Ayton stood no chance. Despite possessing a myriad of athletic advantages, Jokic simply overpowered the former number-one overall pick. 

In the first clip, while obviously a tough shot, Jokic waits until Murray spaces to the three-point line to attack that gap in between the free throw line and the right block. The second shot is humiliation on national television. The aggressive hips and early seal in semi-transition puts the Suns’ defense irreparably behind the eight-ball. Barbecue chicken. He’s hunting an iso matchup against the only reliable two-way big the Suns roster. 

The third clip is just Jokic being a cheat code. After some initial off ball action, Denver runs Horns Out (where the player at one elbow sets a screen for the player at the opposite elbow, a play that Phoenix runs a lot for Durant) for Jokic, who immediately attacks Ayton’s chest and draws a foul. There is exactly one other center in the NBA who you can reliably run this set for and he’s the MVP of the Association. Back to our E.T. correspondent after watching the rest of the 4th quarter:

Jokic is become PnR death, destroyer of worlds defenses.

Profound words, but there are still some counters the Suns could employ to contain Jokic’s impact. While it sounds nonsensical, establishing a smaller defender on Jokic may actually short circuit the Nuggets’ offense. Placing Ayton, Bismack Biyombo, or even Durant as the weak side helper and matching up Torrey Craig as the primary could deter his decision-making and ultimately afford the defense more time for recovery. 

The Sixers implemented this strategy during the regular season (as analyzed by the great team at Thinking Basketball) to great effect, and while Craig is no P.J. Tucker and Ayton is certainly no Joel Embiid, the concept of forcing Jokic to see the biggest body possible on the help has its merits. Though I’m sure Jokic will crack that code too. Game 3 on May 5th.

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“We want him taking more shots,” the seven-year head coach said, donning a devilish grin, “just trying to take the ball out of [Kevin Durant] and [Devin Booker]’s hands.”

The Suns corrected this in Game 2, winning 123-109 with a healthy dose of KD and Book. The Suns’ dynamic duo combined for 34 points on 20 shots in the second half, a noteworthy increase from the 20 points on 12 shots in the second half of Game 1. Suns’ head coach Monty Williams diagnosed the problem as a lack of touches for their best players and corrected it to even up the series. 

And so, the precedent for the series is set. With Lue having the edge on the clipboard and demonstrating he has the players to execute his strategy, Williams’ ability to make effective and timely adjustments that maximize the shotmaking ability of his best players will determine the outcome of the series.

In Game 1, the strategy was clear: stay home on Durant and Booker when they’re off the ball, bring early nail help on drives, and defend the PnR with a soft drop. Push Monty Williams to use KD and Book as spacers off the ball and incentivize his two star scorers to pass out of the PnR. 

And they happily obliged. Though their typically efficient selves, the duo combined for just 34 shot attempts (19 for Booker and a mere 15 for Durant). And Durant didn’t touch the ball for the first five possessions of “clutch time” (the last five minutes of a game separated by five points or less).

In Game 2, the onus was on Monty Williams to design a counter. Like the cowbell in Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, the answer was, simply but undeniably, more. More KD, more Book: a concerted effort to allocate more shots for the Suns’ best players. 

At the 7:13 mark of the first quarter, the Suns ran Horns Out for Durant with Ayton as the screener. Kawhi Leonard (who Lue occasionally set as Ayton’s primary defender) switched on to Durant, who read the switch and tried to feed Ayton on the roll. Result: turnover, points in transition for the Clippers, timeout Suns.

Shortly after the timeout, the Suns went back to Horns Out for Durant. And though the defense sniffed it out rather early, it didn’t matter. Williams runs that play for the distinct purpose of leaning into what makes Durant so special, shotmaking at an elite level.

Same goes for Booker, who is as shifty and dynamic a scorer as the NBA has to offer, albeit still mediocre as a passer. Lue setting up the Clipper’s defense to place Booker in the playmaker role worked, for a time. The strategy forced Booker to make decisions typically reserved for Paul, and while Book’s improved drastically as a decision maker, the intensity of the Clippers still bothered him.

Until he went unconscious. Booker took 14 of his 22 shots in the second half and broke the Clippers defensive strategy of icing ball screens by attacking any available space with his shot. He finished with a game high 38 points, 25 of which came after the break.

Through two games, this series has been a classic “Jimmy’s-and-Joe’s vs. X’s and O’s”, with both head coaches embodying these ideas. Lue’s defensive principles ushered the Clippers to a Game 1 win, while Williams simplifying the decision making process for his two best scorers busted Lue’s principles in Game 2.

Now, it’s Ty Lue’s turn to counter what will likely be a barrage from Booker and Durant in Game 3. A contest in which they will be without superstar Kawhi Leonard. While Eric Gordon provides important shooting, trading his minutes for Terance Mann and Norman Powell adds physicality to the Clippers’ point of attack defense without losing too much shooting. The added aggression up top (especially without Leonard’s pressure) complements how the Clipper’s’ bigs have been playing the PnR, with soft drops incentivizing navigation into the midrange. Although the Sun’s’ duo is famously excellent in that department, it also means less space for passing angles, easier contests from multiple defenders, and (lest we forget) two is still a smaller number than three. 

Over the past decade, teams that win Game 3 of a series tied 1-1 going into the game win that series 75.9 percent of the time. Anything less than the best possible performance from either side will be a major roadblock to their ultimate goal. Williams’ Game 2 coaching set a new precedent in the series, and it will be up to Lue to determine a strategy that could save the Clippers’ season.

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