DENVER — For as great a basketball player as he is, Nikola Jokić will never be known as great a media soundbite. Some players are. You can press play on your recorder, and the quotes that flow are gold. Others, such as Jokić, would rather allow their play to do the talking.
Still, on Thursday night, Jokić revealed a hard truth that the Denver Nuggets will have to face this season. It’s a sentence that is sure to spark discussion, and questions that the Nuggets will have to answer as this season progresses. And it’s a thought that almost all of us have had during the offseason, during training camp, during a lackluster preseason and now after a regular-season opener that produced a 102-87 loss at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Will they ever be able to make a shot?
“We are not a good shooting team, I think, except probably (Michael Porter Jr.) and Jamal (Murray),” Jokic said. “All of us are kind of streaky. Not streaky, you know, but just average shooters.”
Nikola Jokic: “We are not a good shooting team, except Mike and Jamal. All of us are kind of streaky, not streaky, but just average shooters.”#MileHighBasketball pic.twitter.com/bOH2TeRdEv
— DNVR Nuggets (@DNVR_Nuggets) October 25, 2024
If Denver goes on to win its customary 50-55 games this season, and if the Nuggets go on an extended run through the playoffs, and if they prove to be NBA title contenders, the relative panic generated by Thursday night’s season opener will go away. Heck, it could go away if the Nuggets get off to a good start in the remainder of their first 10 games.
But for one marquee matchup, Denver’s performance was fuel for the narrative that it got worse this summer in an offseason that saw starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leave in free agency for the Orlando Magic. The Nuggets couldn’t make shots. The Nuggets looked old, especially compared to Oklahoma City’s collective athleticism. The Nuggets looked like a team lacking depth. New acquisition Russell Westbrook had some good moments, but mostly tossed up bricks whenever he tried to shoot from the perimeter. The offense looked disjointed and clunky, which was a surprising development, considering the core of this team has been together for so long.
On one hand, this is one game. A regular season is 82 games, and there will assuredly be a playoff to consider at the end of that. On the other, there were some alarming moments, and if one game is to be believed, this Denver team looked at least a level below a team capable of contending for its second NBA title in three years.
“I thought our defense was great,” Denver head coach Michael Malone said. “I thought the defense was amazing. But offensively, obviously, there’s a lot of room for improvement. That starts with execution, it starts with pace and it starts with the ability to make shots. We were 7-of-39 from 3-point range and we scored 87 points. It tells me that our defense was great, but that our offense has to catch up.”
The underlying fear was that the Nuggets wouldn’t have enough shooting. That came to fruition against the Thunder. What’s worse for Denver is that Oklahoma City intentionally laid off different Nuggets players in almost every lineup Malone put onto the floor, and doubled Jokić almost every time he touched the ball. Christian Braun, Westbrook and Peyton Watson were all players who found themselves wide open to fire away from the perimeter while the Thunder committed multiple defenders to Jokić without fear. When the Nuggets went on their NBA title run in 2023, there was no way teams could do that to Jokić. The Nuggets always had enough shooting to keep opposing defenses honest.
Another underlying fear was that the Nuggets wouldn’t have enough depth. This was also painfully obvious on Thursday night. Denver received 16 points total from its bench against the Thunder, and Oklahoma City went on extended runs in both halves once Jokić went to the bench. The reserves didn’t play well on either end of the floor, and the contrast to Oklahoma City’s depth proved glaring.
The irony is the Thunder didn’t shoot much better from 3-point range (8-of-36). But the Nuggets will need to play more traditionally this season. They will need to generate points a little differently than the way the rest of the league goes about its business. The good news for Denver is that it isn’t impossible, especially considering that Jokić still puts on a Nuggets uniform every night. But this team will need to develop offensively.
“Our questions are whether we are executing the way we need to,” Malone said. “And we have to make the right reads when teams are doubling Nikola every time he touches it.”
This strategy of making other Nugget players win games outside of Jokić is one the Minnesota Timberwolves employed in the postseason. It ultimately wore Denver down, and the Nuggets hit a wall of exhaustion in Game 7 against Minnesota to lose that second-round series.
Having 82 games to tinker and find what works is a luxury. But Denver currently looks as if it’s a level below at least Oklahoma City. Whether the Nuggets prove to be at the level of other Western Conference powers such as Minnesota and the Dallas Mavericks remains to be seen.
So, what are some potential solutions for the Nuggets?
They could do something drastic and break up their vaunted starting five and bring Porter Jr. off the bench, which would provide the reserve core with a dynamic offensive player. The starting five, if you elevated Julian Strawther, would still have enough offensive talent to play well. But this is an extreme thought, and coaches just aren’t going to go changing rotations and lineups in reaction to a single loss.
“The bottom line is that I have to figure out a way to get Julian going,” Malone said. “I have to figure out a way to get Dario Šarić going. So you definitely have to take a lot of factors into account. I think the more our guys play together, the better off we will be.”
The obvious solution is to make more shots, particularly the wide-open ones. More importantly, taking the wide-open ones. For as many looks as Denver missed on Thursday night, the Nuggets didn’t take some obvious ones. When you pass up an open shot, it’s difficult to get that same open look later in the possession.
Denver needs to generate more easy baskets. The Nuggets scored just 12 points in transition, and that’s an area that can alleviate a lack of perimeter shooting. And Denver needs to figure out the lineups around Jokić. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, they will struggle to put groups on the floor that don’t feature at least one non-shooter. But they will have to figure out a way to minimize a lack of spacing.
The Nuggets know there are ways to figure it out offensively. Still, Thursday night sent a clear message of how far this team has to go to get where it wants.
“There were too many possessions that were not Nuggets basketball,” Braun said. “We know that going forward, we have to be better in a lot of areas.”
(Photo of Nikola Jokić: AAron Ontiveroz / The Denver Post via Getty Images)
