Nuggets plagued by poor spacing in loss to Celtics, and it’s an issue that will define Denver’s season

Nikola Jokić is the rare star scorer that might actually prefer to be double-teamed. It’s part of what makes the Nuggets star one of the greatest offensive players in NBA history. He doesn’t want to score 50 points. He wants to scare you into thinking he might because his legendary passing can take over a game when you send too much help his way. 

Jokić ranks third in the NBA in scoring this season, but second in assists. His playing style has historically treated the former as a means to the latter. Jokić is, first and foremost, perhaps the greatest passer in NBA history.

It is distressing, from that perspective, how much more comfortable teams are becoming in throwing extra bodies at him this season. His past week or so could be accurately summarized by the screenshot below from Denver’s 110-103 loss to the Celtics on Sunday.

Jaylen Brown got caught against him in an unfortunate cross-match, but the Celtics identified the mismatch as soon as the ball was entered into him. By the time he had a hand on the ball, Luke Kornet and Jayson Tatum had fully abandoned their assignments to help, while Sam Hauser had stepped in at the ready, with his eyes off of his own man. 

Two years ago, that would be a pretty blatant example of a defense over-helping on Jokić. This year, it’s increasingly becoming something like the norm because of the players the Nuggets have put around him. 

Tatum was guarding Christian Braun, who takes only 2.6 3-pointers per game. Kornet was guarding Zeke Nnaji, who entered Sunday’s contest having attempted 31 3-pointers all season. And Hauser was on Russell Westbrook, who is perhaps the worst high-volume 3-point shooter in NBA history. The only 3-point threat on the floor for Jokić to pass to was Julian Strawther, who, unsurprisingly, was the only Denver player that Boston didn’t help off of on the play. Boston reasoned that leaving Braun, Westbrook and Nnaji wide-open was more palatable than giving Jokić a sliver of daylight. They were betting on those shooters missing.

Success hasn’t even been a guarantee when the shots have gone in. Consider last week’s game against the Lakers. Denver shot a strong 16 of 41 from deep. A conversion rate of 39% is quite good, but the volume is what ultimately matters here. The Nuggets typically average a league low 31.5 3-point attempts per game. They took 41 against the Lakers, which is what the fourth-place Cavaliers attempt on average. But they only scored 30 points in the paint. Against Boston on Sunday, Denver scored 38. 

Those are the points Denver really needs. 

A sign of things to come for the Nuggets?

The Nuggets lead the league in paint points this season at around 59 per game. The best defenses have seemingly decided that Denver’s shooting is such a weakness that there is practically no limit to the lengths they can go in order to wall off the paint. Some teams are able to do so more effectively than others, but that shooting is limiting the Denver offense no matter what. 

The Nuggets managed to score 68 paint points against the Bucks on Thursday, but still lost the game. Why? Because the Bucks eagerly allowed the Nuggets 23 wide-open 3-point attempts in that game, more than all but two teams in the league average per game. Denver made only six of them.

This is probably what life is going to be like for the Denver offense in high-leverage regular-season games and especially in the playoffs. Teams are no longer afraid of sending help against Jokić because they understand that the math is going to work out in their favor. The Lakers game epitomized that. On paper, 41 attempts looks like a lot. In a vacuum, it might be. But the Lakers defended Jokić in a way that invited Denver to shoot 50 3’s because they knew that the Nuggets wouldn’t be comfortable doing so. Their offensive instinct was to keep trying to figure it out in the paint. They wound up turning the ball over 20 times trying to force the issue.

Aaron Gordon didn’t play on Sunday. He’s having the best shooting season of his career at 41.5% from deep. Tighter rotations in the playoffs make it easier to remove problematic shooters. But given the weaknesses of almost every Nuggets player outside of the core four, there may not be better options available. Jokić is a problem solver. Show him a version of this defense seven times in two weeks and he’s going to figure out the best way to attack it even if there isn’t exactly a good one.

But at the end of the day, this is the NBA in 2025. If an offense is vulnerable enough to feasibly allow even a momentary and instinctive quadruple-team, it is probably going run into problems in the playoffs. Denver’s championship hopes rest on not only its ability to make the wide-open 3s Jokić is creating for his teammates, but its willingness to even take them.