Denver Nuggets: 3 Complaints Heading to the All-Star Break
Wide-open wings has become a Nuggets staple.
Night after night, game after game I find myself screaming at my TV things like “How do you lose Redick over and over?!?!”. I understand that J.J. Redick is all about the screens and will run his defender(s) through them constantly to find space.
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In the game Redick played previous to Friday Night’s Nuggets win, a win over the Golden State Warriors, JJ was 4-10 from deep and 5-12 overall, scoring 15 points. For the season, he averages 18.9 points on 39.3% three-point shooting.
The point is that Redick is a gifted shooter and has a knack for getting open but that doesn’t express itself nearly as much against other opponents or over the course of a season as it does against the Denver Nuggets.
The fall from early-season defensive stalwarts has been shocking, nowhere more apparent than opponents three-point shooting. We could dig into statistics and rankings but just watching the games, Nuggets fans know that the top shooters on the opposing team are open far too often. Particularly in the corners.
You won’t find a bigger Jamal Murray fan/supporter but watching him drift toward the paint, sagging off his lights-out shooter assignment over and over again has gotten incredibly frustrating. I don’t know if it is scheme or something Jamal needs to correct in his defensive game, what I see is that guys are draining corner three’s while Jamal is in no-man’s land just outside the lane. It happens too often to ignore.
On Friday, Redick took advantage of Murray and Malik Beasley‘s defense to the tune of 34 points. The last time the teams played he hit us for 22. JJ is just a symptom of a larger problem, on Wednesday, the Nuggets allowed the Brooklyn Nets, the worst three-point shooting team in the NBA to hit at a 56% clip. NBA players can hit wide-open three-point shots. It is a thing people know about.
It’s time the Nuggets got the memo and while Coach Malone may not think he should have to, it falls to the coach to right that effort.
Speaking of the coach: