Coaches are like everyone else – sometimes they can outsmart themselves.
Somewhere along the line this year, Denver Nuggets head coach David Adelman (and his staff) – during what’s been a season-long juggling act with the roster – decided they’d discovered something cool and new. They decided to go “small” when Nikola Jokic wasn’t on the floor. That meant leaving backup center Jonas Valančiūnas on the sidelines and playing one of their other smaller frontcourt guys at the center position. And on occasion, it worked out okay. They were able to outpace some opponents and utilize the talents of their versatile wing players while holding and even occasionally expanding leads during those all-important “non-Jokic minutes.”
But they weren’t playing the Minnesota Timberwolves.
You remember the T-Wolves. They feature 7’1” (former defensive player of the year) Rudy Gobert, 6’9” power forward/All-Star Julius Randle and 6’9” reserve big (and former 6th-man of the year) Naz Reid.
Minnesota doesn’t do small.
Adelman and company found that out the hard way when they elected to start the fourth quarter of Game 2 of the first-round NBA playoff series against the T-Wolves without an actual big on the floor. Leading by three points going into the fourth quarter, and after having already surrendered a double-digit first half lead, the small-ball Nuggets got overpowered in the paint and on the boards. By the time Jokic returned to the court, ‘Uncle Mo’ had donned green and blue, and even the Nuggets’ mighty offense couldn’t wrestle it back.
Minnesota is prepared to play against both Joker and ‘Big Val’ at the same time, likely never expecting to see court time when facing neither of them. The Wolves have at least two of their big men out on the court for almost every minute, so when coach Chris Finch looked out on the court and saw Spencer Jones trying to guard Reid and Bruce Brown trying to guard Randle, he must have rubbed his eyes and glanced to the heavens and mumbled a quiet, “Thank you.”
Make no mistake, it wasn’t a good night for Gordon and a lot of his teammates, and even Joker and Jamal Murray showed cracks. But it was the curious and ill-advised coaching move that was ultimately the Nuggets’ undoing.
A more experienced coaching staff would have never gone small against the T-Wolves. Everyone knows that the playoffs are always more physical than the regular season. With Minnesota’s defenders working hard to physically grind the Nuggets down with relentless pressure and some borderline dirty play, it just makes common sense to fight physical play with physical play. Instead of Jones spelling Gordon, it would have made sense to give Valančiūnas some court time guarding Gobert, allowing Jokic more freedom of movement while the Nuggets’ two bigs shared the court. Certainly, ‘Big Val’ isn’t going to get pushed around under the basket and let Reid and Randle grab every single offensive rebound they went after.
Jones was a wonderful mid-season story. But his playoff contributions will be negligible at best. And he’s not suited for this particular series.
Now that series is tied going back to the Twin Cities, and Denver’s predictable half-court offense faces an imposing challenge. The hope has to be that Adelman and company have learned a tough lesson, and that the whole idea of “small ball” needs to be mothballed for the rest of this postseason, however long that goes.
