Hey everyone! I made a video about the defensive clinic the Suns put on last night against the Nuggets. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJHotDb8ats
If you don't have time to watch the video, here is a rough outline of what I went over:
1. Ball Denial
- Most important/effective thing the Suns did last night was deny passes to Jokic whenever he got off the ball
- There were tons of possessions where Jokic gave up the ball and never was able to get it back, and they forced a bad shot.
2. Suns PnR Defense
- Nuggets had a lot of side pick-and-roll possessions blown up, Suns were executing ICE defense very well (see link for more info on ICE)
- Suns were also great getting over screens when they had Ayton drop back on middle pick-and-rolls
- In concert with the first point, the Suns did a great job of denying pick-and-pop passes off of Jokic ball screens/DHOs
3. Digging on Postups
- "Digs" are when a defender plays between the post and their own assignment, which allows them to double the post readily but also recover to their own man when needed
- Jokic never was really able to get comfortable in the post because of Suns digs
- Mikal Bridges and Jae Crowder are excellent at disrupting postups with digs
4. Good rotations, good transition D
- Suns covered up for each other really well, using stuff like pre-switching and scram switching to quickly take away unfavorable matchups
- Example: If Booker was guarding Jokic, Crowder would come switch with him quickly before the Nuggets could enter the ball into the post
- Couple of nice highlight transition saves, block by Torrey Craig and CP3 recovering to knock away Campazzo’s fastbreak layup
