The Denver Nuggets have Defensive Problems and the Solution is Sitting on the Bench

The Nuggets are following about the same defensive strategy as last year: aggressive and extra energetic, heavy fouling, a lot of switching, and mostly man to man with little zone. Interestingly though, the results have been different.

So far in 2009-10, the Denver Nuggets, for the first time in at least several years, have a very good perimeter defense. Players such as Aaron Afflalo, J.R. Smith, Chauncey Billups, and Ty Lawson are getting the perimeter defense done with some help from Nuggets forwards and centers.

But the Nuggets’ paint defense is very poor so far. The Nuggets are giving up far more back door layups and paint defense breakdowns than last year. Man to man defending in the paint is not as good this year as last. The defensive situation is basically the reverse of last year vis a vis perimeter versus paint.

For dependable playoffs wins, you need to have a more balanced defense than the Nuggets have this year. Worse for the Nuggets, if you have to be stuck with one or the other, its somewhat better to have a porous perimeter defense and a solid paint defense than the other way around. To sum it up bluntly, you absolutely must defend the paint well in the playoffs.

As a result of their weakness in crucial paint defending, the Nuggets overall are not as good defensively so far this year as they were last year.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets’ relatively poor defensive rebounding has been made even worse by the poor paint defending of the team. After Marcus Camby was given away by the owner due to the economics emergency, the Nuggets overnight went from being a great defensive rebounding team to a relatively poor one. They have never recovered, because none of the primary centers and forwards are great defensive rebounders, and a secondary problem is that Nuggets’ guards are not getting all of the rebounds that guards should get.

To solve the rebounding problem, the Nuggets have to get their guards to get more rebounds (which is reasonable to ask for since the paint defense breaks down so much) and they have to play power forward Renaldo Balkman more, who is an outstanding rebounder and an outstanding man to man defender.

Getting Carmelo Anthony to rebound more is a possibility too, but since Anthony has taken the offense on his back (and it was smart for him to do that) you don’t want him to start worrying about exactly how many rebounds he gets. Not to mention that Anthony will never be a great rebounder regardless of how much effort he puts into it. The costs exceed the benefits with respect to demanding that Anthony gets many more defensive rebounds.

The best defensive rebounders on the team are both sitting on the bench all the time: Renaldo Balkman and center Johan Petro. Nene and Chris Andersen are solid but not spectacular, but Kenyon Martin is a sub par rebounder at least as far as the playoffs are concerned and, as almost everyone knows, Carmelo Anthony is not even a good defensive rebounder. He is mediocre at best.

So we need to come back to Balkman: he is the solution to multiple problems that the Nuggets are having on defense right now. Renaldo Balkman is an excellent man to man paint defender and an excellent rebounder. Balkman is better at both of those things than Chris Andersen, but he is less popular in Denver so for that stupid reason Andersen plays and Balman does not. But the Nuggets need both of them.

Offensively, Balkman is similar to Chris Andersen: he fits in with the Nuggets’ fast breaking and free wheeling offense. Like Andersen, he gets a lot of offensive put backs, he can initiate or finish a fast break, he chooses shots wisely, and he can dunk the ball well. He is by no stretch a zero (or a very low number) offensively.

WILL THE NUGGETS SOLVE THEIR DEFENSIVE WEAKNESS BY PLAYING BALKMAN?
Will the Nuggets improve their poor rebounding and porous paint defending in order to shore up their defense, which in turn gives them a decent chance for a rematch with the Lakers in the 2010 West final? Most likely not; because Balkman is on the bench. And once George Karl has more or less benched someone in November, in most cases that player is more or less benched for the season.

Sure, Karl will once in a blue moon play a more or less benched player such as Balkman. He has to play such a player when there is an injury or two. But on those occasions the player will be judged far more critically than players who were never in that black hole known as the George Karl bench. So inevitably it will be back to the bench with that player after a game or a few games, unless there is a long term injury situation.

Do you remember that song “Hotel California”? “You can check out any time, but you can never leave”. That’s George Karl’s bench. A player on Karl’s bench can check out for a game or two or three, but he can’t completely break free from that bench until at least the following season.

Moreover, Karl consistently is biased in favor of reserves who are guards, particularly point guards and especially, although this may be just a coincidence, short point guards. Since overall Karl is not at all generous with playing time for reserves, you can deduce quickly that forwards who are not starters can end up very deep on the bench, which is precisely where Renaldo Balkman is this year.

But last year, Karl was a defensive animal more so than this year, and Balkman played, and Balkman had a very, very high Real Player Rating:

Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.901
Nene Hilario DEN 0.880
Chauncey Billups DEN 0.870
Chris Andersen DEN 0.835
J.R. Smith DEN 0.824
Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.815
Kenyon Martin DEN 0.754
Anthony Carter DEN 0.669
Linas Kleiza DEN 0.610
Dahntay Jones DEN 0.445

Balkman most definitely deserves a lot more playing time. More importantly, the Nuggets’ defense definitely needs Balkman to get a lot more playing time.

The Nuggets, despite the fact they use offensive strategies that are destined to fail sooner or later in the playoffs, are chock loaded with offensive talent. They have more than enough scorers. They can definitely afford to reduce the playing times of two or three guards. One possibility is that George Karl has a very bad habit of playing two point guards at once and, if he just stopped that, he would open up a good chunk of playing time for Balkman.

So far, since the strengths and weaknesses of the Nuggets’ defense have flipped around, opposing teams have not yet taken full advantage of the Nuggets’ poor paint defending. Opposing teams are still thinking that you can't score easily against the Nuggets in the paint. Soon though, it will be common knowledge around the League that unlike last year you can beat the Nuggets in the paint, at which time the Nuggets will be in much more jeopardy than they are now.

The bottom line: get Balkman in there now, Nuggets, or pay an increasing price as the season goes along. You have no chance of winning the West final with your defensive rebounding and paint defending the way it is now.

SUNS CHEATED AGAIN; COACH TOSSED WHEN HE PROTESTS
For the second straight year, the Phoenix Suns were cheated out of overtime and a very possible victory in Denver. This year’s annual “Suns are Cheated in Denver Game” was on Saturday night, December 12. Phoenix Coach Alvin Gentry was thrown out of the game with a few seconds left for going ballistic after Steve Nash drove through the porous Denver Nuggets paint defense and was fouled repeatedly by Nene. The only problem is: there was no foul called. So Nash could neither finish his layup nor make his free throws and the Suns could not tie the score. For the second straight year, a Phoenix at Denver overtime game was truncated into a Denver victory.

Last year, Dahntay Jones tripped Grant Hill going in for the tying score and there was no foul call.

Although so far it’s not as extreme as it was last year as far as the rate or, of course, the total number of improbable or lucky wins goes, the Nuggets are this year once again racking up lucky wins, often with unwitting, we hope accidental assistance from the referees. The Nuggets have won at least four disputable games so far, at least half of which should have been losses. Believe it or not, so far, this year’s disputable win rate is lower than last year’s. Last year's Nuggets disputable, controversial win rate was nothing short of science fiction.