The Denver Nuggets Won A Title By Building Bigger And Smarter

In the slog of the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, a game with energy but no direction, Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon got switched onto hot-shooting Heat guard Kyle Lowry with Denver up 3 and the shot clock waning. Lowry faked right, crossed to his left, and rose up for a pull-up jumper. Only the space he created with his hesitation wasn’t there anymore, and Gordon swallowed the shot whole.

In the chaos and pressure of that closeout game, Gordon and Denver showed again that they were just as big, strong, and physical as the biggest bullies of the NBA postseason.

The Nuggets always seemed to know the best version of their team was the biggest one. After cycling through many big bodies — and big names — as frontcourt partners for Nikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets struck gold at the 2021 trade deadline when they swung for Gordon, a bruising forward in his athletic prime.

These NBA Finals have highlighted what makes Gordon special and why he was the right fit for the team. Gordon opened Game 1 relentlessly scoring over Heat guards on post seals, then in Games 3 and 4 piled up points as he cut to the basket for layups and dunks and mashed Miami on the offensive glass. Gordon was the final ingredient for this team because he overpowers everyone, but also skilled and smart enough to play alongside Jokic and Jamal Murray as a cleanup man on both ends of the floor. The 2014 No. 4 overall pick symbolizes the evolution of Denver from a deeper, more balanced team to one determined to bully its opponents.

Today’s Nuggets are the bigger team in nearly every matchup they face, including the Cinderella Heat. Every player in the starting lineup is big (at least 200 lbs.), tall (at least 6-5), and has long arms (at least a 6-6 wingspan). In these NBA Finals, they out-rebounded the Heat 232-178, and scored more points in the paint per 100 possessions than anyone in the NBA playoffs by a wide margin.

The Nuggets are not the expected prototype for modern NBA big ball. As the league transitioned out of the Warriors’ dynasty, teams realized that it was impossible to replicate Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry — and they stopped trying to. Even the 2022 champion Warriors played much bigger than they did during the prime Death Lineup years. Toronto has tried to build a roster without a traditional point guard or center, in which everyone is tall and skilled. Milwaukee uses the versatility of Giannis Antetokounmpo on both ends to dominate the paint and swarm opponents. But while Denver has not finished as a top-10 defensive team in any of its past five seasons on their way to the playoffs (they were 11th twice), the Nuggets have shown how to use big ball to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Long vulnerable in pick-and-roll defense, the Nuggets solved their biggest problem by simply getting bigger around Jokic. In the 2021 playoffs with Murray out, Denver got carved up by Damian Lillard and Chris Paul in back-to-back rounds when they could not cover enough space to take away the paint and contest jump shots. That postseason, they allowed opponents to shoot the second-highest percentage from behind the arc and the seventh-highest percentage at the rim. This year, they are middle of the pack in both by deploying larger bodies at every position with more aggressive gameplans.

These Nuggets swipe, crowd, and bump opposing offenses to make up for their lack of explosive athleticism. They are lowest among NBA playoff teams in turnover creation, and forced hardly any against Miami in the Finals. But they succeed by sending scorers the wrong direction, forcing them off balance, and generally making every possession a chore for the opposing offense.

The Nuggets are happy to let certain shooters take threes, and young help defenders like Michael Porter Jr., Christian Braun, and even Jamal Murray are smarter about how to rotate within the gameplan. Porter in particular has gradually learned how to use his 7-foot wingspan to his advantage. Anyone he guards can count on a hand in their face at all times.

When opponents do slice into the lane, the Nuggets collapse aggressively, a jumble of hip checks and raised arms greeting any ball-handler who flies inside. Game 3 of the Finals may have been their finest defensive performance of the entire season, turning Miami’s intensity back onto them and forcing the Heat into 37 percent shooting and just 20 team assists. Like Jokic, Denver’s supporting cast has taken its cues from ball-hawk NFL linebackers, swiping downward on any driving scorer to disrupt their rhythm or jar the ball loose.

Denver’s point of attack defense may have benefited most of all from adding size to the roster. Gordon was added specifically to be the Nuggets’ explosive wing stopper after a conference finals loss to LeBron James, but he is the rare athlete who can move his feet well enough to stop a Jimmy Butler drive and also have the strength to fight back against a Karl-Anthony Towns post-up. He is a perfect complement to Jokic at 6-8 and 235 pounds, providing Denver with a much-needed switchable, versatile frontcourt defender. The league may have forgotten about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, but Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth did not, trading for the 3-and-D wing last summer to complete Denver’s starting lineup. BBall-Index graded KCP in the top 3 percent of all NBA players as an off-ball chaser and a ball screen navigator this season. He was a steal for a team that needed more from its help defense and perimeter stoppage. Bruce Brown, also added last offseason, essentially turned Denver’s fortunes against Phoenix’s stars all by himself. He is technically a point guard, but he’s 6-4 and over 200 pounds. Even Murray has had great moments battling against Butler and others in the Finals.

The higher volume of threes gets the attention in the modern NBA, but the most important thing an NBA defense can do is not contest threes, but to take up the space created by volume shooting. The Nuggets identified that Jokic had a weakness against dynamic guards who could score in the pick-and-roll. They understood that because of his low center of gravity and lack of leaping ability — as well as his huge workload on offense — that wasn’t going to change. So Booth and Co. subtly, offseason by offseason, found and developed players who could combine strength and length in a way that instead bumped opponents off their spots, contested shots more consistently, and could execute gameplans built around Jokic’s limitations. It paid off.

Of course, the Nuggets also couldn’t ignore their true identity as an offensive juggernaut. They couldn’t afford to simply acquire defensive difference-makers. Their size and intelligence helps on offense, too. Murray has adapted his game considerably in the Finals, getting downhill early and often, averaging double-digit assists and living in the paint. A traditional scoring guard would only be so effective playing off Jokic. Murray has added muscle over time, and is on his way back to the 70-plus percent at-rim shooting he boasted before he tore his ACL. He can post up smaller guards, too. The two-man game works because Denver can invert it, and not just because Jokic is comfortable on the outside. Murray can get into the teeth of the defense and take advantage of that space.

This series has also been the apotheosis of Gordon’s adaptation into a paint killer, overpowering guards and wings, owning the glass, and flying in for dunks and layups from every angle. It certainly helped Porter weather his cold streak that he could use his size to shoot 72% at the rim in the playoffs. And the power of Jokic is that smart players like Brown and KCP also learn quickly that they also need to start cutting and moving if they want to win and get minutes. Every addition the Nuggets have made has been with complementing their star duo in mind, players to both cover up weaknesses and amplify the strengths of Jokic and Murray.

“You have to have positionless guys, guys who can contain the ball and make shots,” Booth told Yahoo Sports of his roster-building approach. “Everybody wants two-way players, but [Jokić] likes to play with guys who know how to play basketball the right way.”

The past five MVPs have gone to Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Joel Embiid. To win in the NBA today, you have to match those 7-foot unicorns who can handle the ball and bully you inside. Unless you acquire one of your own such players (hello, San Antonio), your answer for them will probably have to utilize all five players. This is where Denver’s approach is even more brilliant. They are already one step ahead of how teams might respond to them. By building big, the Nuggets not only shored up their team to make it a champion, they also beat out opponents in the big ball arms race that they have accelerated.

Denver manipulates space on offense better than most any team in the league, and has assembled a unit that clogs it on defense. With their core most all under contract (aside from Bruce Brown, who could be a hot commodity in free agency this summer) and still fairly young (not to mention Braun and Peyton Watson waiting in the wings like a lab-created next generation for Denver to mold), the rest of the NBA has to operate as if the Nuggets will continue to be the defining team of this moment.

The question of how you stop the Nuggets has been raised throughout the playoffs as they churned out double-digit wins and lost just four times. The recipe includes a heavy dose of paint pressure, transition scoring, and threes. It also means matching Denver’s physicality and IQ. But as the NBA heads into its first offseason attempting to thwart the Nuggets, that recipe also has to include players who are big, tall, and strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Denver’s core.