The Warriors vs. Nuggets playoff series mega-preview
Exploring the Nuggets' statistical profile, the insane playoff performances of Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets' most-used lineups, and trying to learn from the Warriors' final weeks of the season.
After a 53-win season in which Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson play all of 11 minutes together, the Warriors have secured the third seed in the western conference playoffs and will face the Denver Nuggets next weekend in the first round.
This first-round matchup offers plenty of intrigue and opportunities for the Warriors’ players and coaching staff to gear up for a deep playoff run. There’s also a non-zero chance that the Warriors don’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs — Steph Curry could miss a game or two, if not the entirety of the first round, pending the next evaluation on his injured foot. That would be less than ideal.
There are lots of unknowns about this Warriors’ team, so let’s take a quick look at the final weeks of the regular season: Steve Kerr solidified and rode a rotation heavy on veteran experience and defensive ability at the direct expense of rookies Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, Jordan Poole put up prime-Damian Lillard numbers in the absence of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson found a groove shooting the ball, and the Warriors floundered defensively until putting together an excellent game against the Phoenix Suns that provided a blueprint for their final regular-season games.
The Nuggets, on the other hand, rode a late-season MVP push from their superstar center, Nikola Jokic, and avoided the play-in tournament despite rocking a starting lineup with a second-leading scorer topping out at less than 15 points a game. Jokic finished the regular-season averaging 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds, 7.9 assists, 2.4 stocks, and 3.8 turnovers a game on 58/34/81 shooting splits with a bonkers 66.1% TS. Smarter, more prolific writers than me have written at length about Jokic’s MVP case, which I’ve linked to here, here, and here.
While injuries have rendered the Nuggets deficient at the wing and guard positions relative to other teams in the West, the prowess of Playoff Jokic cannot be understated. Prior to the Nuggets getting swept by the Phoenix Suns last season in the second round, Jokic had only dropped below 51% from the field and 36% from three in one series, which happened to be his first series in the playoffs.
For his career, Jokic averages 25.9 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 6.4 assists a game on 51/41/84 splits. By comparison, Steph Curry has averaged 26.5 points a game on 45/40/90 splits in the playoffs. By most metrics, Jokic is one of the best playoff performers of this generation and a player of his caliber has the ability to swing games in the Nuggets' favor, which could make the Warriors especially vulnerable if Curry misses a game or two — or god forbid the entire series.
With all that said, let’s get into the numbers:
The Nuggets’ statistical profile:
Above-average 3-point shooters (35.4% or higher):
Zeke Nnaji: 6.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.7 stocks, and 0.6 turnovers in 17 minutes a game on 52/46/63 shooting splits with 62.9% TS.
Davon Reed: 4.4 points, 2.3 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.7 stocks, and 0.3 turnovers in 13.9 minutes a game on 50/43/67 shooting splits with 62.4% TS.
Bryn Forbes: 8.6 points, 0.9 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.3 stocks, and 0.7 turnovers in 17.4 minutes a game on 42/41/92 shooting splits with 57.8% TS.
Marks Howard: 4.1 points, 0.4 rebounds, 0.2 assists, 0.3 stocks, and 0.2 turnovers in 5.7 minutes a game. on 39/40/87 shooting splits with 56.7% TS.
Monte Morris: 12.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, 4.4 rebounds, 0.9 stocks, and 1 turnover in 29.9 minutes a game on 48/39/87 shooting splits with 58.3% TS.
Bones Hyland: 10.1 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.9 stocks, and 1.2 turnovers in 19 minutes a game on 40/37/86 shooting splits with 55.8% TS.
Will Barton: 14.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.2 stocks, and 1.2 turnovers in 32.1 minutes a game on 44/36/80 shooting splits with 54.8% TS.
The Nuggets only sport three rotation mainstays that are above-average 3-point shooters — Monte Morris, Bones Hyland, and noted Warriors’ killer, Will Barton. The 31-year-old Barton was actually the Nuggets’ second-leading scorer this season, which gives you a sense of how punchless this team is on offense outside of Nikola Jokic. The other three players on this list — Zeke Nnaji, Davon Reed, and Bryn Forbes, are on the fringes of the Nuggets’ rotation. A foot injury kept Nnaji out of all but two games since the All-Star break, Forbes has been in and out of the rotation since getting traded to the Nuggets from the San Antonio, although Davon Reed has recently earned more rotation minutes.
What lineups played a lot for the Nuggets this season?
A few things stand out here: for one, the Nuggets’ second-must lineup, which features Michael Porter Jr. on the wing, is not going to play any minutes this series as he’s been likely ruled out for the duration of the playoffs. That lineup with MPJ at the wing is one of only four lineups to rank above the 50th percentile in DRTG. It’s also one of three of the most-used lineups that feature Nikola Jokic and has a below-average ORTG.
I was curious about which Nuggets’ lineups played significant minutes in the final stretch of the season, so I’ve pulled up those stats from NBA.com, filtering for games from March until the end of the year. This is, in theory, a 20-game sample size, but no Nuggets lineup played more than 13 games together in that stretch and only 11 lineups played more than 15 minutes together. Here’s a screenshot below (positive lineups highlighted in green).
There are only two lineups listed above that would have a defensive rating that would rank in the top half of the league. One of those lineups, Morris/Rivers/Barton/Gordon/Jokic, actually played quite well on defense in this stretch but ranks nearly 5 points below the league-worst Orlando Magic’s 104.7 ORTG. Go figure. I think the most interesting lineups in this list are Denvers’ bench units where former Warrior, DeMarcus Cousins, is surrounded by shooters. There are two Cousins-led bench units that score at a below-average ORTG, but the other three Boogie lineups score over 120 ORTG, which would place them around or above the 80th percentile. Those lineups should struggle to defend against the Warriors, but they might be able to score at a high rate and beat the Warriors up on the glass, and stifle their transition game.
Per Cleaning the Glass, lineups with Cousins on the floor had a -2.7 differential on the season and had a 66th percentile 114.3 ORTG and a 90th percentile 23.1% OREB. Where they struggled, predictably, was on the defensive end, where they gave up a 17th percentile 117 points per 100 possessions (this is how DRTG is calculated, by the way).
The battle of the Warriors’ and Nuggets’ bench units should be interesting. One would assume that the Warriors’ bench units will struggle to score — regardless of Steph Curry’s health, which will determine whether Andre Iguodala or Jordan Poole lead the second. The Warriors only had 10 lineups this year without Curry, Poole, or Chris Chiozza that received more than 10 possessions together. On the whole, the Warriors played 309 possessions without any of those three guards and had a paltry 102.9 ORTG in those minutes and a -7.9 net rating. You can see a screenshot below of the 10 most-used of those lineups:
If Curry does miss a few games of this series, I’d figure that the most-used lineup from that list — Iguodala/GPII/Thompson/OPJ/Bjelica — is the Warriors’ likely second unit. That lineup has a +9.8 net rating because of its suffocating 86.5 DRTG that props up a horrendous 96.3 ORTG. That’s pretty much the polar opposite of how the Nuggets’ most likely bench lineups rate out — the Warriors will likely trot out a scoring-challenged lineup that defends like hell to face up against potentially explosive Denver bench units that really struggle to defend. I can’t wait to see how that plays out.
What lineups played a lot for the Warriors this season?
Any avid Warriors fan should know that injuries forced Steve Kerr to use a wide variety of lineups this season, so as such, the lineup numbers we’re going to look at below represent multi-week slices of the season, rather than a season-long sample size.
You’ll note here the absence of the championship core of Curry/Thompson/Green in this list. That trio only played 22 possessions together for the entire season. If the Warriors do get Steph Curry back and opt to relegate Jordan Poole to sixth man duty, the Warriors’ likely starting lineup of Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney hasn’t played a single second together this entire season. What we have above is a patchwork of combos that could see some time together in the playoffs. But there’s no guarantee that any of the above lineups actually will play together. If Steph Curry does miss games, however, we will see the Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney start. In 112 possessions together, that lineup has gotten absolutely crushed by their opponents, which is reflected in their garish -34.8 net rating.
I expected that the Warriors’ starting lineup without Steph sucked mostly in the Warriors’ embarrassing 1-4 road trip, but that’s not actually the case. When filtering for lineups that have played together since the Warriors’ “moral victory” in a loss to the Phoenix Suns — I mark this as the day that Steve Kerr trimmed his rotations in anticipation of the playoffs — the numbers still are not kind to the Warriors’ starting lineup without Steph Curry. You can see the lineups that have played 10 or more minutes together since the game against the Suns, per NBA.com, below (positive lineups are highlighted in green):
Even when I filter to include only lineups that have played from the Suns’ game and on, the Warriors’ starting lineup has been awful. But if you sub in Otto Porter Jr. for Kevon Looney, that lineup crushed its opponents in the final games of the regular season. What else can we learn from the final games of the Warriors’ regular season that offers predictive value for this series against the Nuggets? I’m not sure.
I think it’s fair to assume that none of the lineups with Moses Moody or Juan Toscano-Anderon will see meaningful minutes, so let’s write those off. I do think that the mixed starter/bench units that involve Poole and Draymond with combinations of bench players are interesting and could see playing time if Steph Curry comes back, Poole is running bench units, and Draymond comes back in around the 9-minute mark of those quarters.
Should Curry comes back and play all of or most of the games in this series, the Warriors will obviously be far better positioned to trot out capable second units. So let’s take a look at the lineups the Warriors played this season where Poole played without Steph Curry, per cleaning the glass (positive ones highlighted in green:).
There are only three lineups in that list that come up positive. Two of them involve Klay Thompson and those are only three of the 10 most-used Poole/non-Steph lineups that played this season. Now let’s take a look at Poole + Thompson lineups — it’s safe to assume that those two will anchor bench lineups when Steph is healthy (positive ones highlighted in green):
Now, these are encouraging numbers! The new starters are the only ones that come up negative here, every other lineup to get more than 15 possessions together this season was positive. We can probably write off the Moses Moody lineups from our consideration, but the Jonathan Kuminga ones are intriguing. Steve Kerr told The Athletic’s Anthony Slater this about Kuminga and the second unit:
“JK is the guy we go to after that group. It’s been that way the last few games. If he’s got it going, we’ll stay with him. If not, we’ll go back to the vets.”
Kuminga will likely get a shot at playoff minutes against the Nuggets, but there’s no guarantee he’ll earn minutes above the Warriors’ more established vets, particularly Andre Iguodala and Otto Porter Jr. Here’s another interesting thing I noticed in the Poole + Klay lineups without Steph — the trio of Poole/Thompson/Iguodala is nowhere to be found in the most-used Poole/Klay without Steph lineups. In fact, that trio, which would figure to be central to the Warriors’ second unit when Steph is healthy, has only played 19 possessions together all season. That number speaks volumes about how scattered the Warriors’ rotation has been — by necessity — this season.
What can we learn from the Warriors/Nuggets games this season?
The Warriors went 1-3 in their season series against the Nuggets. Draymond Green missed all four of those games, Klay Thompson missed two, Jordan Poole missed one, and Steph Curry sat out a loss where the Warriors’ younger half of the rotation got significant run. the Warriors’ most recent matchup with the Nuggets was their most satisfying one as they mounted a second-half comeback punctuated by Steph Curry and Jordan Poole closing out the Nuggets in crunch time. That game came shortly after Poole’s worst stretch of the regular season and the from the Nuggets’ game on, Poole forced his way into consistently playing closing minutes. For obvious reasons, it’s more fun to reminisce about that game than it is the Warriors’ other games against the Nuggets, but let’s take a look at these games one by one:
December 28, 2021: 89-86, Nuggets win:
I’ll quote my recap of the game, which I published on Roll Call Sports Net, below:
The Golden State Warriors, who were without Draymond Green, Damion Lee, Jordan Poole, and Moses Moody, nearly completed the comeback victory of the year in a frustrating 86-89 loss to the Denver Nuggets where they fell behind as many as 24 points and had their worst first half of the season. Tonight’s game was utterly bizarre and at no point did it feel like both teams were simultaneously playing good basketball. The Warriors scored a paltry 36 points and went 4/14 from the free-throw line in the first half and looked well on their way to being blown out, but then the Nuggets one-upped them and scored all of 29 points in the second half and went 1/18 from the three-point line.
Some scattered numbers that give you a sense of how ugly this game was: the Warriors ended the game 16/31 from the free-throw line with Jonathan Kuminga and Juan Toscano-Anderson going 3/10 and 1/6 respectively; Andre Iguodala had 3 turnovers and missed his only two field-goal attempts; Otto Porter Jr. played nearly 30 minutes and only took four shots and one (missed) three-pointer; Steph Curry went 1/6 from the field in the first half; both teams combined to shoot 27.7% from deep and had 32 turnovers between them, and Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic both scored under their average with 23 and 22 points and 6 and 8 turnovers respectively.
The Warriors play the Nuggets on road Thursday night, by which time Jordan Poole might make his return from the league’s health and safety protocols. Poole’s return will hopefully juice a Warriors’ offense that looked completely out of sorts for much of the game and hopefully, fans of both teams will be treated to a far more watchable game.
One of the more interesting things that happened in this game was that Jonathan Kuminga shot 10 free throws in 16 minutes. He also missed 7 of those attempts and had the potential game-tying layup blocked by Nikola Jokic, which you can see below:
Here’s some assorted film from that game:
February 16, 2022: 117-116, Nuggets win.
I watched this game but did not write about it, which in retrospect, is probably a good thing considering how annoyed I was by the outcome. This was one of two games against the Nuggets this season where the Warriors had all of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Jordan Poole available. That loss was capped off by a disastrous defensive possession by Steph Curry, which led to a double team of Nikola Jokic and an easy 3-point shot for Monte Morris to win the game.
The Warriors, and specifically Steve Kerr, made a few questionable decisions late in the game that led to their undoing. The Nuggets opted to Hack-a-Shaq Kevon Looney when they were down 8 points with a little less than three minutes left in the game. Looney went 2/6 from the line in those trips and after the game, there was much consternation on Warriors’ Twitter that Looney did not sit in favor of Gary Payton II, who was a team-high +13 in 25:07 — no other Warrior graded above a +/- of 0.
Here is some assorted film from that game:
March 7, 2022, 127-124, Nuggets win.
I won’t spend many words on this game because none of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, or Draymond played, which makes it effectively useless for predictive value, but I will quickly note that Jordan Poole and Moses Moody each scored 30 or more points in this loss.
March 10, 2022: 113-102, Warriors win.
I was on a flight for most of this game and I was only able to catch the final 18 minutes or so during my layover at LAX. And my god, what a glorious 18 minutes it was. Klay Thompson struggled in this game and went 5/13 from the field and 3/10 from deep. During the decisive final minutes of the game, Steve Kerr decided to close with a three-guard lineup of Curry/Poole/Thompson.
With about a minute left in the game and the Warriors up by two points, Steph Curry took the ball up the court and dialed up a high pick-and-roll. But in the absence of Draymond Green and with Klay Thompson having a rough shooting night, his screener was Jordan Poole, who rolled over to the left wing for a wide-open three that he railed. On the very next possession, the Nuggets somehow lost track of Poole in the right corner and Andrew Wiggins, who had gone 1/5 from the free-throw line and should have been fouled right away by the Nuggets, hit Poole for an easy dagger three from the right corner. You can see those two possessions below:
Big Picture Questions
How many games will Steph Curry play this series?
This is the single most important factor for this Warriors’ team. The Warriors announced on Tuesday that Curry “may return to team practices at some point this week” and that “his eventual return to game action [...] is undetermined and will be based on his continued progress.”
Given the Warriors’ history of deception and extreme opaqueness about injuries under the ownership of Joe Lacob, I will assume that Steph Curry will miss games until I am told otherwise. It is, of course, possible that this cautious update on Curry’s injury is gamesmanship on the Warriors, part, but until we find out that he has scrimmaged with the Warriors, it might be prudent to plan for early games in the series without Steph Curry.
What will the Warriors’ rotation look like?
This question answered be solved without knowing the status of Steph Curry. If Steph misses games, it’s all but guaranteed the Warriors will start Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney and hope that their putrid offensive output can be fixed against a defensively challenged Nuggets team. But if Curry does play all of or most of this series, Steve Kerr and his coaching staff will have their work cut out for them.
Two nights ago, I spent well over an hour trying to chart out the Warriors’ likely substitution patterns. This exercise left me frustrated, confused, and sympathetic to the task that lies ahead for the Warriors’ coaching staff. Let’s consider some important variables:
The Warriors probably want one or both of Draymond Green and Kevon Looney on the floor whenever Nikola Jokic is playing.
While the Warriors could opt to go five out against DeMarcus Cousins-led bench units, going small runs the risk of the Nuggets beating them up on the offensive glass and wearing down Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. (and possibly Jonathan Kuminga).
Nemanja Bjelica has given the Warriors good rotation minutes since the returns of Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala and he also has good offensive chemistry with Klay Thompson. In Bjelica’s own words after a win against the lowly Sacramento Kings: “Today when I was playing with Draymond, I was playing the five, but I was guarding the four, [...] we just, you know, switch that during offense and defense. He helps not just me. He helps everybody. With him and also Andre, when he’s on the court, I look way better. That’s good for me also. Then I can play my game. I feel more confident.”
Andre Iguodala has the highest net rating of any player in a two-man combo with Steph Curry (+19.7). Iguodala, however, is a key part of the “grown man lineup” that Steve Kerr deployed as his second unit in the final games of the regular season. As such, you probably want to lineup Iguodala’s substitution patterns such that he plays with both Steph Curry and the Warriors’ second unit.
Kerr recently referred to Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr., Nemanja Bjelica, and Iguodala as the core of his second unit. If Steph Curry misses games, it’s easy to just slot Klay Thompson into that lineup and call that group your bench lineup. But if Steph Curry is healthy, you’d have to assume that Poole and Thompson will share the court in the second unit, most likely with Otto Porter Jr., which means that one of Bjelica or GPII will have to get minutes in other places. This all assumes, of course, that Steve Kerr staggers his rotations such that one of Steph Curry or Jordan Poole is always on the court.
Speaking of Jordan Poole — since Steph Curry’s injury against the Boston Celtics, Poole has averaged 25.8 points, 5 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 0.7 stocks, and 3.5 turnovers a game on 42/37/95 shooting splits. Those numbers are damn near level with Damian Lillard’s career-averages of 24.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 1.3 stocks, and 2.8 turnovers on 44/37/89 shooting splits. There’s an argument to be made that Poole’s play has been so good for so long that he deserves to start in the playoffs. But that begs the question — whose place does he take in the starting lineup? If you bench Andrew Wiggins, your perimeter defense, which might not be all that important against a Nuggets team that is thin on the wing, might suffer. You also run the risk, as mentioned by The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami on a recent podcast episode of Warriors Plus Minus, of losing Wiggins. But if benching Wiggins for a player who has been far superior to him for well over 6 weeks now risks losing Wiggins, is that not its own concern?
If Poole does start alongside a healthy Curry, one of Wiggins or Looney has to go to the bench. Benching Looney means that Draymond Green will likely go 12-15 minutes a game against Nikola Jokic as the sole defender capable of guarding the likely two-time MVP. If you start Green and Looney together, you can probably toggle the two of them on a possession-by-possession basis, which in turn, should protect them from physical exhaustion. Anthony Slater compiled some footage of Draymond Green guarding Nikola Jokic, which you can see below:
I also compiled film of every possession of the three games Steph Curry played against the Nuggets where Kevon Looney was directly involved in guarding Nikola Jokic. Looney holds up pretty well here and held Jokic 12.9% below his season percentage on post-ups, but Jokic feasted on pick-and-rolls and the Warriors got quite lucky that the big man missed a significant share of jumpers on pick-and-pops.
If you opt to go small, you might have the chance of running the Nuggets off of the court in four games and buying Green and Looney rest prior to the next series. While Jokic is an offensive juggernaut and has staked a credible claim as one of the greatest offensive forces in NBA history, star guards have a history of lighting up the Nuggets in the playoffs:
With all of those considerations in mind, I do think that if Steph Curry is healthy that Steve Kerr would still opt to bring Jordan Poole off of the bench. I’m not sure I love that idea, given how much better Poole has been than Wiggins over the last few weeks, but I suspect that Poole will start games in the playoffs at some point at Wiggins’ expense. It will probably make Steve Kerr’s life easier if Poole takes those minutes by force, which would in turn, probably make it an easier sell to Wiggins. But given Kerr’s long-standing prioritization of perimeter defense, it’s hard for me to imagine Poole taking Wiggins’ starting spot in the first round of the playoffs, even if the Nuggets’ group of perimeter defenders doesn’t really warrant all that much defensive attention.
The rough outlines of a feasible Warriors’ rotation that I landed on can be seen below:
There are some things I don’t love here; it was very hard to always ensure that two of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Jordan Poole were always on the court at the same time, but I figured that Steph Curry was better equipped to go alone than Poole or Thompson; I’m not sure how much I trust Andrew Wiggins in the playoffs and found myself that I had to carve minutes for him at the expense of Poole, GPII, and OPJ; Jonathan Kuminga is totally absent from these rotations; and I struggled to figure out when to get Andre Iguodala, GPII, and Draymond Green all the minutes that they deserved without biting into the Warriors’ spacing.
But as is always the case in the playoffs, the rotations will eventually clarify themselves by virtue of merit and matchups and what I’ve listed above is probably quite far from the actual rotations that Steve Kerr will end up riding by the end of this first-round series.
My prediction:
If Steph Curry comes back early in the series and his health and conditioning are mostly intact, the Warriors should win in 5 games. I expect Nikola Jokic to be good for at least one immortal performance to take a game from the Warriors, but I don’t see the Nuggets defending well enough to beat the Warriors at full heath — relatively speaking — more than twice.
Now if Curry misses games, this is where things could get ugly. I think the Warriors should still have a slight upper hand in this series, if only because they have a defense capable of guarding Jokic in single coverage and limiting an already limited Nuggets’ surrounding cast, but I will worry about the Warriors’ ability to score when Jordan Poole sits these non-Steph games. The 10-15 minutes the Warriors play without Poole will be critical and Steve Kerr’s preferred bench unit, a defense-first unit that scores at a way below-average rate, might see themselves lose minutes to a more offense-oriented Nuggets’ second unit.
We’ve seen plenty of mediocre teams snuff out the Warriors’ preferred actions without the benefit of playoff-level scouting — if Steve Kerr and the Warriors don’t go for the kill shot and bring the Nuggets’ vulnerable defenders into high pick-and-rolls, I could totally see the Warriors’ offense without Poole stalling out and losing their minutes and in turn, giving Jokic and an undermanned Nuggets team a shot at life.
I expect the Warriors to win this series regardless, but if Curry misses more than the first two games of this series, I think this series will go to 7 games. If Curry only misses one or two games, I’m comfortable saying it’ll end in 6 games. For sanity’s sake, let’s hope Curry comes back soon and this Warriors team takes care of business.