Portland's Stout Game 4 Defense Wasn't All Jusuf Nurkic
Jusuf Nurkic received most of the credit for the Trail Blazers' much-improved defense in Game 4, and rightfully so. Not only did he match Nikola Jokic minute-for-minute on Saturday, but Nurkic's individual efforts played a major role in the presumptive MVP struggling to 16 points on 7-of-18 from the field – the third-worst shooting performance of his playoff career.
"He played good defense on Jokic and stayed out of foul trouble," Terry Stotts said of Nurkic. "That was key. We're obviously better when Nurk's able to stay on the floor, especially against Denver...I thought he really locked in defensively."
Nurkic wasn't the only one who "locked in" on defense with Portland's back against the wall. To a man, the Blazers singled out "energy" and "aggression" defensively as a driving force behind their blowout Game 4 victory over the Denver Nuggets.
But it's remiss to suggest Portland's impressive play on that side of the ball was solely the result of flipping a mental switch. The Blazers also made some subtle schematic adjustments that could loom similarly large as this hard-fought best-of-seven becomes a three-game mini-series.
Check out Robert Covington on this first-quarter possession. First he leaves Aaron Gordon in the strong-side corner – a no-no in the NBA unless prescribed – to cut off Facundo Campazzo's drive, then executes an impromptu switch with Norman Powell to ensure another rim attack is stymied. Covington's second help leaves Michael Porter Jr. alone in the corner, but with the shot clock winding down.
Covington's resumé for All-Defense isn't quite good enough to earn that honor, but it only exists in the first place because he's such an impactful help defender.
Coming into the first round, the expectation was that he'd spend ample time roaming off Gordon and other less-threatening offensive players to clog Jokic passing lanes and cover for his teammates' mistakes. Portland gave Covington that freedom to a new extent in Game 4, and it made all the difference.
Look how Covington plays an extra step off of Gordon here, digging down to cut off Porter as he flies off a Jokic screen. Nurkic reacts to Porter's head of steam, too, but due to Covington's support knows he has enough time to recover back to Jokic for a potential pick-and-pop.
Initial help defense isn't enough, though, if the helper isn't helped himself.
As Gordon cuts backdoor when Covington commits to Porter, C.J. McCollum flies in from the weak corner to prevent a cutting layup. Powell plays two on the backside while Covington and McCollum recover to their primary assignments, then executes a perfect, high-hands close-out on Austin Rivers.
That sense of connectivity and communication has been largely lacking for Portland all season, and was at times early in Game 4. But even when the Blazers made mistakes, after the first quarter they were consistently able to blunt them.
Powell gets stuck on a staggered screen during this possession, goading the pick-and-pop switch Portland mostly avoided on Saturday. Damian Lillard, guarding Shaq Harrison in the strong corner, knows his man isn't a threat, so stays on the ball side and ultimately picks up Monte Morris as the Nuggets guard begins to attack Nurkic. The defense scrambling, Nurkic points for Powell to abandon Jokic on the perimeter and take Harrison as he cuts back toward the middle of the floor.
The end result is a weak reach foul on Nurkic, but the process of on-the-fly switching is nevertheless indicative of the Blazers' increasing comfort defensively as this series wears on.
Portland willingly surrendered that pick-and-pop switch in the first two games of the first round, just like it did against Jokic throughout the regular season. But he's just too big and too skilled in the post for anyone but like-sized big men. Leaving Powell or any other non-Jokic defender on an island with Jokic is death.
The surest means of avoiding that scenario? Fighting hard under ball screens at the point of attack, meaning Nurkic can stay closely attached to Jokic without worry of the ball handler turning the corner.
Finally, the Blazers more consistently exploited the limitations of Denver's overburdened guards in Game 4 by daring them to stop behind Jokic picks and shoot pull-up jumpers.
"We changed our pick-and-roll coverage a little bit," Stotts said, "and tried to stay body on body a little bit more."
Compare that forced, off-dribble 20-footer from Monte Morris to this clean look from Jokic earlier in the third quarter, when Lillard got hung up on a screen set for Facundo Campazzo.
Keeping Jokic from catching in the post isn't as simple.
He went scoreless on the block against Nurkic on Saturday, but it's foolish to expect Jokic to labor to that extent again. Nurkic has indeed proven his bonafides as a solid individual matchup for Jokic. Like Games 2 and 3 made abundantly clear, though, there's just no stopping a player of Jokic's caliber – Nurkic compared him to LeBron James and Kevin Durant before this series – one-on-one on a sustained basis.
Will Portland double-team Jokic this pointedly on each of his post touches going forward? No way. Ignoring Harrison whenever he's in the game to send extra help at Jokic doesn't just throw an unexpected wrinkle at one of the smartest playmakers in basketball, though. It will also make Michael Malone more hesitant to put Harrison, by far the Nuggets' best defensive option on Lillard, on the floor to begin with.
That type of opportunistic help was on display a couple more occasions in Game 4, too.
Nothing the Blazers did defensively on Saturday was revelatory or even surprising.
Stotts forecasted replacing Enes Kanter in the rotation with Rondae Hollis-Jefferson in Game 3, and rudimentary adjustments like going under ball screens when possible were expected. Even cheating an additional step off Gordon and flagrantly disrespecting Harrison are strategic nuances that were easy to anticipate before this series tipped off.
But there's a huge difference between those gambits being available and implemented intermittently to the active, aggressive and confident defensive approach the Blazers deployed in Game 4. If they can sustain it for the first round's remainder, it's difficult to imagine the depleted Nuggets being able to take two out of three from Portland as the season hangs in the balance.