Russell Westbrook and Nikola Jokić have formed another potent duo in Denver.
The Denver Nuggets aren’t the same team that won the NBA championship two seasons ago, losing three rotation players to free agency over the last two offseasons. But they remain a title contender because they have the best player in the world and he’s having, perhaps, the best season of his career.
With 16 games left in the season, the Nuggets are in third place in the West, tied with the second-place Memphis Grizzlies (who they’ll face in the last week) at 42-24.
Nikola Jokić gives the Nuggets a chance against any team in the league. But they’ve also shown some flaws, especially against other good teams.
Here are some notes, numbers and film on the Nuggets as we head down the stretch of the season …
1. Paint dominance
The Nuggets rank last in 3-point rate (35.3% of their shots) for the second straight season and by a healthy margin. Though they rank third in 3-point percentage (38.2%), they’ve been outscored from beyond the arc in 42 of their 66 games.
That total is tied with the Pelicans for the league lead. But while New Orleans is 7-35 when being outscored from 3-point range, the Nuggets are 23-19. There are only three other teams — Oklahoma City (16-5), Houston (13-11) and the Lakers (17-15) — that have winning records when being outscored from deep. The Nuggets’ 23 wins are six more than any other team has this season and already tied for the second most for any team in the last six years.
The Nuggets make up for their 3-point discrepancy by dominating the paint. They lead the league in paint differential (plus-8.0 points per game) and rank sixth in free throw differential (plus-1.4 points per game).
They’re one of four teams that rank in the top 10 in both free throw rate (10th) and opponent free throw rate (fifth). But that paint differential is mostly about the Nuggets’ offense.
They’re the only team that ranks in the top five in both field goal percentage in the paint (60.7%, third) and the percentage of their shots that have come in the paint (54%, third). The New York Knicks (ninth and ninth) are the only other team that ranks in the top 10 in both.
Highest percentage of shots coming in the paint
| Team | Paint FGM | Paint FGA | Paint FG% | Rank | %FGA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto | 1,760 | 3,220 | 54.7% | 24 | 54.2% |
| Atlanta | 1,824 | 3,265 | 55.9% | 21 | 53.7% |
| Denver | 1,939 | 3,194 | 60.7% | 3 | 53.6% |
| Memphis | 1,875 | 3,296 | 56.9% | 17 | 53.4% |
| LA Clippers | 1,682 | 2,954 | 56.9% | 15 | 51.8% |
%FGA = Percentage of total field goal attempts
The Nuggets are led by Jokić, who ranks second in the league at 16.7 points in the paint per game. He’s got an incredible combination of size, footwork, patience and touch.
You know where they want to get the ball down the stretch of close games …
Jokić doesn’t just score in the paint. He’s also averaged 5.4 assists per game (second to Trae Young) on layups and dunks, kind of amazing given that he’s a center.
Some of those assists come in transition, with Jokić ranking sixth in the league with a career-high seven hit-ahead passes per game, per Second Spectrum. That is a big reason why Christian Braun leads the league in fast break points per game.
Primarily, Jokić is a huge basketball genius with the ball in the middle of the floor and lots of teammates that cut to the basket from every angle …
2. The Westbrook question
Jokić’s brilliance has been on display for several years, but the Nuggets have somehow become even more watchable this season because of his chemistry with another former Kia MVP.
Jokić and Russell Westbrook have 200 assists to each other, the fourth-highest total for any combination of players this season, trailing only two other Jokić pairings and the Kings’ duo of Malik Monk and Domantas Sabonis. But Jokić and Westbrook have played fewer minutes together than those other combinations, and their 6.2 assists to each other per 36 minutes on the floor together is easily the highest rate among the top combos.
Most combined assists between teammates
| Player 1 | Player 2 | 1 -> 2 | 2 -> 1 | TOTAL | MIN | Per 36 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jamal Murray | Nikola Jokić | 118 | 105 | 223 | 1,487 | 5.4 |
| Nikola Jokić | Christian Braun | 144 | 65 | 209 | 1,751 | 4.3 |
| Malik Monk | Domantas Sabonis | 121 | 80 | 201 | 1,373 | 5.3 |
| Russell Westbrook | Nikola Jokić | 127 | 73 | 200 | 1,164 | 6.2 |
| James Harden | Ivica Zubac | 164 | 35 | 199 | 1,707 | 4.2 |
MIN = Minutes on the floor together
Per 36 = Assists to each other per 36 minutes on the floor together.
If you have a guard who will push in transition, bend the defense a bit and eagerly feed the most efficient high-volume scorer in NBA history, that’s generally a good thing. Plus, the Nuggets need all the competent rotation guys they can get.
But overall, they’ve been worse with Westbrook on the floor (even) than with him off the floor (minus-8.9). They’ve been nearly twice as good with Jokić on the floor without Westbrook as they’ve been with the two of them on the floor together.
Nuggets with Jokić and or Westbrook on the floor
| On floor | MIN | OffRtg | DefRtg | NetRtg | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jokić + Westbrook | 1,164 | 122.8 | 115.4 | +7.4 | +200 |
| Jokić, no Westbrook | 1,022 | 128.5 | 115.0 | +13.5 | +291 |
| Westbrook, no Jokić | 477 | 100.2 | 118.6 | -18.4 | -197 |
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
OffRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions
3. A big drop-off on defense
The Nuggets have allowed 114.7 points per 100 possessions this season, which ranks 21st and is up from 112.3 per 100 (eighth) last season. Only the Pelicans, Sixers and Suns have seen bigger defensive drop-offs.
Related to their dominance inside, the Nuggets have seen a big drop in the percentage of their opponents’ shots that have come in the paint, which is generally a good thing, because paint shots are worth more than those from the outside.
But their opponents have shot better, both in the paint and outside it, than they did last season …
Nuggets’ opponent shooting, last two seasons
| Season | Paint FG% | Rank | Paint% | Rank | 3PT% | Rank | 3PA% | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | 55.1% | 4 | 52% | 27 | 35.5% | 8 | 35.9% | 2 |
| 2024-25 | 56.7% | 14 | 48% | 18 | 36.4% | 21 | 41.3% | 10 |
Paint% = Percentage of shots coming from the paint
3PA% = Percentage of shots coming from 3-point range
With a big jump in the percentage of their opponents’ shots that have come from 3-point range, the Nuggets have also seen a big jump in the percentage of their opponents’ 3-point attempts that have come from the corners. They’ve already allowed more corner 3-pointers (264, 4 per game — seventh most) than they did all of last season (234, 2.9 — third fewest).
Per Second Spectrum tracking, the Nuggets continue to be one of the league’s most aggressive teams defending pick-and-rolls, using “blitz” or “show” coverage on 17% of opponent ball-screens, the league’s third-highest rate and up from 13% (fifth highest) last season.
Aggressive pick-and-roll coverage can often lead to open 3s on the weak side of the floor.
Late in the third quarter on Wednesday, Jokić was up at the 3-point line on a handoff for Anthony Edwards. With that, Jalen Pickett was deep in the paint off Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the left corner, in charge of protecting the basket should Rudy Gobert roll to the rim.
The result was an open and in-rhythm 3-pointer for Alexander-Walker …
The league averages 3.7 made corner 3s (per team) per game. The Nuggets have allowed four or more in each of their last 14 games.
4. Struggles against the best
The defense has been the bigger issue as the Nuggets have struggled against the league’s best teams.
Through Thursday, 11 teams are at least nine games over .500. The Nuggets are 5-15 (only the Bucks have been worse) in games played between those top 11 teams. Before their win in Oklahoma City on Monday, they had lost 10 straight games (their last win was Dec. 3) within the group.
Over that 10-game losing streak within the top 11, the Nuggets allowed 126 points per 100 possessions. Their opponents shot 60.6% in the paint and 41.8% from 3-point range, including 46.9% from the corners.
Even when they won in Oklahoma City on Monday (improving to a league-best 12-1 in the second games of back-to-backs), the Nuggets allowed the Thunder to score 127 points on 99 possessions (128.3 per 100). They won by having the most efficient game (by a healthy margin) for any team against the league’s top-ranked defense.
The Nuggets are in a tight race for seeding in the Western Conference, and they could finish anywhere from second to sixth place. They have 16 games remaining on their schedule and nine of the 16 are within that top 11 in the league, with two more against teams – Indiana and Sacramento – with winning records.
So they (and their defense) will be tested quite a bit between now and April 13.
Those nine top-11 games include two against the Lakers in the next six days, with the first in Denver on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET, NBA TV).
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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