David Adelman<\/a> this week: \u201cjunking it up\u201d on defense. In two consecutive postseasons, Denver has been vexed by an opponent\u2019s ability to junk it up and unable to return the favor. Minnesota implored Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels to devour Jamal Murray in 2024.<\/p>\nOKC took the principle to another level last season, collapsing into the paint and recovering to the 3-point line as efficiently as any defense in recent memory. Alex Caruso was the ace in the hole, pestering and prodding Jokic to death in Game 7.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets are searching for ways to renovate their defense after it ranked 21st in the league. Junking it up more is one way to start.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust different ways to shrink on better players. Zone. Working all that kind of stuff, and then when we do zone, who\u2019s on the court, what their responsibilities are at each spot,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll continue to work on it. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll throw it out there in the preseason, but it\u2019s something we have to continue to improve on, because I feel like in the past, a lot of times you\u2019re trying to get so many things done on the checklist that you kind of tell yourself you\u2019re gonna get to that eventually. And I think if we\u2019re actually gonna do that successfully, we have to work on it daily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adelman has alluded to zone defense a handful of times this offseason, after deploying it regularly during the playoffs as interim coach. He and his players have also described a structure that\u2019ll be more heavily based around Jokic\u2019s IQ and matchup-dependent decisions. Some games might call for Jokic to be \u201cup to touch\u201d against a ball-handler. Others might be more suitable for various levels of drop coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something new, so we are kind of trying to adjust,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cBut I think we see that it\u2019s going to be really good, and it could help us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ideas are complicated, but the overarching theme is that Denver\u2019s scheme will be less rigid than before. Regardless of how it looks in action, peskier ball pressure is a foundational tenet. To put it another way, better effort than last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s gonna be mistakes in this, when we\u2019re not all the way up (the floor) like we\u2019ve been, where the rotations are kind of starting from the get-go of every play, which we were really good at for a long time,\u201d Adelman said. \u201c\u2026 We just think this group has the capability of doing some different things, giving different looks, which gives us more flexibility on the defensive end, both man and zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The end goal is to close the gap, at least marginally, with Oklahoma City \u2014 a heavy favorite to repeat thanks to its ability to overwhelm with defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can be the silent \u2014 how do you say it? \u2014 the silent knight,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cSilent horse. Dark horse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon\u2019s status<\/p>\n
Aaron Gordon didn\u2019t play Monday in the Nuggets\u2019 second preseason game, but Adelman has no concern about the power forward\u2019s health. Denver visits the Clippers for another exhibition on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Aaron, Jamal, guys that have had those minor lingering injuries (in the past), we have to get ahead of that,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cSo it just felt like the right time for him to take a two-day break, and now he\u2019s back at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon spent most of last season dealing with a calf strain, then he also suffered a hamstring strain in the second round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\nOriginally Published: October 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM MDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That old adage about the NBA being a copycat league has aged into clich\u00e9 at this point. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1750,31513,17718,3832,4134,1840,1753,4142,20174,1754,2558,6429,4139,355,1756,4140,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-215413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-anthony-edwards","10":"tag-ball-arena","11":"tag-colorado","12":"tag-david-adelman","13":"tag-denver","14":"tag-denver-nuggets","15":"tag-front-range","16":"tag-injuries","17":"tag-jamal-murray","18":"tag-latest-headlines","19":"tag-minnesota","20":"tag-more-nuggets-news","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nikola-jokic","23":"tag-nuggets","24":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}