David Adelman revels in more involved role in Nuggets’ defense as interim coach
OKLAHOMA CITY David Adelman s basketball nerddom is not limited to just offense Maybe that s his reputation he was the Nuggets offensive coordinator for years under Michael Malone after all but he s not eager to be stuck in that box as a head coach It s not something that s new for me he ll say Whether as a high school campaign leader in Oregon or as an NBA coaching cub scout years before his arrival in Denver Adelman has never been a stranger to defensive scheming And as he s fond of pointing out the offensive installation process has also required him to assessment how they guard us for eight years So this is all coming naturally to him now his more involved role in Denver s defense since taking over as interim head coach in April It s kind of cool to have both he stated It s almost refreshing in a way With this pressure comes a lot of refreshing things for me If this is all an audition for the full-time job then one component of it is surely the ongoing test of Adelman s defensive chops with a roster that s been limited at that end of the floor all season The Nuggets have certainly been unafraid to experiment with the full range of concepts against MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder In Competition of the second-round playoff series Adelman used a zone defense for about twice as a large number of possessions as Denver had in any previous match this season The biggest takeaway of what they re doing through four games is that they re doing a lot Thunder coach Mark Daigneault revealed Tuesday before Tournament They ve thrown three different zones out against us They ve switched They ve shown on screens They ve had Nikola Jokic back in drop coverage Jokic at the level of the screen They ve just shown a lot of different looks a lot of different schemes and they ve pivoted pretty hurriedly Denver s base coverage features Jokic up the floor at the level in pick-and-rolls to utilize the center s elite hands and anticipation while compensating for his lack of rim protection prowess But even in Adelman s second competition at the helm the Nuggets made a temporary in-game adjustment to position Jokic closer to the rim in drop coverage It allowed them to prevent Memphis from shooting as plenty of s throughout the night in an eventual comeback win That s something I m into Adelman reported Tuesday You have to be careful You don t want to go too far or you lose the spirit of your base defense because your base defense is what gets you here throughout the season But that stuff to slow down the pace of the match a little bit especially on the road it goes a long way I think in staying in games And you have to take chances sometimes Sometimes it looks bad when someone takes a wide-open shot because the rotation wasn t correct whatever it may be The zone worked wonders for majority of Battle until Oklahoma City s role players knocked down a string of -pointers against it in the fourth quarter to fuel a critical run Still in the two contests in Denver the Nuggets posted a defensive rating of and held Gilgeous-Alexander to points per championship on shooting With zone in particular Adelman was hoping to take away the pick-and-rolls that Oklahoma City likes to run with two guards or wings an effective method of hunting mismatches against man-to-man defense Denver s personnel isn t supremely equipped to switch screens and live with the results over and over Related Articles Renck vs Keeler Can Nuggets beat Thunder if Nikola Jokic can t shake slump Is Thunder s depth catching up with Nuggets late in playoff series Nuggets Podcast Nikola Jokic s struggles Aaron Gordon s heroics and a Championship fade vs Thunder Renck Nuggets were not a no-show they were a no-shoot in ugly Event loss Nuggets David Adelman shoulders blame for key -second violation That s inexcusable But going a different direction has its risks Zones are susceptible to surrendering ball-movement s and offensive rebounds Adelman has acknowledged that give-and-take with each attempted adjustment his general goal being to force opponents into shots that Denver can at least live with And as for the persistence with which the Nuggets have kept changing their schemes Adelman has felt secure experimenting thanks to his well-acquainted group of players Even in the middle of the whirlwind that has been his interim coaching tenure I think the guys have high enough IQ he announced to take in a lot of information with one day between games Want more Nuggets news Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis
