Who has the edge?

Guards

As promis­ing as the Nuggets’ Jamal Mur­ray was in his play­off debut last sea­son, the edge goes to Jazz star Dono­van Mitchell, whose 21.7 points per game leads Utah in the bub­ble. Mitchell has star pow­er and a clutch gene. He’s also the face of the Jazz fran­chise, with their for­tunes tied to their pre­co­cious shoot­ing guard. Bat­tle-test­ed Mike Con­ley is a play­off vet­er­an who can help sup­ple­ment Mitchell’s tal­ent. The Jazz also have spark­plug scor­er Jor­dan Clark­son off the bench, who could inspire com­par­isons to last year’s Port­land hero, Rod­ney Hood.

The real­i­ty is that Mur­ray is poised to take a sig­nif­i­cant step dur­ing this year’s post­sea­son after hon­ing his body dur­ing the hia­tus and ded­i­cat­ing time and effort to his inte­ri­or defense. But the Nuggets’ uncer­tain­ty at shoot­ing guard – there is still no time­frame for Gary Har­ris’ return from a hip injury – is con­cern­ing. Tor­rey Craig doesn’t have the offen­sive skill of Har­ris, though he can be a per­sis­tent irri­tant to Mitchell.

Edge: Utah

Wings

A month ago, this posi­tion­al assess­ment would’ve been a lot clos­er than it is head­ing into Game 1. Jazz wings Joe Ingles and Royce O’Neale are decent sec­ondary pieces to Mitchell and cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert, who can both hit from out­side and have a skillset broad­er than you’d think. O’Neale, for exam­ple, has aver­aged over sev­en rebounds a game in the bub­ble, and Ingles has con­nect­ed on near­ly 42% of his 3‑point tries. In addi­tion, Ingles is a wily vet­er­an who needs very lit­tle space to fire from outside.

That might put rook­ie Michael Porter Jr. in an uncom­fort­able posi­tion on defense, but that’s noth­ing com­pared to the pres­sure he’ll inflict on Utah with his almost inde­fen­si­ble shot. Since gain­ing a foothold in the rota­tion par­tial­ly as a result of Will Barton’s knee injury (no time­frame), Porter has seized the chance and run with it. Porter is Denver’s lead­ing scor­er in the bub­ble (22 points per game) and also their lead­ing rebound­er (8.6). His 3‑point shoot­ing is a huge asset that helps spread the floor, and Niko­la Jokic has said how much he appre­ci­ates him as a cut­ter. If Porter’s emerg­ing tal­ent weren’t enough to give Den­ver the edge here, then Jera­mi Grant’s vast skillset off the bench cer­tain­ly would. The Nuggets have a huge advan­tage on the perimeter.

Edge: Denver

Big men

Not only is Gob­ert a tremen­dous inte­ri­or defend­er, his mobil­i­ty with­in Utah’s offense caus­es all kinds of headaches for oppo­nents. He’s a con­stant lob threat for Mitchell, a rim-run­ning big that puts pres­sure on the entire defense in tran­si­tion and he’s become the face of a trendy stat: screen assists. Gobert’s high screens ini­ti­ate every­thing for Utah, from Mitchell’s rolls to 3‑point win­dows. Niko­la Jokic’s defense will be spot­light­ed in this high-pro­file matchup of All-Star big men.

And yet Gob­ert is going to have his hands full with every­thing Jokic does for the Nuggets. Some­times he’s a point guard, and oth­er times he’s a crafty fin­ish­er inside. Against the Jazz this sea­son, he’s dom­i­nat­ed. In three games, Jokic has aver­aged 29.3 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. What the Jazz had last year in phys­i­cal and vary­ing big men Jae Crow­der and Der­rick Favors, they no longer have. Gob­ert is their best line of defense. Even if Gob­ert can con­tain Jokic to some degree, Den­ver still has vet­er­an Paul Mill­sap to turn to as a mis­match inside.

Edge: Denver

Coaching

If nei­ther of these defens­es improve, either Utah’s Quin Sny­der or Denver’s Michael Mal­one will blow a gas­ket. Denver’s defense ranks dead-last in the bub­ble, which is a prod­uct of awful 3‑point con­tain­ment and poor tran­si­tion defense. The Jazz have four high usage play­ers who’ve shot at least 36.7% from out­side so far in Orlan­do. Lim­it­ing Mitchell, Ingles, Clark­son and Con­ley from 3‑point range will be the utmost pri­or­i­ty for Denver.

Utah’s defense hasn’t exact­ly been a steel trap, either. The Jazz ranks 15th out of 22 teams in Orlan­do, which bodes well for Denver’s siz­zling offense. The Nuggets’ assist num­bers are gen­er­al­ly a good indi­ca­tor of the health of the offense, and their 28.5 helpers per game are the best in the bub­ble. If Mal­one can get his play­ers to com­mu­ni­cate and engage on defense, they should have the offen­sive fire­pow­er, and the depth, to with­stand the Jazz.

Edge: Even

— Mike Singer

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Five things to 

1. Miss­ing in action. As is the case with so many teams in the NBA bub­ble, nei­ther the Nuggets nor the Jazz come into their first-round series at full strength. Who is miss­ing the most, how­ev­er, is up for debate. Den­ver is hold­ing out hope reg­u­lar starters Will Bar­ton (knee) or Gary Har­ris (hip) might soon return to the line­up after extend­ed absences. Utah, on the oth­er hand, is with­out wing Bojan Bog­danovic for the rest of the sea­son — a sig­nif­i­cant blow giv­en he’s the team’s No. 2 scor­er (20.2 ppg) and top 3‑point shoot­er (41.4%). If Bar­ton and Har­ris can get back in the mix by the mid­dle of the series, con­sid­er that a major advan­tage for Denver.

2. Sea­son sweep. The Nuggets have had Utah’s num­ber this sea­son, going 3–0. Still, it might be over­stat­ing things to say they “own” their divi­sion rivals. The Nuggets’ three wins came by an aver­age of 3.7 points, includ­ing a dra­mat­ic dou­ble OT vic­to­ry in Jamal Murray’s “bub­ble” debut and the famous “We all we got” game when Den­ver won in Salt Lake City despite suit­ing up just sev­en play­ers. A year ago, with many of the same key fig­ures involved, the Jazz were 3–1 against Den­ver with a plus‑2.0 point dif­fer­en­tial. Trans­la­tion: Don’t expect a sweep.

3. Arc ene­my. If there has been a famil­iar theme inside the bub­ble for the Nuggets, it has been the team’s col­lec­tive inabil­i­ty to defend the 3‑point line. Coach Michael Mal­one has com­plained about it after near­ly every game. And with good rea­son: Oppo­nents have shot 44.8% behind the arc against the Nuggets in Orlan­do. That could be a real prob­lem against the Jazz. Utah may be miss­ing its best shoot­er (see above), but it also led the NBA in 3‑point shoot­ing (38.0%) this sea­son and has no short­age of play­ers who can fill it up from out­side. Case in point: Utah buried 22 3s against Den­ver in their pre­vi­ous bub­ble matchup.

4. Cen­ter of atten­tion. In a rar­i­ty for mod­ern, perime­ter-ori­ent­ed bas­ket­ball, this series may hinge on the men in the mid­dle in a matchup defined by con­trast­ing styles. On one side is Rudy Gob­ert — a 7‑foot‑1 defen­sive anchor, dogged screen­er and pick-and-roll dunk­ing machine. On the oth­er is Niko­la Jokic — a high­ly-skilled, slight­ly ground-bound 7‑footer with the pass­ing skills of a point guard, shot-mak­ing abil­i­ty of a wing and post game of a clas­sic big. Jokic (29.3 ppg, 12.0 rbg, 9.0 apg vs. Utah) has got­ten the bet­ter of his Jazz coun­ter­part so far this sea­son, but all Gob­ert (19.7 ppg, 12.7 rpg, 1.7 pbg vs. Den­ver) has to do is play the matchup to a draw. Eas­i­er said than done.

5. Bub­ble break­out stars. Michael Porter Jr. (22.0 ppg, 8.6 rpg 1.6 apg) was a rev­e­la­tion with increased min­utes and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Nuggets’ eight seed­ing games. Fel­low rook­ie Bol Bol (5.7 ppg, 2.7 rpg) and reserve PJ Dozi­er (10.3 ppg, 4.3 apg) were sol­id as well in lim­it­ed action. With the Nuggets still down two starters enter­ing the play­offs, we know Porter will have to step up. But can back-of-the-bench guys like Bol and Dozi­er pro­vide sol­id min­utes if called upon? Con­sid­er it a bonus if they do.

— Matt Schu­bert

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Predictions

Mike Singer, Nuggets beat writer: You real­ly want me to believe it was rest, and not a han­ker­ing for the Jazz, that caused the Nuggets not to make one sin­gle sub­sti­tu­tion in the fourth quar­ter against the Lak­ers last week? I think the Nuggets want­ed the Jazz, and I think they got their wish. They know they’re a deep­er team and a more mul­ti-faceted one, too. They’ve also got the men­tal edge over them. Remem­ber the sev­en-man win in Utah in Feb­ru­ary, on the sec­ond night of a back-to-back? Nuggets in six. 

Kyle Fredrick­son, sports reporter: With­out the ben­e­fit of ing the Nuggets’ start­ing five play togeth­er for sus­tained peri­ods in the NBA bub­ble, it’s dif­fi­cult to pin­point their readi­ness and chem­istry against a stingy Jazz squad. I expect strange offen­sive lulls and Michael Mal­one com­plaints about defen­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion to start, but after a few games, the rust should be paint­ed gold. The Nuggets have the best play­er on the floor (Niko­la Jokic, duh) with an emerg­ing star role for Michael Porter Jr. ready and avail­able for the tak­ing. That should be enough to grind this series out for a first-round win. Nuggets in seven.

Sean Keel­er, sports colum­nist: Tricky one, as both teams kind of rope-a-doped dur­ing the restart with an eye on the play­off brack­et to come. The major nar­ra­tives ain’t a secret: Can Jamal Mur­ray keep pace with Dono­van Mitchell, a Nuggets killer? Will Skin­ny Jok­er con­tin­ue his hot streak of get­ting the last laugh on defen­sive whiz Rudy Gob­ert, who’d been his per­son­al Kryp­tonite up until recent­ly? This series could come down to that third star/third scor­er, and that’s where the Nuggets are trend­ing up. Utah’s with­out wing ace Bojan Bog­danovic, who’d aver­aged 4.5 3‑point makes in two meet­ings against the Nug­gs ear­li­er this sea­son and dropped a whop­ping 25.5 points per game on Den­ver two years ago. Mean­while, Malone’s got a ris­ing star in stretch‑4 Michael Porter Jr., who’s turned the bub­ble into his per­son­al com­ing-out par­ty. Nuggets in six.

Mark Kis­zla, sports colum­nist: What to make of the strange and curi­ous case of these Nuggets? Between flash­es of bril­liance, they have looked lost and bewil­dered in the bub­ble. Two starters (Will Bar­ton and Gary Har­ris) haven’t played a minute. Michael Mal­one sounds like a coach who’s gen­uine­ly wor­ried. The Jazz present one big prob­lem in cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert. If Gob­ert starts reject­ing shots left and right, dejec­tion could fol­low for .. oh, let’s not go there. Nuggets in seven.

Matt Schu­bert, deputy sports edi­tor: There are so many rea­sons for Nuggets head coach Michael Mal­one to be wor­ried. The leaky 3‑point defense. The ques­tion­able depth/injury report. Jamal Murray’s ham­string. Dono­van Mitchell’s cold-blood­ed, late-game dag­gers. Then there’s the one thing that real­ly mat­ters, Big Hon­ey — skin­ny, sleek and ful­ly engaged for anoth­er post­sea­son star turn. All too often, NBA play­off series come down to which team has the best play­er on the court. In this case, that has to be the Nuggets and Niko­la Jokic. Nuggets in six.