06-04-2021, 12:34 PM
(06-04-2021, 12:03 PM)Kammrath Wrote: I 100% agree with the gist of your post, but totally disagree with your take on Nurkic. He IS a PLUS defender....problem is he played only 880 mins in the regular season and sat 2,581 mins.
In the 173 mins Nurkic played against DEN in the playoffs, POR outscored DEN by 12.9. In the 125 mins Nurkic sat POR was outscored by DEN by 18.9 (!!!).
If Nurkic could have played more mins (out for some foul trouble), I think POR could have won that series.
Don´t think Nurkic is terrible on defense. As you mentioned he was really good against the Nuggets. He is one of the strongest players in the league and knows how to take advantage of his size. Similar to Adams. Great in matchups with bigs like Embiid or Jokic but in trouble against teams that spam high pick and roll with a good ballhandler. To be fair. Most players of his size are struggling on the perimeter. Just shows how the game developed in the last couple of years.
Just look at the current Mavs-Clippers series. Zubac isn´t a terrible perimeter defender. Certainly quicker than Boban or KP but he is hopeless against Luka.