David Adelman on his role more involved in the defense of Nuggets

Oklahoma City – David Adelman’s Basketball Nerddom is not limited to the offense.

This is perhaps his reputation – he was the offensive coordinator of the Nuggets for years under Michael Malone, after all – but it is not impatient to be stuck in this box as a chief coach.

“This is not something that is new to me,” he said.

Whether it is as a high school program manager in Oregon or as an NBA Coaching Cub Scout for years before his arrival in Denver, Adelman was never foreign to defensive intrigues. And as he likes to emphasize, the offensive installation process also forced him to study “how they keep us for eight years”.

So, all of this naturally happens to him now, his role more involved in the defense of Denver since his care as an acting chief coach in April.

“It’s a bit cool to have both,” he said. “It’s almost refreshing in a way. With this pressure comes a lot of refreshing things for me. ”

If all this is an audition for full-time work, then a component of it is surely the current test of Adelman’s defensive chops with a list limited to this end of the floor all season. Nuggets were certainly not afraid to experience the full range of concepts against the favorite of the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander MVP and Thunder.

In match 4 of the eliminatory series in the second round, Adelman used a zone defense for about twice as many goods as Denver in any previous match this season.

“The biggest point to remember from what they do for four games is that they do a lot,” said Thunder’s coach Mark Daignault on Tuesday before match 5. “… They launched three different areas against us. They have changed. They showed (on the screens). They had (Nikola) coming back (downward cover).

Denver’s basic coverage presents Jokic on the ground, “at the level” in the pick-and-rolls, to use the hands and the anticipation of the center elites while compensating for its lack of prowess of protection of the rims.

But even in Adelman’s second match at the helm, the Nuggets made a temporary adjustment in the game to position Jokic closer to the rim on drop cover. This allowed them to prevent Memphis from drawing as much 3 throughout the night during a possible return victory.

“This is something I am,” said Adelman on Tuesday. “You have to be prudent. You don’t want to go too far, or you lose the spirit of your basic defense, because your basic defense is what leads you here throughout the season. But this kind of thing, to slow down the rhythm of the game, especially on the road, it’s going very far, I think someone takes a large open because the rotation is not like.”

The area did wonders for most of the match 4, until the Oklahoma City players overthrew a 3 -point chain against it in the fourth quarter to feed a critical race. However, in the two competitions in Denver, the Nuggets displayed a defensive note of 97 and held Gilgeous-Alexander at 21.5 points per game on 37% shooting.

With zone in particular, Adelman hoped to take the pick-And-Rolls that WoLhoma City likes to run with two guards or wings-an effective hunting method for the defense of man to man. Denver staff are not supremely equipped to change screen and live with the results over and over again.