Review: Bulls successfully defeated Nuggets 5-out

The Nuggets suffered their third defeat of the season. Unlike the previous two games due to poor offense at critical moments, most of the Nuggets' problems in this defeat occurred on the defensive end.

The Nuggets' defensive problems began to manifest in the first transition period. The Bulls' combination in the transition period was Jaylen Smith playing 5. It is a standard highly mobile configuration. In terms of speed, it is no slower than the first lineup led by Gidi.

During the conversion process, they are accustomed to using Smith's space attributes to delay Valan's retreat:

When playing double drag in the high position, the entire space is stretched out, which is a standard five-way starting move.

The Nuggets' actions and awareness on the defensive end were not compact enough, allowing the Bulls, who are already full of space attributes, to play more smoothly after being exhausted in the first quarter.

In certain rounds, the Bulls will also make use of the Nuggets' advance predictions. For example, in this round, when the ball moved to the left, Murray's prediction was to direct Varan to defend the opponent's screen, so he took half a step back, but Dosunmu took advantage of this and took a direct shot.

When the attack fails, Varan's movement disadvantage will also form a 4-defense-5 transition scene on the field.

Even after the main force returns, the Bulls will play more targeted, test the defensive decisions of Gordon and Jokic at the same time, and start a two-man transition on one side:

The Nuggets' response was to target the ball holder and Smith/Vucevic's pick&. When pop, the nearest teammates helped to defend, but in this round Murray was obviously not close enough, allowing Smith to complete a 3-point shot again.

Throughout the game, the Bulls opened up space on one side with cuts without the ball, and then started with screens. The patient and continuous breakthroughs allowed Vucevic to find the opportunity to attack Jokic's closeout, which in turn attracted Gordon's defense and assisted Buzelis to complete the buzzer-beating finish close to 24 seconds.

This is why the Nuggets gave up Varan in the fourth quarter and put on the fifth team to pursue the effectiveness of perimeter defense.

However, when facing screens, the team's awareness of switching defenses and assisting defenses is never enough. This is the key to the Bulls' ability to always hold on to the score. This time, Jokic faced off on the weak side in advance to avoid being involved in the Bulls' ball screen, but Huerter moved to the ball side. When Jokic helped defend Vucevic's back hit, the defensive rotation was not timely enough, and Vucevic and Huerter seized the opportunity.