Tyronn Lue had nothing nice to say about the Nuggets' defense, so he said nothing at all
Tyronn Lue had nothing nice to say about the Nuggets' defense, so he said nothing at all
With three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic at the center of their operation, the Denver Nuggets will likely always be a top-flight offensive team. That's the sort of dimension Jokic's unique passing and three-level scoring provides.
Denver's defense, especially without any particularly elite point-of-attack defenders on paper at the moment, is a different story. The Nuggets were a bottom-10 defense in the league this year. While they have good individual defenders like Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, and Peyton Watson, the sum of their defensive parts hasn't always come together perfectly this season. Those defensive struggles are also partly why the young and bright David Adelman is now Denver's interim head coach.
The Nuggets' up-and-down defense is naturally one of the bigger questions in a first-round playoff matchup with the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers. If the Clippers can find a way to consistently cut up Denver on this end of the court, they'll have a solid chance of advancing to the second round of the postseason.
Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue definitely understands this dynamic. But when asked about the "strengths" of the Nuggets' defense on Tuesday, he curiously couldn't say anything nice. Because, you know, does a bottom-10 defense really have any strengths? Think about it.
So, in turn, Lue danced around the question and kinda said nothing at all instead:
Listen, Lue knows what happened here and how his answer came across. It's actually not asking a lot of a coach to pay customary respects to the opposing team by complimenting players and such by default. You don't have to give away any sort of strategy or game plan when you do that. But Lue was almost certainly caught off guard by this question, so he wasn't prepared to offer up the standard cookie-cutter stuff we hear at most preview press conferences.
We'll see how this rings true for Nuggets-Clippers, arguably the best first-round series this postseason. And whether the Nuggets use it as some sort of bulletin-board material.
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