Hawks vs. Nuggets Game Preview

The Hawks will look to go 2-0 against Denver as the Nuggets visit Atlanta on Monday.

The Hawks’ last game against the Nuggets proved, in retrospect, only a brief respite from the team’s most drastic and prolonged low point of the season. Trae Young had his most explosive game to that point of the season, notching 42 points and 11 assists (then tweeted about it), and Atlanta posted an offensive rating over 127 in an impressive 125-121 road win. But Kevin Huerter sprained his shoulder midway through the game – an injury that would cost him 11 games – and the game was Atlanta’s only win over a 14-game stretch.

Nearly two months later, the Hawks will face the Nuggets a second time, this time with some semblance of positive momentum. Atlanta has won two of its last three games for the first time since the beginning of December and only narrowly lost in Boston between wins over Orlando and Indiana. But the Nuggets pose a unique challenge, spearheaded by one of the most anomalous players in the NBA.

Game Time: Monday, January 6, 2020, 7:30 p.m. ET

Location: State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA

TV: FOX Sports Southeast, Altitude

Streaming: NBA League Pass, FOX Sports Go

Center Nikola Jokić is arguably the best passing big man of all time and the fulcrum of Denver’s offense. The Nuggets scored 110.9 points per 100 possessions (10th in the NBA), and Jokić assists on a third of the team’s baskets while he’s on the floor. He’ll fire no-look dimes from every conceivable angle and makes the most difficult of passes look routine. He has regressed from his First Team All-NBA-worthy season last year, but Jokić remains both the catalyst and the bellwether of the Nuggets’ offense, which takes its stylistic cues from him. 

Jamal Murray and Gary Harris orbit him as secondary creators while Paul Millsap employs his usual tricks in the post and spaces the floor. Will Barton has plugged any gap that needs filling and Jerami Grant crushes dunks off the bench. But it's Jokić who ties everything together, even when he doesn't look to score. Denver runs constant handoffs and cuts off of him in the high post and spread the floor so that Jokić has space to operate in the post and spray the ball to shooters when help comes. 

“It’s the feel and the understanding of the game,” Lloyd Pierce said. “I think the biggest fear you have with Jokić is if you overhelp, he can find you and punish you.”

He has just eight assists in his last three games combined, and Denver had only 18 assists as a team in their recent loss to the Wizards. “If he’s not affecting the game by passing the basketball, they’re a different team,” Pierce said. “If you can take that part out of their game and make other guys beat you in more one-on-one situations instead of team and ball-movement situations, you have a chance.”

While Jokić is one of the NBA’s most dangerous offensive weapons, it’s their balance on both sides of the ball that has given the Nuggets the second-best record in the Western Conference. Denver allows just 107.2 points per 100 possessions – the 11th-best marks in the league. Paul Millsap has been instrumental in anchoring the team’s defense and Jokić, while doughy and slow-footed, is more impactful on that end than his reputation suggests. Grant is among the most versatile and electric defenders in the NBA. 

The Nuggets are likely to employ an aggressive defensive scheme against Young, whose 42-point outburst in Denver precipitated Michael Malone’s creative and unconventional approach toward guarding James Harden a few games later. “I expect them to do something different. I would,” Young said. “They’re obviously a really good defensive team coached by a really good coach. They have a lot of really good players. It’s going to be a challenge, and I’m just looking forward to seeing what type of defense they throw out.”

Denver is an aggressive against most dynamic pick-and-roll ball-handlers, but they could trap even more vigorously against Young now that they have experienced firsthand the damage he can inflict. That could reroute more of the offense through Huerter, who is coming off his best game of the season, and John Collins, who has been a reliable play finisher since returning from suspension. Without those two in the lineup, Atlanta had little way of exploiting the four-on-three situations that spawned from teams trapping Young. Now the Hawks can leverage those advantages into more profitable outcomes.

Those opportunities, however, have been sparse this season. Young, Huerter, and Collins have played just 61 minutes together in 36 games this season, and even that sample is tainted by Huerter’s injury-riddled start to the year. Atlanta’s offense sang in the first quarter against the Celtics, but Collins promptly bruised his tailbone and missed the following game.

“You’ve seen the impact that these guys [Young, Huerter, and Collins] have,” Pierce said. “Just to have those guys out there, they’re the three guys I can rely on the most, just having them last year. They have sync and they have correlation and chemistry with each other. They’re going to make everyone else’s job a lot easier, we just haven’t had the opportunity.”

Pierce didn’t give definitive updates on their availability for Monday’s game, but Collins and Cam Reddish participated fully in the team’s morning shootaround and have been upgraded to probably on the team injury report.

“I feel good,” Collins said. “I expect to play. Obviously there’s a lot of interference that can happen when you have an injury like mine – a hard fall and whatnot. We’re going to see going forward, later on into tonight, but I feel good this morning.”