The Nuggets didn’t practice yesterady as they traveled home from Oklahoma City. The team made reference to “an event” last evening but it is unclear if that was a film study event or something more casual. The team did practice today and, in addition to the typical shooting drills that make up the media session, we also got to look at a few of the sideline out of bounds plays and the team’s homerun play.
- The highlight of practice today was coach Michael Malone giving a sort of quasi-update on Jusuf Nurkic, saying that he is guessing that Nurkic will be back “sometime in November.” He went on to say that he can’t give an exact update but it was the first time that we’ve had any sort of time frame from the coaching staff or front office.
- Malone said that he always looks at team stats. He said that he doesn't put a whole lot into it but that "it helps with the buy in" when players see how well the team is doing in defensive efficiency. He specifically noted the team is 5th in opponent FG%, 5th in opponent 3FG%, and 10th in points allowed. The opponent 3FG% one is especially interesting. Last week he noted that the team had really emphasized defending the corners so it is very clear that corner 3's are on his mind.
- Malone said that he has been learning a few Serbian words to speak with Nikola Jokic. “Dobro” is the only word he shared with us, which means “good.”
- Once again Malone called out Jokic as a guy that he is so impressed with. Says that he has improved dramatically in just 3 months since summer league.
- Malone mentioned that European players often come into the league much more skilled than American players in terms of all-around skill level.
- "Darrell (Arthur) does everything I hard. I bet he drives home hard." Malone said that it was great to have Darth out there and that he is abit behind on his conditioning, as is expected, but is excited to have him playing more and more minutes.
- Gary Harris has been in the zone over the last few games with his jump shot and at practice today he shot 16/19 from the left corner. Mike Miller, however, beat him with 17/20. The players each get 1 minutes to get as many shots up as they can.
"A decade from now, half the league will probably categorized as "position-less," but right now it’s still an oddity, and a major advantage. At 6’8″, Chandler can play as a shooting guard in big lineups and a power forward in small lineups. That type of flexibility allows the Nuggets to drastically change the makeup of their lineup, while still keeping it’s core players intact."
