In the buildup to a close NBA Coach of the Year race between Tom Thibodeau of the New York Knicks and Monty Williams of the Phoenix Suns, a narrative arose that seemed to favor Thibodeau -- who eventually won: The Knicks were a Thibodeau team, the Suns a Chris Paul team.
That felt unfair to New York's players and Phoenix's coaches. It was impossible to watch Phoenix's evisceration of the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals on Monday and not appreciate the job Williams and his staff (and his players) have done crafting perhaps the league's most sophisticated pick-and-roll attack. It was painstaking work, requiring high-level synchronicity and total buy-in into some non-glamour aspects of NBA offense.
At the start of the season, you could see the Suns searching to maximize Paul and Devin Booker. The two star guards bring overlapping skill sets. Both love running the pick-and-roll, and snaking their way into long 2s. Both are skilled passers and 3-point shooters, so finding basic synergy wasn't that difficult.
But early attempts to go beyond the basic were stilted and uneven. The Suns' offense took on a your turn, my turn vibe. Through 20 games, opponents outscored the Suns by 6.3 points per 100 possessions with Paul and Booker on the floor, per NBA.com. The Suns were bad on both ends. They thrived when each star went solo.
They were 11-9, but would not get anywhere interesting until they developed a cohesive ecosystem. Williams kept grinding, playing the stars together so much that in some games they spent few or even zero minutes apart. Short-term logic suggested rigid staggering, but Williams was playing the long game.
It began to click midseason, and then cascaded into an overpowering wave of pick-and-roll destruction as everyone found their sweet spots. After Feb. 15, Phoenix demolished opponents by 10.5 points per 100 possessions with Booker and Paul sharing the floor.
Every trick was on display in Phoenix's rollicking Game 1 win over a Nuggets team that was in theory well-prepared for the Suns' offense after facing a pick-and-roll attack aimed at Nikola Jokic in their first-round win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Denver should have been ready.
They weren't, and it was because of all the layers and wrinkles Phoenix has piled atop what was once a basic offense.
We'll call the first wrinkle The Lift:
That is a high-flying Booker pick-and-roll with two shooters (Paul and Mikal Bridges) on the left side, and Jae Crowder alone on the right. Most teams default to sending help from the weak side of the floor. Denver's rules, at least against Portland and now Phoenix, typically require help from the lowest defender on whichever side the offense has stationed two shooters. The intent is to avoid one defender having to help off a dangerous shooter with no teammate nearby to cover for him.
On this play, Michael Porter Jr. sinks inside to patrol Deandre Ayton's roll, leaving Facundo Campazzo to split the difference between Paul and Bridges.
But watch Paul. He doesn't just chill on the wing. He drifts toward the top of the arc -- leaving Campazzo covering an impossible distance:
Campazzo makes a go of it, but he can't really bother Bridges.
Here's Phoenix pulling the same lifting gambit later:
It would normally be Austin Rivers' job to rotate to Bridges in the corner, with Porter slashing up to take Crowder. But Crowder's lift freaks Rivers into taking one false step toward Crowder -- just as Porter begins his normal rotation there. Bridges is wide open.
Bridges has been outstanding all season. He represents something of a vindication for Ryan McDonough, the former Suns general manager, and everyone else in the front office -- including James Jones, Phoenix's current GM -- who contributed to the decision to trade for Bridges on draft night in 2018.
The Suns gave up Zhaire Smith, the No. 16 pick, and a lightly-protected future first-rounder from the Miami Heat to move up six spots and snare Bridges from the Philadelphia 76ers. In cold analytical terms, they likely "overpaid."
But the Suns weren't thinking in cold analytical terms. They were thinking Bridges might be really good. That kind of confidence -- not dismissing the draft as a random-probability crapshoot, but rather picking based on belief in specific players -- has continued to be a hallmark under Jones. He wagered Cameron Johnson was not a reach at No. 11 in 2019 -- that he might be better than Jarrett Culver, whom the Minnesota Timberwolves selected No. 6 after flipping picks with Phoenix (and gifting the Suns Dario Saric.)
The process is more important than the results -- more indicative of whether a front office's approach is "correct" -- but the Suns are a reminder that part of the draft process can involve betting big on specific guys if you have faith to do it.
Back to the lift. Just when you think you've got it down, the Suns dress it up:
Paul calls up Torrey Craig and Ayton on either side of him, making the Nuggets guess which way he might go. The alignment serves to sort of pre-lift Craig.
This is the Point God in predator mode. He probably knows he's going to use Ayton's pick, making Monte Morris -- on Bridges in the corner -- the primary help defender. But Morris doesn't know that. Paul takes one half-dribble toward Craig before crossing over into Ayton's screen. That half-dribble makes Morris pause: Is the play coming my way?
Morris is toast. Watch carefully, and you'll see Morris lean at first toward Craig up top before rushing to Bridges. Paul Millsap, meanwhile, rumbles toward Ayton, leaving both Bridges and Craig open. This is a broken defense, beaten into paralyzed uncertainty.
In another subset of pick-and-rolls, Phoenix flummoxed Denver with nasty flare screens:
Paul and Ayton run a wing pick-and-roll with no teammates on that side. That positions three Suns on the right side, in theory making it easier for two Nuggets to zone up between them while the main help guy -- Porter again -- slides inside. The Blazers run this a ton, and the Nuggets are well-practiced at guarding it.
But Phoenix's weakside players don't stand still. Instead, Bridges sets that flare screen for Booker. That is 100 percent scripted to counter Denver's defense on this specific action.
The Blazers sprinkled in some of these wrinkles, but not nearly as consistently or with the same precision. And we haven't even gotten into Phoenix's mastery of the famous "Spain" three-person pick-and-roll in which a wing nails Ayton's man with a back pick after Ayton's ball screen. I'm not sure any NBA team has been better at that, and mastered so many variations of it.
To play like this, over and over, requires commitment, rehearsal, and extreme cohesion. Few players list setting flare screens as one of their 10 favorite things to do in a game. Ayton responded to a severe early-season dip in usage not by whining or forcing shots, but by giving everything to the sometimes unrewarding repetition of screening and diving.
He likely knew rewards would come. Paul and Williams surely told him so. Ayton has been one of the biggest winners of these playoffs, leveraging his size and nimble feet around the basket at both ends -- old-school, with soft touch.
The Nuggets can be better. They need to clean up their rotations -- particularly Porter, who slipped into old, bad habits. They might try having Jokic hang back a step or two against Paul pick-and-rolls -- and even against Booker in some circumstances. (Jokic flashed a more conservative stance once Game 1 was basically decided.)
That risks death by pull-up jumpers. You can't give Booker and Paul easy looks. But can you fight over picks, have Jokic start near the top of the key instead of at the arc, and hope to contest those looks, while the other three defenders stick closer to shooters? There is a middle ground somewhere in which the math works better for Denver. Finding it against great players in a short series is hard.
Paul was 2-of-3 from deep, and started clowning fools late in Game 1 -- real Point God stuff. He still looks a little reluctant to launch 3s after his shoulder issues -- he touched-passed out of an open corner look -- and perhaps that is the excuse Jokic needs to retreat one step on Paul actions.
Denver could stash Jokic away from Ayton -- maybe on Crowder. The Suns would then just use Crowder to screen, though their spacing would not be as airtight. In any case, Denver has been reluctant to move Jokic around that way.
Might Denver dare to slough a bit off Paul away from the ball -- something the Los Angeles Lakers did in the first round, and a tweak that could minimize the help the Nuggets have to provide off Phoenix's wing shooters? Maybe. But Williams and his staff have counters -- more small flourishes of motion designed to confound. And if Paul's shoulder feels right, any such straying goes out the window.
Some other things to watch in Game 2:
• The other key battleground centers on Denver's attempts to spring Jokic into the little windows of space in which he thrives as a scorer and playmaker.
Like Portland, the Suns are denying those windows by having Ayton stay home in the post, and limiting help off Jokic on the pick-and-roll. (Ayton has always defended Jokic well on the block, and avoided foul trouble in Game 1.)
When Jokic screens for Campazzo, Rivers, and even Morris, the Suns will duck those picks -- allowing Ayton to stay attached to Jokic. Vaporize rotations, and you snuff Jokic's passing lanes before they open. This is one of many reasons the Nuggets miss Jamal Murray -- and Will Barton, who could bring a needed jolt of north-south unpredictability if he returns. Porter doesn't have the handle or feel yet to work as a high-volume ball handler.
It is on Denver to get creative opening windows for Jokic. He can run the pick-and-roll himself, as he did generating a dunk for Gordon in Game 1. He can set back screens for Porter -- forcing Ayton to dip down and patrol Porter, and freeing Jokic to pop into open space. He looked more forceful pumping and driving against Ayton in the second half of Game 1, though Ayton played him chest-to-chest.
Pindowns for Jokic are always good. Ditto for sets in which Jokic has his choice between taking a cross screen in the paint, or another pick around the foul line. Jokic was also pushing the pace.
Constantly running such set pieces is taxing. For the first time in Game 1, I wondered if Jokic was beginning to tire under the burden of having to open all of those windows almost by himself.
• On a few occasions, the Nuggets missed Jokic with a mismatch. (Gordon bonked a trey on one, and Rivers missed a wild floater trying to roast Ayton off the bounce on another.) They simply cannot afford that. It is on Jokic to hold his position until the Nuggets find an entry pass.
• Phoenix went over screens for Denver's guards more toward the end of Game 1. I would caution against that, though Denver is smart about disguising some picks -- or having Jokic set two or three in a row lower and lower on the floor -- to complicate the go-under strategy.
• We also saw at least one Morris-Jokic pick-and-roll where Phoenix chased Morris over Jokic's pick and had Ayton stay home on Jokic -- effectively giving Morris a runway to the rim. Cameron Payne blocked Morris' layup from behind, but that's a dangerous game -- one that hurt Portland in the first round.
• Morris is a huge X factor, because he's maybe the only Denver ball handler with a jumper reliable enough that Phoenix might chase him over screens instead of scurrying under. Morris was 1-of-10 in Game 1. He should prod the Suns' defense, and see if they concede more driving lanes.
• I liked Phoenix playing Saric over Frank Kaminsky against the Denver bench. Saric is just better, and lineups without Jokic don't have the size to bother Saric. I would stick with Saric even if the Nuggets dust off JaVale McGee. The non-Jokic minutes might be a bellwether. Denver won them against Portland, but Phoenix ran away with them in Game 1.
• Michael Malone's decision to put Gordon on Booker bears watching. It makes sense: Smother Booker with size, and have Gordon smash him on the block when Booker can't extricate himself from that matchup. But with Gordon hounding Booker up top, the back-line help -- a crucial ingredient if Jokic is almost trapping so high on the floor -- is pretty small and reliant on Porter for some bounce.