The Denver Nuggets escaped their five-game preseason slate with three wins, but things were not as pretty as they would've liked. After handily beating the Los Angeles Lakers in their preseason finale, the Nuggets are likely a bit more comfortable heading into opening week.
But after what they showed in preseason, they need to clean some things up in the week of practice leading up to their season opener. Let's take a look at two of Denver's most glaring concerns after five preseason games that they have to try to fix ahead of the regular season:
Three-point shooting
Last season, the Nuggets finished with the league's top three-point percentage (39.6%), with 11 players shooting 38% or better from beyond the arc. This was a clear strength for the Nuggets and a main reason why they had the NBA's best offense, but in the preseason, their three-point shooting was not as lethal.
The Nuggets still had the league's second-best field goal percentage (49.6%) in preseason, but shot just 35.9% from three-point range, which was the 15th-best in the league. Sure, it is not the worst thing to be a middle-of-the-pack three-point shooting team, but for this Denver team that thrived from beyond the arc last season, there is some concern here.
Granted, the Nuggets lost Tim Hardaway Jr. and Peyton Watson this offseason, who both shot 40% or better from deep last year, so we expected there to be some dip in three-point shooting. This might be more of a personnel problem, but given how many open looks they get, they should be able to knock down their three-pointers at a higher clip.
We will see how this looks as they progress through the season and hopefully find their rhythm, but we certainly want things to be better than what we saw in preseason.
Free-throw shooting
The Nuggets were not great from beyond the arc in preseason, but an even bigger concern came from the charity stripe. After shooting 80.8% from the free-throw line last season, the fifth-best in the NBA, they were disastrous in preseason. They shot just 67.5% from the free-throw line in five preseason games, the worst mark in the NBA.
All great NBA teams are able to knock down their free throws at a high rate. The Nuggets cannot afford to go an entire season shooting this badly from the free-throw line, but hopefully we can chalk this up to an anomaly.
Given that they still shot efficiently from the field, and the only weaknesses came from beyond the arc and at the free-throw line, we can assume these will get better in the regular season. Still, if they do not, the Nuggets will be in trouble.
After finishing top five in FG%, 3P%, and FT% last season, it would be a shame if the Nuggets' efficiency dipped too harshly this year. They are already seen as a weaker team heading into the new season, so they might need the stars to align to get back to championship contention.
Add us as a preferred source on Google