Lakers-Nuggets Notes

One thing that everybody knows about this series is that Denver can't play defense. It's like the one unimpeachable fact of this series, and just about every commentator, expert, and writer has mentioned it. How do we know it's true? Look how many points they give up! Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that (as many have discussed before). The Nuggets play at the fastest pace in the NBA. They have, on average the most, and shortest possessions. That means their opponents have the most possessions, too. And that's why their opponents score the points. If only there were some way to measure how well a team defended per possession. Then you'd have a good sense of how effective they are at actually, you know, stopping a team from scoring (which is what defense is)