Nuggets preaching patience as second unit finds identity, but they’re not shying away from slow start: “I’ve been really bad”

MINNEAPOLIS — The two film samples Michael Malone showed Peyton Watson after Denver’s season-opening clunker last week illuminated a collective identity crisis that far exceeds Watson or any other individual.

Actually, to call it a crisis would be dramatic and premature, according to the players involved. For now, it’s more of a quest for cohesion within the Nuggets’ second unit, a pursuit that requires patience and amounts to questions as fundamental as where to be on the floor and when. This is what Malone wanted to circle with Watson.

The third-year forward was stationed in the corner as Russell Westbrook drove from the slot. Watson’s defender responded by rotating to the strong side, a help tactic known as trapping the box that can take away clean drive-and-kick angles to the weak-side shooter. It is susceptible, however, to leaving space exposed on the back side.

“Peyton never moved,” Malone said. “He stood in the corner. As his man comes, he should be right behind. That should be a lob dunk.”

Malone’s other example involved Denver’s second unit getting the ball to the middle of the floor during a pick-and-roll. “We can shake out of that corner with momentum, so now you’re going and catching and playing downhill,” he recalled telling Watson, referencing Luol Deng’s prowess at that. “Peyton probably doesn’t even remember Luol Deng.”

These are call-and-response reflexes that come naturally to Denver’s starting lineup, a precision weapon so refined that a lever is more or less effortlessly replaceable with a pulley. That might be a discredit to Christian Braun’s impressive start as the new cog, but even he understands the larger machinery in which he’s now operating. As a recent graduate of the second unit, he can speak to Nikola Jokic Gravitational Theory better than anyone.

“You get really good looks every time you’re on the floor with him,” Braun said. “Especially when you’ve got all the guys around him. All the talent around him. So you’re gonna get a good look. And that unit’s so used to playing with each other, they know exactly where to go.”

Not only do Denver’s non-Jokic minutes lack Jokic — a grim obstacle that has spanned his prime — they also currently lack familiarity and chemistry. Julian Strawther is new to the everyday rotation. Michael Porter Jr. is new to the everyday stagger role. Westbrook and Dario Saric are new to the roster. And Watson is new to the two of them. The 22-year-old missed all five preseason games with a hamstring injury and didn’t fully participate in practice until the last week before opening day. His first game action alongside his new teammates was against the Oklahoma City Thunder — the second-best bench in the league through the first 10 days of the season.

“It’s been kind of tough because I haven’t played a game since May,” Watson said. “… (I’m) just getting my rhythm, getting my shot-making prowess and everything like that back. I still feel as though I’m one of the best defenders on the court every time I step on. So if I get to scoring too, I’m a really complete player.”

“It’s early, man. I don’t know what game it is. Five. Four. It’s early,” Westbrook said. “Too early to be trying to figure out if and what doesn’t work. You don’t know what’s gonna work. You’ve gotta give a healthy dose of kind of seeing what’s what, and then you go from there.”

The delineation between pattern and circumstance is unclear.

On one hand, the more things change in Denver, the more they stay the same. The front office has attempted to rotate in new bench personnel, but Jokic’s rest minutes feel like a roller coaster now more than ever.

On the other hand, as Westbrook pointed out, these things take time. Bringing in a new batch of players almost always involves growing pains. Especially early in the season. And especially when the players were cost-effective acquisitions, by necessity.

The Nuggets had to take a flyer on someone this offseason. They chose Westbrook and Saric.

“I’ve been really bad. That’s how I feel,” Saric told The Post on Tuesday. “But you know, if it’s my job to sub for Nikola and give the effort and give the energy for those 10 to 12, 13 minutes, whatever it is, I’m gonna do it.”

Saric has logged the fewest minutes of the four rotational bench players. He stayed in his seat during the second half of Denver’s first win, a 15-point comeback in Toronto. Defense and rebounding have been weaknesses with him playing the five, and Malone felt he needed to mirror Aaron Gordon with Raptors star Scottie Barnes to avoid an 0-3 start. It worked out in the end, barely.

But if the second unit doesn’t show marginal signs of improvement soon, decisions like that from Malone will eventually be in vain — desperate attempts to maintain a facade by pushing the limits of one lineup. Last season, the Nuggets’ starting five led all NBA lineups in minutes by a wide margin, playing 958. The 2024-25 starting five shared the floor for 104 minutes together … in the first four games.

The Nuggets didn’t win any of those four in regulation despite the unit’s 11.8 net rating, 3.19 assist-to-turnover ratio and 61.2% true shooting rate.

“We’ve gotta figure something out with that bench unit,” Malone acknowledged this week in Brooklyn. “And it’s a fine line of, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta give it time, but how much time can you give it before you start looking at different options?’ And that’s kind of what we’re still evaluating. … Plenty of basketball to be played. I always make sure I challenge myself and ask myself, ‘Am I helping Russell Westbrook and Julian Strawther and Peyton Watson and Dario Saric?’ So it’s not just on those players. It’s on myself to try to figure that out.”

One way he has attempted to accomplish that is by attacking pick-and-roll switches when smaller players end up guarding Saric. But this is where chemistry has gotten in the way. Saric hasn’t been receiving Westbrook’s pocket passes cleanly, often spoiling the mismatch before Denver can take advantage of it. The Croatian big man has to learn where Westbrook places the ball; Westbrook has to learn where Saric is comfortable receiving it.

“We’re gonna need some time. Obviously we didn’t do well (the first week),” Saric said. “We kind of are still trying to find out how we fit with each other. Who’s gonna come from the first unit, who’s gonna come in the second unit, because coach likes to kind of put some guys from the first unit in the second unit. So to find a way how to play in that situation, we need some time.”

Porter seems like the most natural fit due to his size, rebounding and floor-spacing, but the results haven’t reflected that. In its first three games (again: small sample size), the Porter-led second unit had a 32.6% rebounding rate, 29% field goal percentage and minus-52 net rating in 18 minutes. MPJ, too, echoed the preaching of patience, both for the lineup and for himself individually after a shooting slump. “It’s just three games,” he told The Post in Toronto. “I’m not tripping.”

Porter may be invaluable to the second unit even when he’s in a slump. Defenses will stretch to the perimeter and beyond to guard him because his reputation as a sniper is well-established. Nobody else in the lineup has enough cachet to warrant that yet, not even Strawther, who started the year efficiently on a low number of shots.

Malone is walking a fine line. He doesn’t want to discourage his players from attempting open 3s, but he also doesn’t want to play into opponents’ hands.

“There are gonna be certain guys that teams are gonna dare to make shots,” he said. “So yes, to make them, and keep the defense honest, you’ve gotta prove it. Step in and shoot it. But when we are struggling to shoot 3s, well, you have to have some different tricks in your bag.”

Watson fits somewhere within that gray area. The Lakers and Timberwolves dared him to shoot during the playoffs, and eventually, he was phased out of the rotation in the second round. He says there wasn’t much for him to take away from the experience of not playing, but it added to what he calls “a natural chip on my shoulder.” Then, days before training camp, he popped a tire playing pickup in Denver. The soft-tissue injury to his right hamstring put him at an immediate disadvantage from a chemistry standpoint. Malone has been quick to point that out every time he’s been asked about the second unit.

It knocked Watson’s conditioning a step backward as well. Three games in, he started to feel like he was finally catching up.

As he sees it, for the Nuggets to locate their bench identity, catching up might have to be the theme for everyone involved.

“It’s different than playing in previous years. We’ve got a different team. So we’ve got new guys to learn with,” Watson said. “Russ obviously pushes the tempo. He plays real fast, so it’s just about getting on his timing, especially since he’s the head of the snake.”