David Adelman’s tenure begins: How he plans to handle Nuggets’ offense, defense and more

During a -minute introductory news conference on Wednesday Nuggets coach David Adelman outlined several of his philosophies as he takes over the job Here are five key topics that came up during his presser and how he tackled each of them Defense Schematic variety Adelman operated as Denver s offensive coordinator on Michael Malone s staff When he took over as interim head coach he took a more involved role in the defensive scheme as well Nikola Jokic played drop coverage in a crucial win rather than his usual up-the-floor positioning and the Nuggets went to a zone throughout their second-round playoff series to thwart the Thunder Expect them to continue trying an assortment of strategies I think we have to be much more creative throughout the season I think it gets guys through the year healthier Adelman revealed You can demand a very aggressive man defense but I think you can change things up I think we have high-IQ players That allows you to have more variety defensively Denver s base defense against the pick-and-roll typically deploys Jokic at the level of the screen a more aggressive arrangement than playing him closer to the basket The idea is to provide a buffer for the defender tasked with navigating the screen and to ultimately deter the ball-handler into a reset The consequence is that if the ball-handler can thread a pass to the roller in the middle of the floor Denver is stuck defending -on- chasing their tails to close out on shooters The rotations demand intense effort When it doesn t work opponents drill open s When it does work it s exhausting The Nuggets regressed from eighth in defensive rating to st in the league last season Offense Half-court precision At their championship heights the Nuggets were notorious for walking you down and patiently pummeling you in their half-court sets With Jokic pulling the puppet strings they consistently generated an open shot They still ranked fourth in offensive rating last season but rather notably via an uptick in tempo Denver was the eighth-fastest group in the NBA one year after ranking th Adelman wants to get back to the crew s roots Our transition encounter was very impactful throughout the season but several of that does not translate to the playoffs he revealed So that s a major goal for us We have to get back to being an execution-based company If that takes away particular of our PACE numbers or whatever the analytics want to say I think that s OK if that wins you a championship in May as opposed to playing a contest in December It s a very different style of basketball And we have to think that way throughout the whole season so when we get to that point we can morph into that company Adelman made sure to marvel at the appropriately named Pacers and their anomaly of a playoff run this year emphasis on run But I think the majority of the time the vast majority of the time he commented if you want to win big you ve gotta play slow You ve gotta be efficient You ve gotta be clean Participant enhancement When Josh Kroenke posited last week that a lot of our answers are internal right now as a roster the subtext seemed directed at Adelman who s taking over a largely underdeveloped depth chart loaded with late first-round picks and early second-rounders If changes to the roster are indeed minimal this summer then finding enough bodies to complete a deeper playoff rotation will be a heavy burden Adelman seems ready to embrace that understanding he ll need to give young players more in-game experience during the regular season but also preaching that to grow into a role you have to earn a role We have people in this building that are more than capable of creating the depth that we need It s also me creating a different kind of relationship with these players he noted Being the head coach as opposed to lead assistant is a lot different Those expectations have to be defined for them I need to be progressing and go see players make sure they understand what they can do to have an impact on this unit next year All these guys have people they work out with away from this building We have great people in this building But we have to unify those relationships He ll be trying to mend a disconnect that has developed in particular of those relationships Players offseason workout preferences became a point of contention between Malone and former general manager Calvin Booth Ego management Part of being an NBA head coach of syllabus is managing the fallout of your own lineup decisions Professional athletes are prideful They want to play When they don t it inherently bruises the ego Adelman seemed to display a deft hand at navigating locker-room politics during his interim tenure He attempted to pull off a pure meritocracy There were nights when starting small forward Michael Porter Jr was excluded from the closing lineup Porter was still among the players to endorse Adelman for the full-time job So how will Adelman confront those situations over the unit of a season The last two years we ve lost Meeting in the second round of the playoffs he commented So when we get to December January February and there s small fires to be put out and all those things and guys aren t feeling it or whatever I will remind them of that We have to understand that if we want to have our ultimate goal our professionalism has to be consistent throughout the whole season If guys can t understand that that s an issue and I ll make sure they remember that Related Articles Renck David Adelman s X-factor is slowing Nuggets offense moving on from Russell Westbrook How does coach David Adelman factor into Nuggets GM search Josh Kroenke This organization does not need a cultural reset Keeler Nuggets coach David Adelman can t let Jamal Murray push him around Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook undergoes surgery on right hand to repair multiple ligament tears Nuggets Journal How close was Denver to Thunder s championship level Josh Kroenke weighs in Coaching staff structure Adelman has the opportunity to build his own coaching staff this summer Those are conversations we re gonna have going forward he announced I do think we ll have to take a long look at everything with the current staff just like you do with your roster your players Because every year you want to get better In all likelihood Adelman s eventual staff will feature a mix of individuals retained from last season and a handful of newcomers He was also solicited if he plans to hire an offensive coordinator for the role he previously occupied I have to be willing to listen to outside opinions he declared It s different for me It was my opinion as an assistant before being given to someone else So I think delegation will come as the staff is formed And there are different options to do it What we ve done here has been prosperous with the offensive and defensive coordinators with the head coach But there s other people doing it a different way across the league Want more Nuggets news Sign up for 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