Screen navigation will define the Nuggets in 2026-27 because Nikola Jokić cannot solve every problem once Denver’s perimeter defense gets caught behind the play. Picture the moment. A guard calls for a high screen, the screener catches a defender across the shoulder, and Jokić suddenly has two bodies charging into his space.
A lazy rotation in November might cost Denver two points. In a tight playoff series, that same mistake can send a team home. The Nuggets learned enough about that margin last spring, when a 54-win season and the NBA’s best offense ended with Minnesota knocking them out in six games in the first round. Denver scored 122.6 points per 100 possessions, best in the league, but ranked only 21st defensively at 117.4.
Jokić will make Denver brilliant again. Jamal Murray will turn rehearsed actions into improvisational jazz. Yet the question that could determine another championship sits at the other end of the floor: can Denver fight through enough screens to keep its defense intact?
Denver has already proved offense alone is not enough
There may not be a better two-man partnership in basketball than Jokić and Murray.
Jokić walks toward the top of the floor, plants his enormous frame beside Murray’s defender and waits. Murray brushes past him. From there, the defense begins guessing.
Go under and Murray can shoot. Trail too aggressively and Jokić can slip toward open space. Bring two defenders toward the ball and somebody else starts cutting behind them.
Last season, Jokić set 894 ball screens for Murray, more than any player set for one teammate. He also delivered 453 handoffs to him. During their 1,706 minutes together, Denver scored 127.8 points per 100 possessions.
It’s no secret why opposing staffs burn the midnight oil trying to solve Denver’s two-man game.
Now flip the problem.
Every serious Western Conference contender owns guards or wings who can force Denver through the same maze. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander manipulates angles until defenders lean the wrong way. Anthony Edwards turns half a step into a runway. Luka Dončić will keep calling for screens until he gets the matchup he wants.
Those players do not need five mistakes from Denver. One is enough.
That is why screen navigation matters so much. The first defender determines how much everyone behind him must compensate.
The first defender controls Jokić’s workload
Jokić will never erase mistakes like a traditional vertical rim protector. Denver does not need him to.
His defensive strength comes from positioning, anticipation and remarkably quick hands. He reads plays early and occupies the space an offense wants before the action fully develops.
However, that advantage disappears when the perimeter defender gets wiped out.
Suppose Murray is chasing a guard over a high ball screen. If he squeezes over the screener’s hip and stays within striking distance, Jokić can retreat while still respecting the drive. Murray can contest from behind, while Aaron Gordon remains attached to his man instead of sinking toward the paint.
Nobody needs to scramble.
Change one detail and the possession looks entirely different. Murray hits the screen squarely and falls two steps behind. The ballhandler turns the corner clean. Jokić must climb higher, Gordon pinches toward the roller, and the weak-side defender takes one cautious step toward the lane.
That step opens the corner, and Denver’s entire defensive shell begins to bend.
Better screen navigation does not require every Nuggets guard to become Jrue Holiday. Denver simply needs the original defender to remain part of the possession. Stay on the ballhandler’s shoulder, contest from behind and recover before the next pass.
Those little wins protect Jokić from having to defend two players at once.
Christian Braun has to become the standard
Nobody on the roster carries more responsibility here than Christian Braun.
Denver reshaped its starting group in the summer of 2025 by sending Michael Porter Jr. to Brooklyn for Cameron Johnson, trading some size and individual shot creation for a different offensive fit around Jokić. The move left Braun with an even heavier point-of-attack burden beside Murray.
Braun cannot just accept the toughest assignment at tip-off. He has to stay attached after the opponent begins screening, re-screening and flipping angles.
That gets exhausting.
An offense might send Braun into a screen on the left side, reverse the ball, then bring another screener from the baseline. If he survives both actions, the star simply relocates and tries again. By the fourth quarter, his legs will feel every collision.
Yet Braun’s value comes from making those possessions difficult before Denver needs help. He has enough strength to avoid getting completely knocked off his line, and he has the speed to recover when a scorer briefly gains separation.
The next step is technical. Braun must get better at squeezing through tight gaps without surrendering straight-line drives. He also needs to recognize when a screener changes the angle at the last second, one of the oldest tricks for catching an aggressive defender off balance.
Against Edwards, half a second matters. Against Gilgeous-Alexander, one wrong shoulder angle can become a paint touch.
Denver needs Braun winning those tiny fights again and again.
Peyton Watson could change the equation
Then there is Peyton Watson, perhaps the most fascinating unresolved piece of Denver’s defensive puzzle.
As of August 11, Watson remains a restricted free agent after a breakout 2025-26 season. Denver retains control over his immediate future, but his contract situation has dragged deep into the offseason.
His absence would hurt for reasons that go beyond box-score production.
At 6-foot-8, Watson gives Denver length after mistakes happen. A quicker guard might beat him initially, but Watson can re-enter the play with one long stride. Bigger wings cannot simply shoot over him, either.
That recovery ability changes how aggressively Denver can defend.
With Watson available, David Adelman, who replaced Michael Malone in April 2025 before receiving the permanent head-coaching job that May, has another player capable of guarding across positions without demanding instant help.
Adelman made the physical expectation clear when Denver installed its defensive approach at training camp: “Play extremely hard, put your hands on people.” That philosophy sounds simple until a defender has spent three quarters chasing elite scorers through screens. The legs get heavier, the gaps feel narrower and one late reaction can unravel the coverage.
Without Watson, Braun and Gordon absorb more of those assignments. Denver also loses something difficult to measure: permission to make a mistake. Great defenses recover, and Watson gives the Nuggets another defender who can turn a beaten first step into a contested finish two seconds later.
For a team trying to improve its screen navigation, that matters enormously.
Murray cannot become the matchup everyone hunts
No contender can hide every offensive star, and Murray will find that out again.
He authored the best regular season of his career in 2025-26, averaging 25.4 points, 7.1 assists and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 43.5 percent from three. He also made his first All-Star team.
Jokić was somehow even more outrageous. The big man averaged 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists, becoming the first player in NBA history to lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game.
Denver needs every drop of Murray’s offense. Opponents know that, so they will make him defend.
Dončić will search for him. Bigger wings will screen his man and force Murray toward switches. Movement shooters will drag him through traffic. Deep playoff series often become cruelly repetitive because offenses keep poking the same bruise until something breaks.
Murray does not need to become Denver’s best defender. He cannot become its escape hatch, either.
His job begins before the switch ever happens. Better screen navigation keeps him attached to his original assignment and prevents the offense from dictating every matchup.
That also saves Denver from constantly sending a second defender toward the ball. For Murray, surviving the screen may be more valuable than winning the possession himself.
Aaron Gordon cannot clean up every mistake
When Denver’s first line breaks, Aaron Gordon often becomes the emergency response.
He looks built for that job. At roughly 6-foot-8 and 235 pounds, Gordon carries enough strength to take the brunt of a hard screen without flying out of the possession. His feet still allow him to switch onto guards, while his power lets him wrestle with larger forwards near the rim.
That versatility holds Denver together. It also creates a dangerous temptation.
The Nuggets cannot treat Gordon as the answer to every failed coverage.
Last season offered a painful reminder. Gordon missed 40 regular-season games with a hamstring problem, then dealt with another injury during Denver’s playoff loss to Minnesota. Watson missed that entire six-game series as well.
If the perimeter guards blow their coverage, even Gordon cannot keep bailing out the scheme.
That is another reason screen navigation serves as more than individual defense. It preserves Denver’s best helpers. When Braun stays attached, Gordon can guard his own man. When Murray recovers, Gordon does not need to sprint into the lane.
The fewer fires Gordon must extinguish, the more dangerous Denver becomes everywhere else.
Denver must make its coverage harder to predict
The postseason turns habits into scouting reports.
Run the same coverage enough times and elite guards stop reacting to it. They begin anticipating it.
A deep drop gives pull-up shooters room. An aggressive hedge invites a slip. Switch everything and a patient offense searches for Murray or Jokić.
No single solution survives four playoff rounds.
Adelman needs options.
Against Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver may want the on-ball defender chasing over the screen while Jokić shows enough body to shrink the driving lane. Edwards creates a different problem because his burst can punish defenders who trail too far behind. Dončić adds another layer because he can slow the possession, manipulate the screen angle and keep resetting until the matchup finally tilts his way.
Denver has to change the picture.
Sometimes Braun should fight over. At other moments Gordon can switch. Johnson may need to peel back toward a roller. Watson, if he returns, can give Adelman more aggressive combinations because his length covers ground after the initial action.
However, every variation begins with execution at the point of contact.
Poor screen navigation shrinks the playbook. Strong navigation expands it.
That may be the biggest tactical consequence of all.
Denver does not need to build the league’s best defense
The silver lining for Denver is simple: this group does not need a lockdown defense to win another championship.
Its offense provides too much margin.
Jokić remains the central problem no opponent has truly solved. Murray gives Denver a second scorer who can control playoff games. Gordon punishes teams for overloading toward the stars, while Johnson adds another shooter around the league’s best passing center.
Denver finished 2025-26 with 54 wins despite a brutal injury season and closed the regular season on a 12-game winning streak. Minnesota still ended the run before May really began.
That gap matters.
The Nuggets do not need to climb from 21st defensively to first. They need to become reliable enough that their offense does not have to score 125 every night.
Move into the middle of the league defensively and the equation changes. Produce a top-12 defense and the West starts looking very uncomfortable for everybody else.
The improvement does not require a dramatic identity change. Denver needs fewer possessions where one screen causes three rotations, fewer moments where Jokić steps toward the ball because the guard behind him vanished, and fewer open threes created by an initial mistake 20 feet away from the shooter.
That is where screen navigation can change a season without ever dominating a highlight reel.
The smallest fight may decide Denver’s next playoff run
Ball Arena will still rise when Jokić catches the ball at the elbow and sees a pass nobody else noticed. Murray will still turn rehearsed two-man plays into pure jazz, while Gordon slips behind sleeping defenders and arrives at the rim before the help recognizes him.
Those are the plays people remember. Denver’s championship future may depend on the ones nobody clips.
A defender lowers his hips as the screener arrives. Shoulders slam together, but instead of disappearing behind the action, Braun slips through. Murray fights back into the play. Gordon stays home, and Jokić retreats toward the rim without having to choose between two attackers. Denver forces a difficult shot instead of scrambling toward an open one.
That possession will never look as beautiful as a Jokić no-look pass or bring the same roar as a Murray three. Yet that is exactly why it matters. The Nuggets already know they can win with beauty. Their 2023 championship proved it, and their 2025-26 offense showed the formula still works.
Now comes the uglier challenge. Denver has to embrace the collisions, bruises and cramped spaces that decide whether an NBA defense holds together. Against Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards, Dončić and every other star waiting in the West, one clean screen can tilt a possession. A handful of those possessions can tilt a playoff game, and one playoff game can reshape an entire series.
For the 2026-27 Denver Nuggets, screen navigation may be the smallest skill with the biggest consequences.
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FAQs
Who is Denver’s most important perimeter defender?
Christian Braun carries a major point-of-attack burden. Denver needs him to stay attached to elite guards through repeated screens and re-screens.
Why could Peyton Watson matter to Denver’s defense?
Watson adds length and recovery speed. He can re-enter possessions after an initial mistake and contest shots that other defenders might not reach.
Do the Nuggets need an elite defense to contend?
Not necessarily. Their offense already provides a huge advantage, but a more reliable defense could give Denver much more playoff margin.
Tracking stats and settling debates. If there is a scoreboard, I am watching it.
