The Whiteboard: 4 big questions for Game 7 between the Jazz and Nuggets

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Unexpectedly, the series between the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets has turned out to be the excitement peak of the first round. With a Game 7 looming tonight, here are four big questions that could help determine who advances.

1. Who regresses to the mean first: Donovan Mitchell or Jamal Murray?

Murray and Mitchell have been absolutely incredible but they’re both, undoubtedly, playing way over their heads. They’re both shooting better than 50 percent…on pull-up 3-pointers…on more than five attempts per game. They’ve combined for 70.8 points per game and, collectively, have an effective field goal percentage of 68.3. At some point, one or both of them are going to cool off. Even if it’s just from “historic” to “absurdly good”, whoever feels the regression first could be in a big hole.

2. Is Gary Harris ready for a bigger defensive load?

Harris is one of the Nuggets’ best wing defenders but Game 6 was his first appearance in the series because of a nagging hip injury. Harris came off the bench and spent more than half of his defensive possessions matched up with Jordan Clarkson. Even if he can help keep Clarkson from going off, it’s a big help for the Nuggets. But if he’s ready to share some of the Donovan Mitchell responsibility, and can do it up to his usual standard, that gives Denver more depth to throw at what has been an intractable problem.

3. Will we see “the Nikola Jokic game”?

Jokic’s numbers in this series are impressive — he’s averaging slightly more points per game and on considerably better efficiency than he did in last year’s postseason. But he’s yet to register double-digit assists in the series (he did it four times in 14 games in last year’s playoffs) and he hasn’t hit double-digit rebounds in the last four. All together, Jokic is averaging 5.8 fewer rebounds and 2.7 fewer assists per game than he did last year. He’s been great but he hasn’t been dominating in the way the Nuggets need him to. That responsibility has been assumed by Jamal Murray but if Murray doesn’t have it tonight, can Jokic throw up one of his legendary lines?

4. Who does Utah put on Jamal Murray?

Royce O’Neale has had primary responsibility for Murray through the first six games of this series, and it’s obviously not working great. The Jazz can stick with the plan and hope that O’Neale gets a boost from Murray’s mean regression but it might be time to get creative. You don’t want Mitchell picking up the load because he needs to save his energy for offense but maybe Mike Conley gets a shot?

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