Monte Morris knew the assignment.
When he saw the Clippers send a double-team toward Nikola Jokic with the game tied at 127 and six seconds remaining in overtime, he did what the Nuggets didn’t do in their 25-point collapse vs. Los Angeles a little more than a week ago.
He cut through the lane, dragging his defender, Brandon Boston Jr., just a few feet closer to Jokic and, more importantly, a few feet further away from Aaron Gordon. In scouting and preparing for Wednesday’s re-match, the Nuggets hammered the idea of moving without the ball to undermine the double and triple-teams Jokic had been seeing.