Nick Nurse knew it’d be a bit of a journey, he suggested it might even take an entire season. A team filled with new, young players and injuries steadily changing rotations meant that the learning curve for a defensive philosophy that is demanding at the best of times was going to be steeper than usual.
He accepts that. What Nurse wants to see over the course of this journey is progress: increase the frequency of the peaks and reduce the depth of the valleys. Results aside, play with the intensity they did against Boston on Nov. 28 and establish that effort level like the one against Indiana on Nov.