What we learned from our latest possible NBA Finals preview

Kristaps Porzingis changes things for the Celtics ... but only if Boston sticks with it. Meanwhile, Denver has a bench problem.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Rooftops, View from the Atelier; Vincent van Gogh; 1882

In a potential Finals preview on Friday, the Nuggets beat the Celtics 102-100 in Boston, reminding any who needed it that they should be the championship favorite despite their seed in the West.

What struck me was Kristaps Porzingis’ offensive effectiveness in the first half — especially the first quarter — and the fact that Nikola Jokic overcame that and led the Nuggets to victory despite it. There exists a recipe to beating the Nuggets: flexible size. If you have bigs who can stretch the floor and score well, you put Nikola Jokic in difficult defensive positions, wear him down and pull him away from defensive rebounds, giving your team a chance on the glass. If you have large defensive bigs, you can make Jokic work a little bit harder for his buckets, wearing him down a little.

The thing is that the “wear him down” part completely doesn’t seem to be real: Jokic played 38 minutes in a regular season road game with showing much in the way of fatigue. The other piece is that floor-stretching, high-scoring big men like Porzingis are not usually anywhere near as consistently present as Jokic. You feel and see Jokic every second of action. Porzingis is not that, and felt a lot less essential in the second half. To wit: here are KP’s minutes, FGAs and FTAs by quarter on Friday:

• First: 9.5 min, 5 FGAs, 4 FTAs

• Second: 7.75 min, 2 FGAs, 0 FTAs

• Third: 7 min, 2 FGAs, 2 FTAs

• Fourth: 12 min, 2 FGAs, 2 FTAs

KP was on fire in the first quarter, putting Jokic and Aaron Gordon in tricky spots and drilling threes over them. And the Celtics largely just moved away from it. The Nuggets reacted and adjusted. Boston really didn’t.