Peyton Watson is still very much in the learning stage of his NBA career. That includes learning new rules.
During a brief interruption of his career night Monday, he was left dumbfounded by an overturned foul call that added insult to facial injury. It happened in the third quarter. Bulls guard Coby White worked his way deep under the basket then jerked backward to force contact, the back of his head colliding with the front of Watson’s. The 22-year-old wing crumpled. White was tagged with an offensive foul. Chicago coach Billy Donovan elected to challenge it.
At the end of the replay-review process, the foul was reassessed to Watson for being in motion when the contact occurred.
“I’m asking for clarification because I want to be able to help my guys,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I want to help Peyton Watson, who’s trying to do the right thing by taking the hit in the chest and showing his hands. Everything we’re telling him to do, and he’s still getting a foul call.”
Unfortunately for Watson, the timing was less than ideal to ask for an explanation himself. Moments earlier, he had already picked up a technical foul for jabbering with the officials. He was playing too well to risk getting ejected in pursuit of the last word.
“They weren’t trying to talk to me tonight. I don’t know,” Watson said after Denver’s 129-119 loss. “I guess that I said something that wasn’t OK to them. But after that, I just kind of tried to keep my comments to myself. I was confused by how I could get head-butted and the foul would be on me. I guess they’re insinuating that I fouled him with my face.”
Count it as the first face-foul of his career — one more stat to toss in with a significant box score Monday. Despite the 10-point loss, Denver broke even in Watson’s minutes while he scored a career-high 24 points and posted his seventh four-block game. One of them earned a pat on the back from Nikola Jokic, who was sidelined in street clothes when Watson swatted a corner 3-point attempt next to the home bench.
“Peyton’s playing so good,” Jamal Murray raved. “He’s not just playing with confidence, but he’s being so active on both ends of the floor. Cutting, moving even if he doesn’t get it, setting screens, rebounding, back-taps, running the floor, causing confusion.”
Malone has reiterated throughout the last month that consistency is the key to Watson’s development in what little time is left before the NBA playoffs: “Can you find a way to be great one night and really good the next, instead of having peaks and valleys?” as he put it Monday.
Watson is in the middle of what is arguably his most prolonged peak so far. In the last five games, he’s averaging 14 points on 55.3% shooting (50% from three). The Nuggets couldn’t have pulled off their heist of the year at Golden State last week without his defensive fortitude, both at the rim (another four-block game) and around the perimeter with Steph Curry prowling.
Most importantly, he scored as a roller, cutter, slasher, transition runner and spot-up shooter in Denver’s loss on Monday. It was an enlightening display of versatility for a player whose postseason viability was called into question last year over his ability to hang in the West’s best offense.
Late in the game, he drove from the wing to his spot just inside the right elbow, created space for himself and knocked down a 15-footer while fading away.
“Since I’ve been back from injury, I’ve played a lot more at the three, giving me a lot more space to attack from above the break,” Watson noted, referring to his sprained knee in February. “And it’s definitely different, attacking off the dribble from the wing as opposed to the corner. Just more space, not as clogged up, and I’m not playing against the out-of-bounds lines.”
But Watson understands his value to Denver in the corner as well. Watson’s third-year leap as a 3-point shooter — he’s up to 37.7% — is mostly a product of that area of the floor. He’s 46.4% from the baseline and sub-30% from above the break, though that didn’t stop him from sinking a pair of wing 3s against Chicago.
“I’m also probably in the corner more, so I think that correlates,” Watson said. “And I think I’m a great shooter all around.”
At minimum, Watson is starting to look like a sufficient 3-and-D role player Malone can deploy off the bench during the playoffs. At his best, Watson is an electric current, carrying enough charged particles to sustain the Nuggets for entire Jokic rest stints at a time.
He yells when he dunks. He yells when he blocks. And he’s averaging 1.94 blocks per 36 minutes, ranking top 15 in the league next to a bunch of centers.
“I just think that we have more depth than people think,” he said, “and our team is better than what people think. I think that we can match up with everybody.”
He might as well have been pointing at himself when he said “more depth,” taking issue with one of the most widespread knocks against his team.
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