TORONTO – Everyone thought they knew what the issues were in a Nikola Jokic/Jusuf Nurkic frontcourt pairing. And basically it was one: Defense. How well would they hold up in a league getting smaller and more athletic?

As it turns out, that has been a minimal issue, at best, through two games. But, the Nurkic/Jokic combination has opened up an entirely different set of “problems” to solve, all having to do with playing time and usage.

The duo has only been on the court at the same time a total of 28 minutes and change, an official average of 14.1 minutes in the Nuggets first two games. So this is not the Nuggets going big all the time. And while it is a small sample size, it’s been plenty large enough for there to be some general lineup assumptions made through the simple action of watching who is out there and when.

It appears though the Nuggets have already proven to be one of the NBA’s better post up teams, it’s an offensive personality they want as a complement, not as a rule. And it’s cost Nurkic, whose season start on the block has been as dominant as any big man in the league.

According to Synergy stats, the Nuggets are not only good when posting up, they’ve burst out of the gates ranked ninth in points per possession on post ups. That is almost entirely due to the reemergence of Nurkic, who has put a summer’s worth of work to good use.

Of the 11 players who have put up at least 10 shots in post-up situations, only Anthony Davis has a better field goal percentage (61.1) than Nurkic (54.5). Only Davis, Kevin Love and Kawhi Leonard average more points-per-post-up possession than Nurkic (1.00). Nurkic incidentally is tied with DeMarcus Cousins, Marc Gasol and Paul Millasp in that category. He scores at least one point 53 percent of the time he posts up. Only Davis and Love own better percentages.

As a result, only Memphis, Detroit and San Antonio have more total possessions devoted to post ups going into Monday’s games – and those teams have played at least three games to the Nuggets’ two. Only Philadelphia had a higher percentage of all its possessions come on posting up than the Nuggets, who have used the play 12.3 percent of the time. So, fundamentally there could be a tug of war in philosophy: Do the Nuggets want to post up that much? Maybe not. But if the answer is somewhere in the “we’re cool with it” range, then that leads right to the second question: Why not put the team’s single most devastating post-up player – Nurkic – on the court more than his current 24.5 minutes per game?

Coach Mike Malone’s answer has been defense. He’s wanted more athletic players on the court to guard certain individuals, particularly down the stretch in the first two games. Nurkic has not played a second in the fourth quarter of either of the first two games. But Nurkic is also a high-usage player — second only to Emmanuel Mudiay on the team — a ball-dominant personality that hovers over any other big on the court.

And that’s where Jokic comes in.

He’s as unselfish a player as there is anywhere. He’s not a shot hunter by nature, and that means when he’s on the court with Nurkic, he’s not shooting much at all because the Bosnian Beast is. In the first two games, Jokic is 3-for-5 shooting and is averaging 3.5 points in the first quarter playing alongside Nurkic. Nurkic, meanwhile, is 5-for-7 and is averaging 7.5 points in the first quarter, most of that production coming alongside Jokic.

The problem the Nuggets have to solve is: How can they get both players to be hugely productive while on the court together? If they can’t do it, then they’ll be forced to start with them both and go quickly away from it as they’ve been doing so far. Jokic was on the court in the fourth quarter of the Portland game Saturday night, so it’s not all about matching up athletically. And Nurkic was on his way to another dominating performance in that game, and he continues to be the Nuggets’ best rim protector, so his play right now is not an issue.

But style of play and making sure their other promising young big isn’t suppressed is a concern. As well as Nurkic played in the preseason and as much work as he put in during the summer, there’s no way the team could have foreseen him becoming a guy they could feed all night long, and expect to see per 36 numbers of 25.7 points 13.2 rebounds. They’re clearly not ready to commit to that yet. It’ll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.