Having missed the playoffs due to a crushing defeat in the final regular season game last year, the Denver Nuggets will be primed to bounce back in this year’s brutal West. There’s no doubt that clinching a spot in the West this year will be no easy task — what with 10+ teams legitimately in the running; but if they fail to do so for a consecutive year it will likely be more telling of the conference’s depth rather than the Nuggets themselves.

As a team they’ve consistently ranked in the top of the league in offensive rating, despite not having a single player average over 20 ppg, something that no other top 10 or even top 15 offense can claim.

Mike Malone runs some of the best offensive sets in the league, and he has the talent on the roster to demonstrate it. Jokic is widely regarded as one of the best passing big men of all time, and for good reason. Not to mention the wealth of shooting and scoring in Murray, Harris, Barton, and IT around him. But it’s one thing to put five talented players on the floor, and another to maximize them together. And that’s exactly what Malone does.

So how does he do it? Seeing as his best player is a big, especially one of Jokic’s passing caliber, it makes sense to put him in a situation where he can initiate the offense effectively. Historically, and still today, this has been the high post. And a great play set that works through the high post is Horns, the most common formation in the league; you get the ball handler up top, bigs at the elbows, and wings in the corners. Here’s Malone talking Horns when he was the Kings’ head coach in 2014: