That old adage about the NBA being a copycat league has aged into cliché at this point. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

One variable the Nuggets seem to be copying as a new season nears: Defensive physicality and the art of almost fouling. It’s an art mastered by the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder .

“We are trying to be aggressive,” Nikola Jokic said Friday at Ball Arena. “We’re trying to be, like, close to a foul — testing the refs to call the fouls. That’s something that we’re gonna try to do. That was the emphasis of the practice.”

The most accurate term for it is probably the one used by coach David Adelman this week: “junking it up” on defense. In two consecutive postseasons, Denver has been vexed by an opponent’s ability to junk it up and unable to return t

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