OKLAHOMA CITY — There’s a little W.C. Fields in David Adelman’s defensive philosophy.

The actor is credited with the quote, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull(crap).”

Denver’s interim coach is throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks.

“The biggest takeaway of what they’re doing through four games is that they’re doing a lot. It’s moreso that than any one specific thing. They’ve thrown three different zones out against us. They’ve switched,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said before the Thunder beat the Nuggets 112-105 in Game 5 at Paycom Center, adding the different pick-and-roll coverages Denver’s used.

“They’ve just shown a lot of different looks and a lot of different schemes and have pivoted pretty quickly.”

That was again the case in Game 5 and will be through the remainder of the series. Adelman said mixing up the defensive looks is an especially helpful tool against the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams coming out of timeouts.

“Playing teams as good as these teams we’ve played, optionality is how you survive. We’ve thrown different things out there. We’ll do the same thing today,” Adelman said.

“That’s something I’m into. You have to be careful. You don’t want to go too far where you lose the spirit of your base defense, because your base defense is what gets you here throughout the season.”

Oklahoma City hasn’t used nearly as many different defenses. Daigneault’s plan against Nikola Jokic is built on using multiple different defenders from 7-footers Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren to smaller defenders like Jaylin Williams and Alex Caruso.

“We’re trying to keep activity and freshness on the court as much as possible. He’s a great player,” Daigneault said.

“We want to throw everything we have at that. We’ve done that so far. … Obviously, Jokic is as good as anybody. We need all those guys.”

No MVP announcement

The Paycom Center crowd made its preference known, but the NBA wasn’t ready to name its Most Valuable Player on Wednesday.

The award has been presented to the winner during the second round in recent years. This year, the two favorites – Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic – are going head to head in round two. The Thunder guard is the betting favorite, and the Thunder crowd continued to chant “M-V-P” when the league’s leading scorer this regular season was at the free-throw line.

The NBA might’ve missed its last opportunity to present him with the award in front of his home crowd, as Oklahoma City could close out the series Thursday in Denver.

Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 27.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 1.5 steals in the first four games of the series. He shot 47.5% from the field, 21.1% from 3-point range and 81.1% off free throws.

Jokic entered Game 5 averaging 26.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2 steals against the Thunder. He didn’t operate with his usual efficiency, entering Tuesday with a 39.1% from the field, a 21.4% mark on 3-pointers and 77.8% on free throws. He was also posting an uncharacteristic 5.8 turnovers per game.

“Obviously, he wants to shoot the ball better and be more efficient just like the rest of our guys,” Adelman said prior to Jokic’s bounce-back performance.

“It’s coming. He’s short on a lot of his shots, and people are going to say it’s fatigue. I think it’s also the ups and downs of how hard this is and playing every other day. The efficiency, we know it’s there. It’s inside of him. … It’s almost impossible for it not to come back. He’s fine.”

Former Nugget gets new gig

Jameer Nelson was promoted to assistant general manager of the 76ers on Tuesday, according to an ESPN report.

Nelson has been with the franchise since he started working with Philadelphia’s G League affiliate in 2020.

Nelson spent parts of three season with the Nuggets from 2015-17. After starring at St. Joseph’s, the Chester, Pa., native was drafted by Denver in 2004 and promptly traded to Orlando where he spent the first 10 years of his career. He played his last NBA game with Detroit in 2018.