DENVER — At this point, it goes without saying that the Denver Nuggets have had a bit of a week. The organization fired a head coach and a general manager. An interim coach was put in place and the Nuggets are a team that needs to figure out a direction as the calendar surges forward.
Lost in the attention of the tumultuous time was that the Nuggets painted themselves into a corner. Last Sunday’s home loss to the Indiana Pacers threw Denver perilously close to dropping into the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, something which seemed close to impossible less than two weeks ago.
As we headed into March, the talk surrounding the Nuggets centered on getting into peak form for the playoffs. By Wednesday night in Sacramento against the Kings, the Nuggets knew they first had to get to the playoffs.
A win over the Kings on Wednesday served as a brief respite for Denver (49-32), a temporary shield from the firestorm that dominated the week. But Friday night’s 117-109 win over the Memphis Grizzlies felt a lot more real, a lot more solid. It felt like a group that played with the urgency needed at this time of year. It felt like a group finally connecting with itself when the stakes were the highest.
Their quest to qualify for a top-six berth and avoid the Play-In isn’t finished. Defeating the Houston Rockets on Sunday afternoon would be the easiest path. It would guarantee the fourth seed in the Western Conference and homecourt advantage in the first round. A loss would open Denver to unwanted tiebreaker scenarios. But, the road would have proven a lot more convoluted had the Nuggets not taken care of business on Friday night against the Grizzlies. Perhaps that was Denver’s biggest win.
The Nuggets, for the first time in a while, looked like that business-like unit capable of walking down an opponent, no matter the situation. This was a game Denver trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half and where they missed 13 of their first 14 3-point attempts. Memphis cooked offensively through the first three quarters. It was a game where Nikola Jokić went most of the first half without a bucket, although he went on to lock in the first triple-double season by a center in NBA history.
Even with all those missteps, Denver maintained the demeanor of a team that knew it would make the plays needed to win a game it had to win. That, more than anything, has been missing from these Nuggets in recent weeks. The aura was back and it came back at just the right time.
“I’ve seen this group win this game a lot over the years,” Denver interim head coach David Adelman said. “I’m really proud of the guys. That was a playoff game, with playoff intensity, and they responded when they needed to.”
What should excite Nuggets fans about their team is the defense it has been playing this week. In the fourth quarter on Friday, it hit a crescendo. It’s why the Nuggets scored the last nine points of the game and 14 of the final 15 points. A Memphis offense that scored at will in the first three quarters, suddenly couldn’t find any room to breathe. Grizzlies shots that were uncontested earlier in the game were being contested by multiple hands and limbs and forcing misses.
This is what Denver hasn’t been far too often this season: steely, unrelenting, resilient, passionate. The Nuggets have been missing those ingredients for much of the season and they seem to have re-captured them at the right time.
Some things have changed with Adelman at the helm. The closing lineup has been fluid, with Jalen Pickett on the floor in the final minutes against Sacramento on Wednesday night. On Friday night, Russell Westbrook was terrific on both ends of the floor, and he changed the tone of the game late in the third quarter with his rim pressure and ability to bend the Memphis defense off the dribble. So Adelman kept him on the floor when it mattered the most. And Jokić is playing a bit more cerebral this week, making sure to get teammates involved before he hunts his own offense.
But a lot of the schemes on both ends of the floor have remained the same. The effort and the competitiveness have increased significantly this week. There has been more energy, especially on the defensive end of the floor. Part of it is the Nuggets know they have something to prove.
On several levels, this has been an embarrassing week for the organization. Firing Michael Malone and Calvin Booth put the organization under an unwanted microscope. Nothing quiets things down like winning. More importantly, Denver knew it dug itself a hole, staring down the abyss of potentially being in the Play-In. The Nuggets knew they had to dig themselves out.
“It was a really big victory for us because of that,” Jokić said. “I was proud of how we played and how we responded. They only scored 14 points in the fourth quarter. They scored one point in the last six minutes. Everybody made big plays, especially on the defensive end. So it was a really good win for us.”
Most importantly, it simply looked like so many wins from the peak Nuggets years. Jamal Murray returned from missing six games with a hamstring injury, and he scored six gargantuan points down the stretch, playing the vaunted two-man game with Jokić. Aaron Gordon scored a game-high 33 points, roaming the baseline, obliterating smaller mismatches in the post, and then taking his game to the perimeter.
It seemed as if everyone had a hand in the biggest win in weeks. Getting Murray back was huge because it puts the team’s infrastructure back in place. Murray is able to help Jokić with the playmaking duties and then takes a major role down the stretch in closing games. The Nuggets’ starting five is back intact, which allows the bench depth to return to normal.
Throughout the week, the Nuggets have been telling themselves that the season isn’t over and that there is still much to play for. They go into one last regular season game with a clear road to a playoff berth. After the week that has been, that’s almost all that can be asked for. Get into the playoffs, and then see where it goes.
“I think the Kings game is a good example of everyone communicating and staying together,” Murray said. “Even through adversity, when Memphis would go on a run, I think everyone just stayed together and collectively moved forward together, and I think that was just really cool to see.
“We just have to find some communication and good habits as we move forward to the next game and to the postseason.”
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(Photo of Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokić: Bart Young / NBAE via Getty Images)