LOS ANGELES – Thanks to a 5-1 start to the season, the Denver Nuggets – a team typically far off the NBA’s radar – have started to receive national recognition for their play. Could they finally break through to punch a long-awaited ticket to the playoffs in a brutal Western Conference?
For Nuggets head coach Mike Malone, though, there are far more important things on his mind than worrying whether Denver has started to earn some respect.
“I really don’t give a s---,” Malone said, when asked if he was happy Denver was getting more national attention. “Really.”
What he and the Nuggets do care about is ending what is now a five-year playoff drought – one made all the more painful by missing out on the postseason the past two seasons by one game each year. And while Malone might not be interested in national praise, he has seen his team approach this season differently after going through those near-misses the past two years.
“I think it’s been a huge motivating factor,” Malone said. “That was my message to our team on April 11 in Minnesota, and throughout the summer. Using the pain, the disappointment to motivate, to push us and to remind us how hard we have to work and how hard we have to buy in to all the things that did not allow us to be a playoff team the last two years. That’s a sense of urgency for as close to 82 games, 48 minutes a night. Buying in the defensive end and understanding that we can’t turn the ball over like we did last year and give up 19 points a night.
“We’ve learned from that. Let’s be honest, throughout NBA history the pain and disappointment have fueled a lot of great teams and great players and hopefully we’re on that same trajectory, that same path. And we can use that disappointment to help motivate us moving forward.”
So far, at least, it’s looked like they have. Save for a rough collapse last Thursday in Los Angeles, where the Lakers went on a huge fourth quarter run to overcome an eight-point deficit and hand Denver its first loss of the season, the Nuggets have looked like a team playing with a sense of urgency, with the awareness of past disappointments to know every night matters.
They came from behind in their season opener to beat the Los Angeles Clippers – a win that looks better by the day. They took down the Golden State Warriors at home, handing the two-time defending champions their only loss so far this season. And they’ve done it, at least early on, by doing something they haven’t done over the past few seasons: playing stingy defense.
Through six games, Denver is third in the NBA in defensive rating, allowing opponents to score 101.4 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. It’s unlikely, for a variety of reasons, that Denver can stay in that ballpark all season. But if the Nuggets could simply go from 26th, where they were last year, to somewhere around 15th, it would be a massive boost to their chances of becoming not just a playoff team, but a real factor in the Western Conference.
“That’s definitely the hope,” Malone said. “All I want to see from our players is the continued buy in, the continued multiple efforts and the same fly-around mentality. It’s not always going to be right, but I just love the fact that our guys are realizing that if we defend and we value the ball, we are a really good basketball team.
“The challenge, to your point, is to do it every single night, not just when we kind of want to. If that becomes a constant for us, we have a chance to be a dangerous team.”
The tricky part for Denver is building that kind of defensive unit around star center Nikola Jokic. For all of his wizardry offensively – even at just 23, Jokic has a credible argument for being the greatest passing center of all-time – he has many limitations at the other end of the floor.
To make up for them, Denver has employed a scheme veteran forward Paul Millsap describes as “unique” – one in which the Nuggets try to use their athleticism on the perimeter to contest as many shots as they can.
“I think it causes problems for a lot of teams,” Millsap said. “Any time you put pressure on teams and force them into tough shots, you’re contesting every shot, you’re securing rebounds, things like that that typically hurt teams, open 3s and offensive rebounds, if you take those away that’s a good thing.
“Guys rotating, guys contesting as many shots as they can ... being on the other side, guys running at you constantly on the 3-point line, running you off the line, it’s tough to get a rhythm that way. We want to continue to try to play that way, and keep it up.”
For Denver to be the team it wants to be, it needs to play that way. What it doesn’t have to worry about is scoring. Between Jokic, who is off to a sensational start (21.5 points, 10.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game on 56 percent shooting overall and 42 percent from 3) and a dynamic backcourt of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris, Denver is never going to have a problem putting up big numbers offensively.
But being a team that only plays at one end of the court, or only shows up on certain nights, is why the Nuggets have found themselves on the outside looking in by the slimmest of margins over the past two seasons. It’s also why they hope the lessons they’ve learned through those setbacks will make the third time the charm when it comes to making the postseason.
