DENVER
One axiom down, and one to go for the Denver Nuggets.
The starless Nuggets spent all season proving they didn’t need a superstar to be one of the league’s top teams.
They won an NBA franchise-best 56 games and became just the 11th team in league history to lose three or fewer home games in a season, going 38-3 at the Pepsi Center.
Now, the Nuggets are out to disprove the notion that NBA teams can’t push the pace in the playoffs.
Coaches tend to shrink their benches in the postseason, when they run more set plays in the halfcourt that slow the flow and keeps players logging all those minutes from getting worn down.
The third-seeded Nuggets were delighted when Golden State secured the sixth seed, and not because Denver won the season series 3-1 or on account of Andrew Bogut being the only Warriors starter who ever has been to the playoffs.
No, it’s because the Warriors also like to run, run, run. And when Game 1 tips off Saturday afternoon at the Pepsi Center, these two teams are pledging to ignore history and conventional playoff wisdom for a high-octane, run-and-shoot series that should make for riveting television.
“It’s going to be a fun series,” Nuggets speedy point guard Ty Lawson said. “It’s going to be one of the most exciting first-round matchups. We both like to get up and down the court. It’s going to be high-scoring.”
Denver led the league with a 106.1-point average this season, but if there’s any team that can keep up with the Nuggets at altitude – where Denver has won 23 consecutive games – it could be the Warriors, led by David Lee and Stephen Curry, who broke Ray Allen’s record for most 3-pointers made in a season.
Although Kenneth Faried (ankle) is day-to-day and Danilo Gallinari (ACL) is out, the Nuggets won’t slow down any now that Lawson, their turbo-charged point guard, has recovered from a torn right heel that recently sidelined him for eight games.
“I feel like it’s good. It’s not hurting no more, so I’m ready to play,” Lawson said. “Total relief. The last two games I played with no pain afterward, so I just get out there and play. At first with the pain I was having I didn’t think I was going to be able to come back until sometime in the playoffs, so I’m relieved that it’s back to 100 percent.”
Faried hopes to play in the opener, but coach George Karl said he wouldn’t know until shootaround Saturday morning if his top rebounder will suit up for the series opener.
Lawson’s injury allowed 20-year-old rookie Evan Fournier to log a lot of minutes this month and add yet another burner to the Nuggets’ deep roster, helping offset a little bit of Gallinari’s absence.
“Everybody says you can’t run in the playoffs. I think you can run, but you’ve got to do it with your defense – a lot more probably in the playoffs than in the regular season,” Karl said.
“You’ve got to make them miss shots; you’ve got to rebound the ball. You’ve got to finish off defensive plays, and you’ve got to create some offense with some turnovers and some shot blocks, which we, at times, have done very well this year.”
Lawson is eager to prove a team doesn’t necessarily have to hit the brakes in the playoffs.
“We’re not going to switch up our game and try to slow it down,” he said. “We’ll play it up-tempo. In the first round we’re playing against a team that’s up-tempo, too, so I don’t see it slowing down.”
Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts, a longtime friend and colleague of Karl’s, recently praised the work Karl has done with a roster built on speed, not superstars, one that features any number of go-to guys in crunch time and not a single prima donna who needs the ball in his hands when the game’s on the line.
“A lot of players say they want to run, but not all of them have the drive or the willingness to run every possession, and this group here in Denver has that,” Stotts said. “They have the personnel to do it, and they’ve all bought into it and I’m sure would say, ‘I want to run more.’”
Exactly, said Lawson, who professes to have no idea why teams traditionally go from greyhounds in the regular season to pokey puppies in the playoffs.
“We’re going to play our game regardless,” Lawson said. “We play up-tempo anyway so we’re not trying to prove nobody wrong. We’re just trying to play our game, get wins and win a championship.”
Yet, in all this talk about speed, the Nuggets also were talking about slowing down Curry. Lawson will start out with that defensive assignment, but Andre Iguodala, their best wing defender, will square up plenty on Golden State’s golden shooter, too.
Curry, coming off two injury-filled seasons, set an NBA record with 272 3-pointers this season.
“It may be genetic,” Karl said.
Curry’s dad, Dell Curry, played for Karl in Milwaukee in the late 1990s.
“His dad was a great shooter, and it’s amazing, he probably is a better shooter,” Karl said. “I coached Dell Curry for a couple of years. In fact, he was great. I think the younger Curry is a much better handler and knows how to play-make and be a point guard, whereas Dell was more just a shooter. He was a very good player, though; he helped me win a few games in my career.”
No. 3 Denver (57-25) vs. No. 6 Golden State (47-35)
Season Series: Nuggets, 3-1. The teams met three times in November, and Denver nearly won them all, taking a double-overtime affair on the road in the first meeting, then winning at home and falling 106-105 on the road – all those games coming in a three-week span. They haven’t played since Jan. 13, a 116-105 home win for the Nuggets.
Storyline: It’s just the second trip to the playoffs for the Warriors in 19 years, which means Mark Jackson’s team will have to guard against the just-happy-to-be-here pratfall that tends to affect clubs in that situation. Meanwhile, Denver was an in-vogue pick by many people to emerge from the loaded West before the season, and even without Danilo Gallinari the Nuggets have to think they can make a deep run, given their 23-game home win streak.
Key Matchup I: Ty Lawson vs. Stephen Curry. Lawson won’t have to do it alone, but the safest way for Denver to grab control of this series would be to not allow Curry – the league’s newly crowned single-season 3-point record-holder – to shoot the Warriors into the second round. It’ll be interesting to see how keeping at least one eye on Curry on one end will affect Lawson’s scoring.
Key Matchup II: Andre Iguodala vs. Klay Thompson. Both are capable of big numbers at any time, but Thompson and Curry form what plenty of people in the NBA say is the league’s best-shooting backcourt, probably in some time. Iguodala hasn’t been great in the playoffs of late, shooting a combined 80-for-203 in his last two postseasons in Philadelphia. The Nuggets will need more than that.
X-Factor: David Lee. He’s a two-time All-Star, an eight-year veteran, and not only is this his first time in the NBA playoffs, but it’s his first time playing for a team that won more than 36 games. That’s right – his most recent postseason game was against Villanova.
Prediction: Nuggets in 7.
Associated Press
