The Denver Nuggets are the NBA’s bottom feeders in home attendance, ranking dead last in the category. So far this season, the Pepsi Center has been lucky to reach half of its maximum capacity of 19,155.
However, with the Nuggets recent surge of success mixed with the national recognition of Nikola Jokic, the people of Colorado made their way downtown to see what the hype was all about.
Well, the Nuggets delivered to their home crowd of 16,056, blowing out the Los Angeles Clippers with a final score of 123-98. After the game, players and coaches had praise for the fans support.
“I kind of called them (fans) out,” forward Kenneth Faried said after the game. “They responded tonight by coming out and supporting us. It was great to see … I was excited about that, and our whole team was … Thank you for responding by coming out.”
“That was amazing to see. Then the crowd started filling in and it was a packed house. Hopefully they (fans) start to take notice … We are just excited that tonight, we were able to see that.”
It was indeed a solid turnout for a team that has had little to no home court advantage in the past three seasons, and was a big step in the right direction for a fanbase that has been uneasy since the trading of Carmelo Anthony and the firing of George Karl.
"Let's go Nuggets chant" breaks out at Pepsi Center #Nuggets pic.twitter.com/ooltX08XXJ
— Aniello Piro (@MediaByAP) January 22, 2017
“Very encouraging,” head coach Michael Malone said about the crowd. “I think people are also watching us and seeing how we are playing … All of our players noticed it, when there were ‘let’s go Nuggets’ chants, I haven’t heard that since I’ve been here. I really applaud our fans for coming out and making this a tougher home environment to play in, and we need more of that.”
“We want to be a playoff team, and we want our fans to get involved in that process. We’ve had some really loyal fans, and we want the fans that have not come out yet to start coming out and make this a really tough place to play.”
Let’s face it, the Nuggets are hot right now. They’ve win four of their last five and are in sole control of the 8th seed in the Western Conference.
It has been a process, but Nuggets fan may finally been buying into what this team is all about. Only time will tell to see if the fan movement becomes a reality in Denver, but the team’s victory Saturday night was certainly a step in the right direction.