Never has three days off between games ever been so needed or valuable.
The Denver Nuggets play Game 3 tonight against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The gap between tonight (Friday) and Game 2 (Monday) was suspiciously large at the time. Now, it may be exactly what the Nuggets have needed heading into what appears to be a do-or-die matchup.
Game 2 was about as bad as any one loss could possibly go. The second quarter saw the Nuggets’ frustrations boil over in the form of yelling matches, thrown heat packs, and an overall sense of quit. The Nuggets went into halftime down by nearly 30 points as a normal halftime deficit turned into an insurmountable one in the span of roughly 12 minutes. The matchup was never close after that.
Tuesday saw the Nuggets have an off day, hopefully to rest, recover, and get away from basketball and the noise of basketball for a little bit.
Wednesday saw the Nuggets practice hard. Michael Malone was happy with the effort. “This was not a walkthrough. We practiced, and I thought the energy and the positivity and the spirit was exactly what I hoped it would have been.”
Wednesday also saw Nikola Jokic win his third MVP award, edging out Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic for the honor. It was a nice reminder that, yes, the Nuggets do still have the best player in the world on their side in this current matchup.
Thursday saw the Nuggets travel to Minneapolis in preparation for tonight’s game. The team hasn’t done any media availabilities since the Jokic press conference, and it seems like they’re preparing as much as possible for what is a crucial Game 3.
Because let’s face it: tonight’s Minnesota matchup is the most pressure packed game the Nuggets have played since The Bubble.
Throughout last year’s playoff run to their first championship in franchise history, the Denver Nuggets were never seriously challenged. They went up 3-0 against the Timberwolves in the first round and won the series in five games. They lost both road games against the Phoenix Suns, and the series was tied 2-2 going back to Denver. Listening and being around the Nuggets at that point, there was a sense of knowing exactly what they had to do, and all they had to do was execute the plan. The Nuggets won the next two games to advance. Obviously, the team was never challenged against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The only time Denver may have been “challenged” last year was when they lost Game 2 at home in the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. That was much more of a wake-up call than a challenge though, and the Nuggets immediately won the next three games, never taking their foot off the gas from that moment onward.
Before then, the Nuggets were of course challenged, but without Jamal Murray in both seasons and Michael Porter Jr. in 2022, there was never any real expectation on the Nuggets advancing. Denver simply didn’t have the resources to do so.
So, one has to go all the way back to the Bubble when the Nuggets were down 3-1 in the Bubble twice to understand when this group last faced real pressure. In both the first and second rounds, the Nuggets lost Game 4 and looked like they would be out of the playoffs in short order. Then, the Nuggets won three games in a row in both series and found a way to advance. It was about digging deep, finding a competitive advantage, and refusing to go away. The Nuggets refused to lose, and that helped them rise to the occasion.
Will this iteration of the Nuggets refuse to lose?
There isn’t as much overlap between those Bubble teams and this team as one might hope. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. are the only rotation players that carry over. Interestingly, Vlatko Cancar is the only other player to be there both times, but he didn’t play in the Bubble due to youth/inexperience, and he isn’t playing now due to an ACL injury. Outside of the players, there are several coaches and staff members that were involved in both teams, including Michael Malone, David Adelman and Ryan Bowen.
Outside those two groups, these are new rosters, new teams, and entirely new situations. The Bubble roster had never accomplished anything before. The Nuggets were desperate for playoff success. There had been no championship won, no individual awards, nothing that would ever allow the Nuggets to rest on their laurels and be comfortable knowing that this wasn’t their year.
This season: it’s possible the Nuggets know it isn’t their year, at least deep down. No team in the last five seasons has repeated as a champion. Why should it be the Nuggets to break that curse? Jamal Murray has dealt with injuries on and off for the past few months, rarely having a moment to just play at full strength. He’s central to Denver’s hopes, and if he’s not healthy, there’s little Denver can do about that. The last time a player won MVP and Finals MVP in the same season was LeBron James back in 2013. Should Jokic be held to that same standard when so many other MVPs have faltered before him?
Those probably sound like hollow excuses, and that’s because they are: justifications for what would be a failed season if the Nuggets can’t turn things around in short order. There will be fallout if the Nuggets fail. Nobody wants to deal with that and all of the ramifications that come with it.
No, the Nuggets should simply just not lose in Game 3. Then, they can figure out where they stand after that. Do they have the championship mettle needed to stand up to a title wave and say no? Can they look at Anthony Edwards, one of the young leaders in the NBA, and say it’s not your turn? Can they look at the T’Wolves big man rotation of Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Naz Reid and say they should have brought more big guys with them to face down the best player in the world? Can Jamal Murray find a way to crack the incredible defense of Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, even if it means changing his game to accommodate an annoying calf injury?
The Nuggets have plenty of questions to answer. They will have more questions if the answer to the ones above are all or mostly no.