At some point along the way in the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest” Roger Thornhill — played by Cary Grant — realizes that he will not survive if he remains only a pawn in the twisted chess match between the nefarious Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and the unnamed government intelligence agency for whom the apple of Thornhill’s eye, Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), works. At some point, Thornhill has to take matters of his survival into his own hands.
As the New Year approaches, marking the unofficial start of the NBA’s “meaningful” schedule, the plot is beginning to thicken in the Northwest Division.
At 16-14, the Denver Nuggets are part of a six-team logjam in the Western Conference that occupies seeds four through nine in the very early playoff picture. Five of those six teams hail from the Northwest, with the New Orleans Pelicans being the lone exception.
Denver is coming off a disappointing one-point road loss to Oklahoma City on Monday, which marked the beginning of a six-game stretch in which the Nuggets will play five division games between Dec. 18 and 27. (A road game against the defending-champion Warriors is the sixth.)
Division standings may not matter in the NBA as they do in the NFL and MLB, but what happens within the Northwest Division will decide Denver’s playoff fate come April. If the Nuggets are to earn their first playoff appearance since 2013, they’ll need to treat this six-game stretch as a matter of survival.
Having lost the opening game of this stretch to a Thunder team that boasts three perennial All-Stars in Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, the Nuggets have already given up some ground. George and Anthony were virtual non-factors Monday (eight and four points respectively) but Westbrook was his usual unstoppable self, turning in a season-high 38 points including the game-winning free throw with two seconds remaining. Postgame head coach Michael Malone said his team played “good enough to win” until their late-game execution fell apart.
The Nuggets had a chance to win the game in Oklahoma City, but like Thornhill does for too much of “North by Northwest” they were hoping simply to escape with success, rather than taking matters into their own hands. In Hitchcock’s thriller, the more Thornhill tries to extricate himself from the situation the worse things get for him. It’s not until he becomes the aggressor that things start to turnaround for the reluctant hero.
At 15-15, the newly assembled super trio in OKC is still working out the kinks, but there’s little doubt head coach Billy Donovan will figure out his rotations and have the Thunder back in the playoffs for an eighth time in nine years.
With stalwarts Golden State, Houston and San Antonio currently building steam atop Western Conference standings, it leaves four playoff spots for which Denver and the rest of the Northwest (plus the Pelicans) will scrape and claw.
Those are favorable odds for a Nuggets squad that has been above .500 since Nov. 7; however, a continued stumble over these next five games could swing those odds in another direction.
Wednesday’s home matchup with Minnesota marks the first of four meetings between the teams this year. The second, in Minneapolis, will close this important six-game stretch on the 27th. The Timberwolves, led by Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler (both averaging 20-plus points this season), have been a model of consistency en route to their 18-13 record and are coming off an emotional comeback win over fellow division foe Portland. A pair of wins over Denver in these two meetings would help put Minnesota comfortably out front of other Northwest teams as the New Year approaches. Two wins by Denver, along with strong showings in the three games sandwiched between their meetings with the Timberwolves, would give Denver that claim.
Denver has split with Oklahoma City in two games (with both sides winning at home), but the Nuggets are so far winless against two other divisional opponents they’ll face during this stretch. After hosting Minnesota, Denver travels to Portland, where they have lost once already this season. They face arguably their toughest back-to-back of the season having to play at Golden State the following night. They can begin to recoup on pair of road losses to Utah already this year in a home tilt with the Jazz on the 26th, but they travel to the T-Wolves the following night.
The six games are more daunting with looking through this lens: That’s four road games (0-1 already), all against playoff contenders, with two of those being the second night of a back-to-back. The fact that Denver is 5-12 on the road so far this year doesn’t inspire confidence.
Nor does the fact that Paul Millsap (wrist) remains out until after the All-Star break, and that Nikola Jokic (ankle) still isn’t at full strength, and that Gary Harris (elbow) and Emmanuel Mudiay (ankle) are both questionable heading into Wednesday’s matchup with Minnesota.
The good news for Denver is that Trey Lyles and Mason Plumlee have stepped up greatly in recent weeks. G League call-up Torrey Craig has been a pleasant surprise in his limited time in the Association. Jamal Murray and Will Barton have been inconsistent, but have also proved capable of taking over games this year and helping engineer wins.
A winning record over these six games would give Denver significant momentum as the calendar flips to 2018 and the schedule relaxes a bit in January. They may have to rely on role players to make that happen. Like Thornhill, the Nuggets can’t afford to let things come to them. They have to be the aggressors and come out fighting over these next five games.
The storyline in the NBA’s Northwest Division is getting more and more complex by the day. The Nuggets can twist the plot in their favor over this crucial stretch, but they must adopt a “Roger Thornhill” survival mentality to do so. A happy ending may depend on it.
