The New Orleans Pelicans, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antonio Spurs, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets. All seven of those teams are fighting for a playoff spot out West and all seven were in action on a wild Tuesday night in the NBA. Six of those teams would win; the seventh is now in real trouble.
That lone loss came from the Denver Nuggets, a team whose playoff hopes now rest on thin ice thanks to an impressive second half from “the other” Lakers rookie. Kyle Kuzma scored 24 of his 26 points in the second half and willed the Los Angeles to a 112-103 victory.
Much was made of the Jamal Murray-Lonzo Ball matchup ahead of Tuesday night’s game and deservedly so. The prior two matchups resulted in some showboating, some trash talk and some hard fouls as legitimate beef began to stew between the two teams and Murray became the target of legitimate fury from the Lakers “faithful”. For all the hype, neither player dictated the result. The Lakers front court however, did.
Despite drawing boos with each touch, Jamal Murray got hot in the first quarter, and, for a second, looked as though he was ready to go thermonuclear. He was oozing with confidence and practically licking his chops after hitting three early baskets, but Denver stopped feeding the hot hand, as their wont to do.
Murray cooled off and the physicality of Julius Randle wreaked havoc down low for the second straight first quarter against Denver. He and Lopez looked awfully comfortable against the Nuggets and both scored at will in the game’s opening minutes.
Nikola Jokic got into foul trouble early as he struggled to contain the human wrecking ball that is Randle. He would end up sitting on the bench for most of the first half. The game was in danger of slipping away from Denver, and their best player was off the court. Their backs were against the ropes, a position this team has become all too familiar with. The Nuggets responded though and flashed one of the few qualities of a playoff team that they’ve proven they possess—fight.
Wilson Chandler and the Nuggets played with a sense of urgency and engineered a 15-5 run to close the second quarter. It was enough to keep them in the game as the two teams headed into the locker rooms, but fight alone isn’t enough in a playoff race. Not without execution, and not with the defensive effort they’ve put forth all season long.
Denver played well in the third, that’s something they’ve done all year long, and they pushed their lead to a game high 13. It looked, briefly, as if the Nuggets were in control. But they lost focus, and they lost control of young Kuzma, who may have put the final nail in the proverbial coffin that represents the death of Denver’s playoff dreams. He lit the Nuggets up in the fourth.
Despite rolling his ankle earlier in the game, a hobbled Kuzma poured in bucket-after-bucket on defensive stalwart Paul Millsap. There was nothing the four time All-Star could do to stop the Rookie and the offense simply dried up for the Nuggets; their once promising lead slipped through their fingers like sand. Kuzma, Randle and Isaiah Thomas pushed the pedal all the way to the floor and ran the disjointed Nuggets right off the road in the game’s final minutes.
Denver had little room for error entering this game, and they leave Los Angeles with virtually none left at all. We’ll see how the Detroit game will go, but the Nuggets will need to win at least four, likely five of these upcoming road games to keep themselves in the equation. And then the real test begins as a defacto play-in tournament between the remaining contenders takes place in the final games of the season.
The Nuggets have shown us all year long that they have some qualities of a playoff team. When they’re clicking, they can run with the best teams in the league. But they also possess the qualities of conference dwellers. They’re prone to silly turnovers, they don’t close quarters strong, they struggle on the road and they are nothing short of abysmal on the defensive end. They lose games they simply shouldn’t lose and now they stand a chance of being exposed as what some fans have judged them to be all year long: a team that simply doesn’t belong in the playoffs.
The Nuggets have punched their way out of every corner that they’ve backed themselves into this season and they’ve done it at times through sheer grit alone. They’ll need to do it one last time here to finish the season, but this time, a will to win and refusal to quit won’t be enough. They need to execute. They need these punches to land. Time is running out.
