These are Michael Malone’s Denver Nuggets
I haven’t seen the Denver Nuggets play this hard and this sound in a long, long time. And it’s not just the energy; it’s doing the simple things right, the basketball smarts.
When I watched Brian Shaw‘s Nuggets, I saw a dumb, undisciplined team. Honestly, I wondered if they even knew what they were doing at times. But that wasn’t the case last night.
The Nuggets were very good on their rotations — we’ll reserve great until we see it on a more consistent basis — and their one-one-one and help defense was impressive, too. Denver had 10 shot blocks on the night, which, aside from a couple huge stuffs by Kenneth Faried, mostly came from the help defender on the back side.
But it was simply the mental toughness that stood out. The Nuggets were playing a team in the Houston Rockets that were in the conference finals just a few months ago and are pegged by many as legitimate title contenders. What’s so impressive isn’t the fact that they played well or won the game but that they withstood every one of the Rockets surges.
In the past, when a team would make a run on the Nuggets, all hell would break loose; they’d fall apart and end up losing by 15 or 20. On Wednesday night, though, the Nuggets stood their ground, and every time the rockets cut the lead down, they immediately pushed it back up over 10.
From top to bottom, every player that got on the floor for the Nuggets made a positive impact, and that falls on the coach. Again, it’s only one game, and we all have to keep reminding ourselves of that, but I can promise you that this won’t be the dysfunctional team we saw last year. Michael Malone won’t let that happen.
