The Denver Nuggets are just good enough to have to worry about things like spark, passion, and edge when thinking about winning basketball games.

Early in the season the Nuggets were simply trying to re-learn how to win. After beginning the season 11-10, the Nuggets are 26-10 in their last 36 games, nearly half of the season playing at about a 59-win pace. That’s really good. It was also a relatively easy schedule, and the Nuggets were able to face some of the tougher teams that had injuries at the time, as well as some easy teams that they took care of business against.

Now that the Nuggets are 17 games above 0.500 at 37-20, the way they win matters. Matching up with the best teams and proving how good they are does matter to me, and it’s something I discussed on today’s show. Denver can’t just win every game they play against sub 0.500 teams and struggle in the games against good competition. They have to show something more.

On the latest episode of Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn shares his final thoughts on Denver Nuggets vs Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend, including Denver’s inability to match up with the best teams on a consistent level.

Ryan goes over the 40-20 rule, one thing he still needs to see from Denver in their final 25 games, and previews the upcoming four-game road trip.

Pickaxe and Roll is a Nuggets podcast streamed live on YouTube every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 10am MT. You can catch episodes live by subscribing to the Mile High Sports YouTube channel and turning on Bell Notifications.

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If you can’t catch Pickaxe and Roll live, listen to the audio version on the BLEAV Podcast Network, or download this podcast episode wherever you get podcasts.