SAN FRANCISCO — The Nuggets maintained tunnel vision as they winced through the pain and limped through January. By mid-February, David Adelman wanted them to be exposed to the glaring light of the sun.
As they returned from the All-Star break and met as a team last week, Adelman addressed his players with a nod to the Western Conference standings for the first time. He had tried to steer clear of such a macro topic during a multi-week period when most of the rotation was injured, including the three-time MVP. He barely had time to check the standings himself while preparing for games without a center. But now that the Nuggets were starting to resemble the original version of themselves, their head coach felt a motivational zoom-out was warranted.
“Just so that we’re aware of how things are shaping out in the West,” Julian Strawther told The Denver Post. “Obviously, I think everybody who follows basketball knows how good the West is. So (it was about) just understanding that there’s no difference between a game on a Monday against a below-.500 team and a game on prime time against the Thunder. There’s no difference because it’s gonna shape the standings up the same way, with how close everything is. Every game is important.”
Denver’s loss on Sunday afternoon was a mix of those two things. In cable television terms, it was prime time real estate that had been occupied by football for the last five months. An ABC matinee broadcast against a major-market team. In basketball terms, it was supposed to be a snoozer. The Warriors, minus Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Kristaps Porzingis and Draymond Green.
It meant as much to the standings as the next three games will — three more nationally televised games against a lineup of contenders. Boston on Wednesday, Oklahoma City on Friday, Minnesota on Sunday. Denver (36-22) woke up on Monday morning in third place in the West, where it has spent most of the last two months, but with only a three-game cushion over the seventh-place Phoenix Suns. And seventh place means a spot in the Play-In Tournament.
Hence, Adelman’s point to bring attention to the standings.
“I think (the message) was to take a real look at where we’re at, obviously, how close. What Phoenix did yesterday, what they’re doing,” the first-year head coach said. “Obviously, OKC is the standard right now, but just to take a clean look, because we really had ignored it throughout the season. And we had the injuries, all those things. I didn’t want to look at the standings. I just wanted to look at the next day. … I thought it was unfair to the guys to look at it (in a big-picture) way.
“When you’re fully healthy, the long-term outlook is easier to talk about. Now that you hit the second half of the season, it’s time to be honest about where you stand and what you could or couldn’t accomplish depending on how focused you are these last 25 games. So we looked at it. We talked about it.”
Warriors guard Moses Moody (4) drives in against Nuggets forward Christian Braun (0) during the first half Sunday in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Kelley L Cox)
A back-loaded home schedule
Ironically, the Nuggets (36-22) managed to hold their ground admirably without Jokic for a month. Their position in the West hasn’t slipped since he returned, but their quality of play has. After getting outscored 33-16 in the fourth quarter by Golden State, Denver is 3-6 in its last nine games, with a 14-15 record in games involving clutch time.
“We need to get better,” Jokic said. “I don’t know what it is, but we need to figure it out.”
“I think a lot of it this year has just been not holding our spots,” Christian Braun said. “Not being tough enough down the stretch. And that’s on all of us, top to bottom. … It has nothing to do with our process down the stretch. It has nothing to do with anything besides, we need to hold our spots.”
Four consecutive turnovers lowlighted Denver’s late collapse at Golden State. Braun’s instinct in the locker room afterward was correct. The Nuggets have the third-best turnover rate in the NBA as a whole this season, but their turnover rate on clutch possessions ranks 21st. Then again, they’re also 19th in clutch rebounding rate, 29th in clutch defensive rating and 13th in clutch 3-point percentage at 33%. Overall, they’re the most efficient outside shooting team in the league (39.4%).
“I’m definitely concerned, because we are losing the games,” Jokic said of the clutch trend. “We are losing the games, and we are not creating open looks. So that’s something that we need to change. … Turnovers and just creating open looks. And taking it. If you’re open, just shoot it.”
The good news for Denver as it prepares for postseason basketball: 15 of the last 24 games and nine of the last 12 are at Ball Arena. It’s a back-loaded home schedule at the end of a season dotted with bizarre travel routes.
The bad news: 14 of those games are against opponents currently seeded in the top six of either conference. Three matchups remain with the Thunder, two with the Spurs, two with the Lakers. That was also a key topic when Adelman spoke to the team last week about the home stretch.
“It was more about the strength of schedule, the teams we’re gonna have to play the second half,” he said, “and then making a point to them that beating a team like OKC and then losing to a team that’s struggling, it all means the same thing.”
The Nuggets almost slipped into the Play-In Tournament last year with a late four-game losing streak that culminated with Michael Malone’s firing in April. Adelman took over on short notice, and they cobbled together three impressive wins to end the regular season.
In six of the last seven years, they’ve finished fourth place or higher in the West — the benchmark for hosting a first-round series. This season, they’ve been in fourth or higher since Nov. 3, an ongoing streak of 112 days.
Nuggets forward/guard Bruce Brown (11) controls the ball against Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski (2) during the second half of a game Sunday in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Kelley L Cox)
‘The next game is the most important one’
The standings have been so muddled around them that projecting playoff matchups this early has been a fool’s errand. One potential source of motivation, though, is that Denver would avoid a hypothetical Oklahoma City series until the Western Conference Finals if it can finish in second or third place.
Not that any of that matters if the current slump continues. After getting punked by Golden State, the Nuggets were almost as close to the eighth-place Warriors (5.5 games) as they were to the second-place Spurs (five).
“I don’t look at it,” Jokic said. “I think the next game is the most important one. That’s my mindset. I think if you’re winning and you think about the next game, you’re gonna be good.”
“I think there needs to be urgency regardless,” Braun said. “… Whether you look at it or whether you don’t, you have to win games. You have to find a way to win games, whoever’s out there. We’ve gotta be tougher. We’ve gotta play together. That’s all of us. We’ve gotta be more together. So I don’t think it really matters. I mean, if you want to watch it, watch it. If you don’t, don’t. Either way, you’ve gotta win the next game. So no excuses from us. We know how tight the race is.”
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