Dec 20, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets center Joffrey Lauvergne (77) dunks the ball against New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis (23) during the first half at Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
The Denver Nuggets are building some respect around the league. Since their eight game losing streak to end the month of November, they have done nothing but crawl their way back with hard work and consistent improvement. Nuggets fans are well aware of the scrappiness this team exerts, now the rest of the league seems to have caught up.
I said last week that going 2-2 would be a successful trip for Denver. Well, they did exactly that, but it was in a little different fashion than anticipated.
They started off Monday at home against a Houston Rockets team the Nuggets dominate for some reason. In an impressive end-to-end fashion, they completed the season sweep of their western rival foes beating them 114-108.
Heading to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves on the tail end of a back-to-back seemed like a scheduled loss for the Nuggets. Especially considering the fact that these two teams played four days earlier at the Pepsi Center with the Nuggets pulling through for the slim victory in overtime. Instead, Mike Malone and his boys continued their winning ways, rolling through the Wolves like a pile of leaves.
The Nuggets found themselves in the midst of their second three-game winning streak of the season and all exhibiting all the confidence in the world. Unfortunately, that came to an end Friday night as they took another ugly loss to the Utah Jazz.
Playing in Utah, Denver found itself struggling again against a tough Jazz defense, even without Rudy Gobert in the lineup. The offense went stale, only putting up 88 points in the loss. Still, the Nuggets battled throughout the game and with a few minutes left, gave themselves a chance to win, falling just short in the end.
Sunday night found Denver in an absolute shootout at home against the Pelicans. Losing 130-125, they showed that their offense was still bringing it every night, even when the Pelicans couldn’t miss. That was something we hadn’t seen yet from this team and was a breath of fresh air.
The Nuggets seemed to catch the attention of the experts as well as we pulled together the NBA Power Rankings around the web. Here’s where Denver shook out through week 8:
The Nuggets are up around the board for the most part. NBA.com’s John Schuhmann is the only one leaving them static from last week.
He was very impressed with Denver taking five out of seven to begin December, even noting they have the most improved offense in the league since the beginning of the month. It was all trending upwards until they fell twice over the weekend.
Schuhmann feels like the schedule has been soft for the Nuggets, but tougher roads ahead keep him from getting overly optimistic in the current rankings.
Matt Moore of CBS Sports goes the other way as the Nuggets hit their highest mark at 21, leapfrogging the Timberwolves, Grizzlies, and Suns in the western conference. Not too big of a surprise here as Moore is more of a Nuggets enthusiast than the rest of the panel, but this seems to be fair credit given the play of Mike Malone’s team as of late.
He also has them right behind a plethora of middle-tier western conference teams and with more good play, could see them jump up to as high as 17.
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Unfortunately for the Nuggets, this week represents a transition into a very hard stretch of the season where their schedule gets tricky.
They start off at home against the Lakers Tuesday night. A game the Nuggets should, and must win if they don’t want to see themselves plummet in the power rankings.
Then they hit the road for three games to complete the week against Phoenix, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City. A brutal schedule considering the matchup against the Suns in on a back-to-back Wednesday evening and then the final two games are back-to-back nights as well.
If somehow the Nuggets could pull off wins against the Lakers and the Suns, going 2-2 on the week, we would all consider that a nice success. However, it can’t be easy this week with all the distractions of Christmas, family, and traveling, so it would not surprise me to see them 1-3 at the end of it.
It was great to see the Nuggets’ offense come alive this week, but the defensive struggles are a bit concerning, especially from a Mike Malone led team. They need to continue to find the right balance as they face some tough competition.
The injury bug is still killing them as Mudiay continues to sit and Gallo finds himself hobbled with an ankle injury as well. Luckily, role players continue to step up for Denver so we will look for more of that this Christmas week.