With the treacherous stretch of games the Nuggets have been going through, Denver has activated their “must win,” mode.
The Denver Nuggets are in a tight race in the Western Conference post season picture. They are in a spot where they could easily go from being the seventh seed to the ninth seed in just a span of one night.
Denver Nuggets
As a result, it is imperative they start winning their “easy,” games. In the past two weeks, Denver has gone into full survival mode treating every game as a must win.
Within this span, they have gotten key wins over the defending champion, Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Charlotte Hornets and most recently the Phoenix Suns. Their losses include a blow out loss to the red hot Houston Rockets and extremely close losses to the San Antonio Spurs and Boston Celtics.
If one goes by strength of schedule, they would see the Nuggets have possibly the hardest month of February out of every NBA team. For the month of February, some of Denver’s upcoming opponents include the San Antonio Spurs twice in one week, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Milwaukee Bucks, Houston Rockets and the Memphis Grizzlies.
Not an easy stretch of games for the young core of the Denver Nuggets. Denver has not defeated Houston and San Antonio in over a year and the Clippers recently defeated the Nuggets in January. Milwaukee is a playoff team in the Eastern Conference and the Grizzlies are never a push over.
Denver has started treating every game like a playoff game at this point and it will key going forward. This remaining month is going to fully test the Nuggets and we will see if they are truly post season caliber.
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Their survival mode may just save them from missing the playoffs.