Denver Nuggets: 3 takeaways from the past week

The Denver Nuggets opened the week with a comfortable win over the Minnesota Timberwolves but fell behind early in their games against the Mavericks and a Victor Oladipo-less Pacers team requiring late gamer heroics and game winning shots in both.

The Denver Nuggets defended their NBA best home record of 30-6 and stole games against the Mavericks and Pacers where the Nuggets never really felt like they had a chance of winning the game until runs deep in the fourth quarter.

Denver in the clutch

https://twitter.com/nuggets/status/1106419307079041024

Despite only having 2 points at the half and not making a field goal through three quarters, Nuggets All-star Nikola Jokic proved he was the best player on the floor when he sunk the game winner against the Mavs to finish the night with a line of 11 points, 14 rebounds and 8 assists on 4 of 9shooting, and a strong 33-point performance from Paul Millsap.

But the Nuggets found themselves in a 18-point hole to a tough Indiana Pacers team with no Big Honey, who got ejected for picking up two technical fouls in the span of seconds for yelling at a ref for a missed call.

Without the Joker the Nuggets turned to veteran power forward and current house on fire Paul Millsap who gave us this gem.

With two games decided by last second shots the Nuggets proved they can win any game that ends up being close and have the talent to do so come playoff time.

Paul Millsap dominating

This week we saw the Nuggets offense reveal a new and exciting wrinkle to their already deep offensive playbook when they sent Paul Millsap loose in the low post — where Millsap abused the Dallas Mavericks and their smaller less experienced defenders to score 33 points on a hyper efficient 14 of 19 shooting.

Millsap has shown that he needs to be respected in the post and demands the attention of either a good post defender or a fast double team before he can make his move to the bucket.

The Nuggets will undoubtedly use Millsap in the post come playoff time to abuse smaller lineups who struggle to deal with Millsap’s strength and veteran experience.

The Nuggets are no easy playoff out

When it comes to the NBA playoff picture, the story of the Western Conference all season has been “can anyone challenge the warriors come playoff time?”

And the answer to that question is — if any season is the season, this one has been the best shot the Western Conference has had in a long time.

With just four weeks left in the regular season seeding in the West has mostly shaken down into what it looks like now with every team looking locked into a spot besides the top 3 of the Warriors, Nuggets and Rockets who all have a shot at overtaking each other.

The national media has said multiple times the Nuggets are the weakest high seed in the Western Conference because of their playoff inexperience and young core of talent, but the Nuggets have proved the naysayers wrong with good wins against tough competition lately.

But they still have a handful of important and difficult games, the headliner being the late season test in Oakland against the Golden State Warriors in early April.

The best possible matchup for all the second round teams for all teams is probably the Nuggets, but that doesn’t mean walking into Denver and winning games is going to be an easy task for any Western Conference team.

The Nuggets begin a four-game road trip that opens with difficult games in Boston against Kyrie Irving and the Celtics who are 4-1 in their last 5 games played and ends in Indiana against the Pacers who should be hungry to rebuttal against the Nuggets after their most recent loss to Denver on Saturday.