It’s hard to read too much into the dog days of March when it comes to the NBA season. You’ve got teams that are trying to lose, teams that are dealing with injuries, teams that are trying way too hard, and teams that are just coasting until the playoffs. The blend makes for a bizarre night-to-night product.
There’s information to be gleaned from what’s happening, but it’s also very hard to tell what is real. When the Nuggets won it all in 2023, they had the number one seed in the Western Conference locked up for weeks, which allowed them to take their foot off the gas.
They lost games and looked bad down the stretch of the regular season, but obviously turned it back on once the playoffs started, rolling to a championship with relative ease. On the contrary, we’ve certainly had plenty of teams get hot and ride a good rhythm all the way. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, but again, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.
Still, that’s what some are doing, and we recently heard Brian Scalabrine, the color commentator for the Celtics on NBC Sports Boston, appear on the Zach Lowe show after the Celtics beat the Thunder on Wednesday night. Zach and Scal talked about OKC, which naturally led to a bigger talk about the West, in which Scal claimed that he’s writing the Nuggets off.
Scal is out on Denver due to their defense
He explained that as much as he loves Jokic and the offense, the defense can’t get stops. He knows the team has a reputation for waiting for the playoffs to turn it on, but he believes this year it’s different, and from watching them down the stretch in tight games, even when they are trying, they can’t stop anyone.
Scal gave credit to Michael Malone for being able to motivate the team, and he’s concerned he hasn’t seen enough of that from David Adelman. Like many others, he thought that at full strength, with guys like Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and Cam Johnson, they’d be able to put together a solid defense, but they simply haven’t.
Nuggets have proven nothing on the defensive end
It’s easy to roll your eyes at Scal, but he’s not wrong. I do believe that Denver can turn it on to an extent, and we have generally seen them rise to the occasion against the best teams this season, but still. It would be nice to see at least a little proof.
The way they’re constantly giving up easy baskets and open shots, no matter who’s on the floor, is downright concerning. With the personnel they have, they should at least be better than this. And the idea that we should have some blind faith that it’ll suddenly get better when facing elite competition every night is a big leap of faith.
So, while I’m not going as far as to write them off, like Scalabrine and many others, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the defense. They’re going to have to crank it up against four good teams in a row, and we’ve seen no reason to believe they are capable.