The Nuggets fought valiantly on Sunday, but there are no moral victories at this point for a team with championship aspirations; they need results. And the result in TD Garden was another tough loss against top-tier competition, 110-103 at the hands of the Celtics.
Sure, it was a tough spot for Denver; their third game in four nights and the last game of a road trip. It was also an early start, 11 AM Mountain Time in a challenging environment against the defending champions.
And yes, they overcame a 20-point deficit, cutting the lead to just three points and giving themselves a chance to pull one out. They even managed it all despite not having two key players and two of their best defenders, Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson.
But at the end of the day, it’s still a loss. And it’s a loss to the kind of team that they’re going to have to beat if they want to make any noise in the playoffs. And on top of that, the Celtics were down two starters in Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown both had off-shooting nights and still, it wasn’t enough for the Nuggets to overcome and land a much-needed statement win. Nikola Jokic mentioned the team may have “tricked themselves” during their win streak against bad competition, and the mounting losses against playoff teams continue to prove that may be true.
Nuggets now just 4-11 against top 5 teams in East/West standings
With Sunday’s loss to the Celtics, the Nuggets fell to a measly 4-11 against teams in the top 5 in either the Eastern or Western Conference. Those are typically the teams that are in contention for the title, and teams the Nuggets will surely face in the playoffs.
And they’ve been massively unimpressive. The Nuggets can get by on talent and Jokic’s greatness against most teams, but when the competition ramps up, teams are able to funnel things away from Jokic and force the role players to step up.
Time and again, we are seeing that the tertiary stars and role players simply aren’t good enough. This time it was putrid performances by Russell Westbrook and Michael Porter Jr. most notably that did the Nuggets in, but it speaks to the bigger issue.
The roster just isn’t deep enough or good enough. Players like Russell Westbrook, Julian Strawther, and Zeke Nnaji aren’t reliable come playoff time. Even MPJ is still prone to inconsistency and when Jamal Murray has an off night, the team has no chance.
The winning streak may have tricked them in more ways than one. They didn’t make any moves at the trade deadline and now it looks like that was a mistake. When they play the best teams, they look overmatched.
They’ll have more chances in the coming weeks, including a couple of big ones against the Thunder, but Michael Malone and these players need to figure this thing out before they’re in over their heads in a playoff series.