It wasn’t exactly the way they drew it up, but the Nuggets have eased into this NBA season. The team came into the regular season with questions surrounding Christian Braun entering the starting lineup, Jamal Murray’s health, young players’ ability to step up, and free agent acquisitions’ ability to fit in.
There were a lot of moving parts and it was probably unreasonable to think everything would click right away. On top of all that, the Nuggets have had to deal with a bevy of injuries, headlined by Aaron Gordon having missed 20 games due to a calf injury.
But recently, things have started trending in the right direction. They’re as healthy as they’ve been all year, the young guys are playing well, Russell Westbrook has been a perfect addition in free agency, and Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon are rounding into form.
The Nuggets are hitting their stride and the team has won 10 out of 13 games, bringing their record to 26-16, good for 4th place in the Western Conference. Even with the slow start that saw them hovering around .500, the Nuggets are just two games back of the number 2 seed in the West as we near the halfway point of the season.
Nuggets up to #6 in NBA.com Power Rankings
John Schumann of NBA.com compiles weekly power rankings for the site and has had the Nuggets wallowing in the low teens for much of the year. They were ranked as low as 13th just a few weeks ago, but they’ve shot up the charts with their strong recent play, and this week they came in all the way up at number 6 in the ranks.
That’s up one spot from last week where they sat in 7th for the past two weeks. The Nuggets leapfrogged the New York Knicks this week and now trail just five teams; the Grizzlies in 5th, the Celtics in 4th, the Rockets in 3rd, the Cavaliers in 2nd, and the Oklahoma City Thunder who jumped up to 1st place in the rankings after demolishing the Cavs on Thursday night.
There’s no reason to think if the Nuggets keep playing well, they won’t be passing the likes of the Grizzlies and Rockets in the coming weeks. They could easily pass both teams in the standings before long. It’s become more and more clear that the Thunder are in a class of their own in the West.
But it’s fairly wide open after that and the Nuggets are legitimate contenders and have as good a chance as anyone at challenging Oklahoma City for conference supremacy in May and June.