Jamal Murray dropped 53 points, and Nikola Jokić had 23 points, 21 rebounds, and 19 assists for the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday against a Dallas team that doesn't exactly know what direction it's going in. Without knowing the final score, you'd assume that the Nuggets won big since their star duo went off, but um, that wasn't exactly the case. They won by... seven.
Yes, at the end of the day, a win is a win. Denver is the No. 4 team in the West, with a half-game lead over Minnesota. With eight games left in the regular season, the Nuggets are in a better spot than most thought they would be as the injuries piled up throughout the year.
Still, the defense not showing up yet again versus the Mavericks didn't exactly instill confidence with the playoffs around the corner.
Nuggets play down to the level of their opponents
Denver entered the fourth quarter up by 11 points (after letting Dallas get back into it late in the third), but with a little over four minutes left to play, a Max Christie three-pointer cut Denver's lead to one. Two-and-a-half minutes and five points from Murray plus an assist later, the Nuggets grew their lead back to double digits. A late-game scare had faded into the background by the time the buzzer sounded.
For whatever reason, Denver enjoys playing with its food. Its most recent loss on March 18 was against Memphis. A couple of weeks before that, it took 45 points from Murray to beat Utah by three. It'd be remiss not to mention that both games came in the second half of a back-to-back with travel, but that doesn't change that those are two teams actively trying to lose.
Nuggets' defense has to be better in the playoffs
Denver has the league's top-ranked offense; its defense ranks 21st. Since the All-Star break, the defense has climbed a few spots to 17, but in March alone, the Nuggets sit 23rd.
Generally, championship teams have top-10 offenses and defenses. Denver is one of the exceptions to that, though, as its defense ranked 15th, smack dab in the middle, during its title season in 2022-23. The defense this year hasn't even been at that level.
The Nuggets were without Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson for long stretches of the season, and their defense suffered as a result. If those two had been healthy for the majority of the year, the defense probably wouldn't be as much of a talking point as it's been.
Unfortunately, it has been one. At least we know that Denver has another level it can reach, and it needs to find it in time for the playoffs, or else another early playoff exit could be in store.