It wasn’t as easy as some may have expected, but the Nuggets went out and took care of their business on Sunday afternoon, beating the Rockets 126-111 in Houston. The Rockets had nothing to play for with the two seed already sewn up but decided to play their usual starters anyway.
Nevertheless, it was clear which team needed this game more, the one that still had a chance of falling to the play-in tournament. There were whispers about the seven seed actually being the best available playoff path, but facing do-or-die, single-elimination basketball in the play-in tournament was simply too risky a proposition.
Instead, the Nuggets were locked in, for the third game in a row under interim coach David Adelman, and took it to the Rockets, opening up a 13-point halftime lead, and cruising to a comfortable victory. It was a total team effort, as Nikola Jokic had 18 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists, Jamal Murray put up 16 and 7, Michael Porter Jr. offered 19 and 7, Aaron Gordon chipped in 18 and 7, and Russell Westbrook contributed 17 points and 6 assists off the bench.
With the win, the Nuggets locked up the number four seed in the Western Conference, finishing the season with a 50-32 record. They avoided the play-in tournament and clinched homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Compared to how bad things looked as recently as a few days ago, this is a pretty good outcome.
Nuggets set to face Clippers in first round of playoffs
But the team won’t have long to enjoy this one as they’ll immediately start preparing for a very difficult first-round matchup with the five-seed, the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers have been one of the hottest teams in the league in recent months and locked up the five seed with a big win in Golden State on Sunday in overtime over the Warriors.
They've been surging up the standings and looking arguably as impressive as any team in the league with their core of Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Ivica Zubac, and Norman Powell all healthy and peaking at the right time.
Denver went 2-2 this season against the Clippers but the last of those four meetings was back on January 8th and the Nuggets have not faced Leonard in a game all season. So, this is going to be a completely different animal than what the Nuggets have seen and it’s going to be a very difficult test.
Zubac generally holds his own against Jokic, while Denver is going to have a hard time guarding Harden and Leonard. The Clippers should also have some solid options for slowing down Jamal Murray and they have a great veteran coaching staff with plenty of championship experience led by Ty Lue and featuring Jeff Van Gundy and others.
Nuggets would likely face Thunder in round 2 matchup
Another feature of getting the four seed is that the Nuggets are now on the same side of the bracket as the Thunder. If both teams survive the first round, Denver will go on the road to challenge the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
Denver fared alright against them in the regular season, but this team just won 68 games and is going to be an absolute boar to beat in a best-of-seven setting. The Nuggets certainly don’t have an easy path, but at least they have one. This looked like a sinking ship last week, so a tough path should hardly be a death sentence.
Newsflash: the Western Conference is damn good. There is no easy path and you can swing it however you want, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Would you rather face the Timberwolves? The Warriors? The Lakers? Maybe the Rockets? There’s no good answer, the Nuggets are just going to have to play their best basketball of the season and earn tough wins against elite teams. Here we go.