All things considered, the Nuggets have done a great job patching things together and surviving the regular season. The team entered the season shrouded in chaos and question marks. They saw veteran players walk out the door with sparse replacements coming to Denver.
There was more uncertainty than ever surrounding Nikola Jokic after a tumultuous offseason that included Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leaving in free agency, first-round pick DaRon Holmes tearing his achilles, and Jamal Murray dealing with a multitude of injuries.
Ultimately, the team came back with a new starting shooting guard in Christian Braun, a new bench rotation including Russell Westbrook, Peyton Watson, and Julian Strawther, and very few feasible options beyond that.
What we’ve seen play out is an all-time carry job by one of the best players to ever step foot in an NBA arena. Jokic has been completely masterful, averaging 30 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 10.2 assists per game on 58/42/80% shooting splits.
But his brilliance is masking just how much he’s holding the roster together with band-aids. He has been doing it all season; carrying a ridiculous burden and largely covering up the team’s many problems. But there’s always a breaking point and it feels like we’re almost there.
Nuggets have lost 4 straight, in jeopardy of falling to play-in
After Jokic held things together for almost an entire season, things have started to fall apart. The Nuggets were locked into the two seed in the West mere weeks ago, but they’re quickly cratering.
Jamal Murray has now missed five games in a row and there is no timetable for his return from a hamstring injury. Russell Westbrook has progressively gotten worse and is bordering on unplayable. The young players have been inconsistent at best and even Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon have been prone to disappearing acts recently.
The result is some terrible basketball lately from the Nuggets and they’re now tied with four other teams in the loss column out West. They’ve lost four straight to start April after a disappointing 8-7 March, which has them in peril of falling all the way to eighth place in the conference.
With just three games left to play, that’s a scary reality. It seemed like Denver was locked into a top-four seed for almost the entire season and now there’s a very real chance they find themselves in the play-in tournament.
That would be a nightmare scenario, especially given the uncertainty of Murray’s status. This banged-up, beaten-down Nuggets team may well be playing a do-or-die game next week without their second-best player, to avoid missing the playoffs altogether.
That scenario would have been almost unfathomable as recently as a month ago, yet here we are. Missing the playoffs would be a doomsday situation in Denver and would have to lead to major changes to the roster and beyond. That’s another story for another day, but for now, the Nuggets need to get their act together, and fast.