All season long, the Nuggets have endured ups and downs. They’ve had one injury issue after another, massive defensive problems, clutch concerns, and a myriad of other near-disasters throughout what has been a season from hell in many ways.
Despite all that, the team is 51-28 and has a strong grip on the third seed in the Western Conference with just three games to go in their regular season. It seemed unlikely at many points during the year, but the truth all along was that this team just needed to get fully healthy, and now that they finally have, everything appears to be falling into place.
Denver has won nine games in a row, and they’re now 17-5 on the season with their starting lineup of Jamal Murray, Christian Braun, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, and Nikola Jokic intact. 10 of those 17 wins have come by double-digits, and since AG returned to the lineup in early March, the team has fixed their crunch-time woes, going 7-3 in clutch games.
Every single narrative and bit of discourse around this team dating back to November has come with the caveat “if healthy”, to the point it started to get obnoxious, and felt like some fantastical ideal that may not even be a real thing.
It turns out the Nuggets really did just need to get healthy
But as annoying as the narrative became, it appears that the low-hanging fruit was in fact true all along. It took months, and they almost ran out of time, but as we sit here on April 7th, the starting lineup is fully healthy, and the team is rolling into the playoffs with some momentum.
That seemed like an impossibility as recently as a few weeks ago, when the Nuggets were battling just to avoid the play-in tournament and stay in the top six. They’ve dealt with injuries to Jokic, Gordon, Braun, Johnson, and even key bench players like Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones.
The latter two plays are still dealing with injuries, and Watson’s health is a big x-factor, but this late in the year, no team is fully healthy, and the fact that the Nuggets are in this position feels borderline miraculous.
Everything breaking right for Denver in the playoffs
On top of that, they seem to actually be getting some luck elsewhere in the conference. The Lakers have been decimated by injuries to Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, the T-Wolves can’t seem to keep Anthony Edwards on the court, and the Rockets have been a mess for months. The first round is looking like much more of a formality than it did just a few weeks ago.
Plus, the Nuggets just took down the Spurs with both teams close to full strength, and Victor Wembanyama suffered a rib injury on Monday night. A battle with San Antonio in the second round would still be far from a cake walk, but it looks more than manageable.
After all the hand-wringing all season about how much trouble the Nuggets were in, everything has pretty much worked out, and they look primed to battle the Thunder for a spot in the Finals. Just like we all expected.