Saturday night’s home opener in Denver ended with everyone going home happy. The Nuggets erased a 20+ point deficit, completing the comeback in overtime and beating the Pelicans, 141-135. Nikola Jokic dropped a 35-point triple-double, Jamal Murray went for 42, and Trevon Brazile made a loud statement with his electric two-way play.
Things were ugly early on in this one, as the team looked lifeless and the crowd was rightfully letting them hear it. So, it was important to make this statement, to walk this lead down, and to come up with a huge win to get this season on track.
So, all’s well that ends well, right? Not exactly.
Yes, I know this game went to overtime, and it was important to pull out a victory, but this simply is not sustainable. Year after year, we’ve seen the starters rack up heavy minutes, carry the team to victories in the regular season, then break down and run out of gas once the playoffs start.
Regular season has to be about getting to the playoffs fresh
We can’t keep banging our heads against the same wall, and it has become clear that if this team is going to have any chance at competing in the playoffs and beating the best teams in the West in a 7-game series, their best players need to be healthy and fresh once April rolls around.
That hasn’t been the case in the last few years, and David Adelman and his crew need to make sure that changes this time around. They tried to build up the depth in the offseason and bring in some other options to buy some minutes along the way, but so far, we’re not seeing that translate on the court.
Adelman can't run his starters into the ground this season
This was game two of an 82-game season, and Jokic played 44 minutes, Murray hit 43, Christian Braun was at 40, and Aaron Gordon logged 37. That’s just not going to cut it. Obviously, I’m glad they got the win, and perhaps this will be an outlier overtime game, but it’s too early to be doing this again already.
If you can’t steal a few more minutes of rest for your starters at home against the Pelicans, then when are you going to be able to? I know things weren’t going well, but at a certain point, Adelman is just going to have to trust his bench, give some guys a longer leash, and live with the results.
Sure, they can keep going down this path, they’ll fight their way to 50ish wins and roll into the playoffs with a 3-6 seed. But the key players will be exhausted, they won’t have the energy required to beat good teams in a playoff setting, the bench players won’t have developed any rhythm or confidence, and we’ll likely see another disappointing early exit.
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