The 10-piece gives you what you need to know from each of the Nuggets’ 82 games this season. Tonight’s breaks down the Nuggets’ 119-115 win over the Warriors.
1. Clutch Again: Denver got its 7th clutch time win of the season Tuesday, closing 10-0 over the Warriors to cap a furious comeback. The Warriors began the 4th quarter with a 19-4 run. The Nuggets ended with a 21-4 run, capped by a Jamal Murray game-saving block on Jonathan Kuminga, Nikola Jokic game-saving block, and a Christian Braun wild suicide dive to secure the ball.
It’s a reassuring sign that Denver retains the clutch gene that has defined so much of the Jokic Era.
2. Time And Timeout Again: Braun’s suicide dive resulted in him being tied up with the Nuggets up four, allowing the clock to run out and secure the victory. While holding the ball, on replay Braun clearly. motioned for timeout when the Nuggets did not have one, which would have resulted in a technical foul, a free throw for the Warriors and the ball with a chance to tie (if they made the tech free throw). Except the officials didn’t see it. Steve Kerr, predictably, was livid both during the end of the game and in the postgame press conference about it.
3. Winners Write The History Books: Malone’s response on this was pretty amazing, as he said he hoped that someone caught a snapshot photo of Braun diving for the ball “before he didn’t call tiimeout.” Malone went on to note, unprompted, that the Nuggets were out of timeouts because they had to burn one on their second successful challenge which doesn’t return the timeout. So basically, “Christian didn’t call timeout, but even if he had, which he didn’t, we should have had a timeout anyway.” Classic.
4. Transcendent: Jokic was amazing again, with 38 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, five steals and a huge block on Jonathan Kuminga late. Just more MVP stuff from 3-time. I asked Jokic after the game if he feels this level of scoring production is what the team needs, and as usual, he shrugged it off, saying it was just that his three was falling. (It’s not, he’s taking a career-high in shots per game.)
5. Concerning But Clutch: Jamal Murray struggled from the field, again, with 12 points on 12 shots. He was targeted repeatedly on switches down the stretch by Stephen Curry. Except Murray also finished with seven assists, had a monster block on Kuminga to set up the go-ahead score, and Curry went 1-of-3 against him. Murray owned up to his shooting struggles postgame.
6. Containment: The Nuggets only lost the 3-point battle by one vs. Steph Curry and Buddy Hield with the two going 6-for-21 from deep. If the Nuggets don’t get smacked from three, they can beat anyone. If they get smacked from beyond the arc, they can lose to anyone.
7. Resurgence: Aaron Gordon returned to the starting lineup and was brilliant, especially with late buckets in the two-man game with Joker, to go along with 15 points, nine rebounds, and five assists.
8. Dispute: Michael Malone said before the game that the team wasn’t playing “for each other.” After the game he said he saw more signs of that. Joker kind of shrugged it off, saying “Maybe in the fourth quarter a little bit.” Jokic wasn’t blown away by this one. It should be noted, Joker has never been blown away by any win.
9. That Which We Don’t Talk About: Zeke Nnaji got minutes vs. a Draymond-Green-less Warriors squad. He was -11 in less than six minutes. Not great.
10. Congrats: To Mike Singer for the publication of his Joker tome, “Why So Serious?” which you can buy here. Joker said he didn’t contribute to the book and Mike “Just showed up in (Joker’s) hometown.”
