SACRAMENTO — Aaron Gordon sat in his locker room stall, staring at his phone in silence, as he does after almost every game. Peyton Watson called for a few bags of ice to wrap around his knees. There were a few idle conversations as players got dressed and changed on Saturday night. A big topic? What to do on a day off.
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The Denver Nuggets are a tired basketball team, the product of playing their fifth game in seven nights. They are a team missing one of its leaders, as point guard Jamal Murray tweaked his right ankle earlier in the week, causing him to miss a win over the Phoenix Suns on Friday night and the game against the Sacramento Kings 24 hours later. And this is on top of missing most of November with a hamstring issue.
Neither players, nor coaches made excuses for Saturday night’s 123-117 loss to the Kings at Golden 1 Center. But this is a team that’s 14-7 on the season, coming off a championship and still getting used to being every opponent’s NBA Finals Game 7. It’s the byproduct of winning a title. Everyone’s coming for the throne. The Nuggets are experiencing this in real-time, but they are also a team playing with the big picture in mind.
“I’m proud of the guys for not giving into the fatigue,” Denver head coach Michael Malone said. “This is a game that could have gotten away from us. It’s a game where we very easily could have packed it in. But, the guys kept fighting, and that’s a real sign of their maturity. We kept cutting into the lead, and we kept giving ourselves a chance to win. I’m proud of that.”
Because they haven’t had Murray in almost a month, the current state of the Nuggets is difficult to accurately and fully judge. The effects of his absence are obvious. It takes away the balance between the starters and the second unit, because Murray has always staggered with superstar Nikola Jokić to run the bench lineups. It takes away the Jokić-Murray pick-and-roll in closing minutes, when the Nuggets are often so hard to beat because they get almost exactly what they want offensively on almost every possession. And it moves each player up a spot with their offensive responsibility.
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Below the surface, you wonder about Jokić’s wear and tear, as his usage within the offense is almost off the charts without Murray. Denver is 6-6 after starting the season 8-1, but a lot of that is because it has been shorthanded. In a Western Conference that has talent, depth and parity, playoff seeding matters. And even though the Nuggets are third in the West, percentage points behind the second-place Oklahoma City Thunder and just two games behind the first-place Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver knows it doesn’t want to be giving away winnable games in November and December that come back to impact potential seeding in March and April.
But Saturday night was not on of those games for Denver. It’s difficult to win in Sacramento on a good night when the legs are feeling fresh. On the fifth game in seven nights? On a back-to-back? Beating the Kings becomes almost impossible.
“At the end of the game we couldn’t get enough stops,” Jokić said. “We had a lot of good open looks, but we couldn’t make a shot. I think on their last six times down the court, they scored every time. We fought, we had a good fight, but we couldn’t get enough stops to win the game when we needed them.”
What makes the Kings so difficult to face on the second night of a back-to-back? Pace, pace and more pace. Sacramento is perhaps the best team in the league at forcing tempo and playing a 48-minute basketball game with a maximum amount of possessions. And that’s what got to the Nuggets on Saturday night. If there was a missed shot, the Kings were running. If there was a made shot, the Kings were running. They got into the paint and pitched out for open 3-point looks. By contrast, the Nuggets didn’t make a 3 until the game got into the second half.
That Denver was even able to make a game of this is kind of an accomplishment. Sacramento led by as many as 17 points in the second half. The game appeared to be lost by the middle of the third quarter. And yet, by the five minute mark of the fourth quarter, Denver found itself within two possessions and a chance to win.
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“If we want to simplify it, we lost the game in the second quarter,” Malone said. “We lost the second quarter 39-20. We can’t give up a bunch of turnovers and points in transition and expect to win. We had a lot of good looks at the basket, but they didn’t fall for us, and that’s a sign of a team playing its fifth game in seven nights.”
Swipa Dimes 🦊
De'Aaron Fox dropped a CAREER-HIGH 16 AST in the Kings' win over the Nuggets 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Vo274DQjrZ
— NBA (@NBA) December 3, 2023
With the thought that everything they are doing is to gear up for another playoff run, here are some of the things that Denver has learned so far.
First and foremost, Jokić is once again playing at an MVP level. He scored 36 points, handed out 14 assists and grabbed 13 rebounds against the Kings. He’s averaging a near- triple double on the season. Whatever level any individual around the league is playing at this season, Jokić is playing a level above that.
The Nuggets are getting good production from Reggie Jackson in Murray’s stead, which bodes well for whenever Murray gets healthy and Jackson can again come off the bench. Rookie wing Julian Strawther is emerging as a key piece in Malone’s rotation, with his shotmaking and an all-around offensive skillset that wasn’t obvious last season at Gonzaga. And second year wing Peyton Watson is becoming one of the better defenders on the team. In Denver’s win on Friday night over the Phoenix Suns, Watson gave Kevin Durant all he can handle on the defensive end.
But the key for Denver right now is to get healthy and get whole. And for the first time in a while, the Nuggets get a bit of a rest, with their next game not until Wednesday night at the Los Angeles Clippers.
“We can certainly use the break,” Malone said.
(Photo of Nikola Jokić: Sergio Estrada / USA Today)