Nuggets game day: Denver "hitting their stride" while rest of league looks ahead to All-Star break

DENVER — The Golden State Warriors turned the ball over 25 times Friday night but still beat the Sacramento Kings 119-104 thanks to a 35-point fourth-quarter. Afterward, Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters that his team is mentally and emotionally fatigued.

“… It’s painful obviously that our guys are mentally fried right now,” Kerr said. “So it’s a good job to just get a win. … Our guys are tired mentally, emotionally. So we just got to fight through, get to the break and rejuvenate.”

Kerr’s sentiment is echoed across the league by coaches and players this time of year. The All-Star break is still two weeks away, and the Nuggets have five games between Saturday night’s matchup against the Warriors and All-Star weekend, which runs from Feb. 16-19 in Los Angeles.

Yet, the dog days of the regular season have been kind to the Nuggets.

Denver’s 4-2 since Nuggets coach Michael Malone vowed to call fewer plays in an attempt to try and return the offense to the form it showed last season. Over those six games, the Nuggets are fielding the league’s sixth-best offensive attack. The 111.8 points per 100 possessions that Denver has scored during this stretch is just off the 113.3 per 100 possession pace that the Nuggets averaged after Dec. 15 last season.

“If you look at us play lately, you don’t see a team that is fried. You don’t see a team that’s waiting for the All-Star break,” Malone said. “I think you see a team that’s kind of hitting their stride a little bit and feeling pretty good about themselves.”

It’s not like Denver has had a cakewalk of a schedule over its past six games either. Denver has beat the Trail Blazers, Knicks, Mavericks and Thunder. It’s lost to two of the best teams in the league — San Antonio and Boston — by a combined three points.

The combined score in Denver’s past three matchups — against the Spurs, Celtics and Thunder — is 371-371.

“We don’t have any room to be mentally fatigued with the race we’re in,” Gary Harris said.

The Nuggets’ 4-2 stretch since Jan. 21 has vaulted Denver back into playoff position. They sit in the eighth spot in a Western Conference where seeds five through eight are separated by just three-and-a-half games heading into Friday’s full slate of action.

Denver has fared well as of late but is still in the midst of one of the most difficult stretches of its season. After the Nuggets host the Warriors on Friday and the Hornets on Monday, Denver has a daunting three-game stretch against the Rockets, Suns and Spurs and then travels to Milwaukee on Thursday — the eve of the All-Star break.

The mental and physical fatigue might not be setting in now, but it likely will over this next two-week stretch. To cope, the Nuggets are cutting down practices and shootarounds to get players off their feet.

“I think everybody’s kind of in the same boat everybody has played 50-plus games,” Malone added. “Right now everybody’s gone through injuries, some more than others. I don’t think anyone’s played a tougher schedule than us. I think the three in fours, the schedule, the schedule with the travel we’ve had to deal with has been crazy. I give our guys a ton of credit.”

Nuggets Projected Starters

Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Will Barton, Wilson Chandler, Nikola Jokic

Warriors Projected Starters

Stephen Cury, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia