How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.
– Lou Holtz
The first half of the Denver Nuggets season has closed… successfully, one might say, with their .683 win percentage placing them in a tie atop the Western Conference as they round the bend into the more-important half of the year. This isn’t a very new sort of a thing for these Nuggets, who have found themselves somewhere on top or in the top three or four for the better part of the year. It’s been exhilarating for Nuggets Nation, who have watched their MVP-led squad go from the fringes of the “favorites” conversation to front-and-center amongst stat-heads and style guys alike.
And while that has the organization and fanbase amped at possibly all-time-high levels, the important part of the Nuggets year is yet to come. What does H2 look like for Denver, and what happens if they can keep their current level of success?
Should Denver keep their current win percentage, they’d finish the season at 56-26, good for their second-best NBA (and fourth-best overall) record. Even a small bump in efficiency in the second half of the year could propel them to their best NBA record ever, very much like the Nuggets squad of a decade ago, who rode a second-half streak to a 57-win season, netting them Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year awards. A slight improvement over H1 might not even be that big a stretch, as the team came out of the gates slowly, trying to figure out several new (and old players back) in the mix, and took some time finding their rhythm.
Strength of schedule remaining doesn’t really hurt or harm the Nuggets either, who sit pretty squarely in the center of the league when it comes to “how hard should the rest be?”. While Denver has had the good fortune of late of catching a few opponents without their best players, they also made good on wins early in the season without their full complement of guys, and with important players rounding back into form. If they are able to continue on their pace of excellent play against an H2 slate whose average winning percentage is .499, they stand a real chance at wrapping up the season with a one seed, and possibly even home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
But is that even the piece of the puzzle that will matter in their ultimate goal, a Championship? In the last 20 seasons, only six teams with the overall #1 seed have won in the Finals, but it’s hard to argue how powerful a home court advantage at altitude can be. They’re already 18-3 at Ball Arena this season, and 10-10 on the road. If they can make these last 20 home games really/similarly count (18-2), and stay above .500 on the road (11-10), they can reach that 57 win plateau again, which would have made them a two-seed in last season’s Western Conference, and a one-seed in the East. Last year’s 64-18 Suns won’t be reaching those heights again, as they’ve already lost 22 this year, and no one else looks any more poised than Denver to climb to the top of the conference.
Some key moments along the way will be crucial in how the season wraps up, with three games left against the Pelicans, two more against the lead-sharing Grizzlies, and two each against the East Beasts Nets, 76ers, and Bucks, with one more against the Cavs looming as well. If the Nuggets can take care of business against the other teams at each Conferences’ head, then they simply have to not play down to the level of the rest, and a very special season could be in store.
Coming to the postseason, Denver does have some improving to do by the time they hit that wall, needing to continue improvements on their defense, as the common consensus is being outside the top-10 is one of the surest recipes to failing to win a Championship. If there’s any room to take heart, a Nuggets team who spent most of the first third of the season in the bottom five defensively has recently taken things more seriously and climbed into the top 20. While pushing up to the top 10 might be a tall order in the last half, they’ve certainly got the well-connected players on the squad to do so, with names like Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Zeke Nnaji, and Christian Braun all more-than-capable defenders to supplement what is still plus-D from Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and a quickly growing Michael Porter, Jr.
It seem very possible to likely that the eight names above are part of the tight eight or nine that Michael Malone will ride into the playoffs, with the possible addition of a truer backup center to spell Jokic’s minutes off the floor. But look for Malone to try and find the best cohesion and substitutions amongst that squad for the rest of this campaign, while hopefully still giving them enough time and rest to be fresh for what could very hopefully be the Denver Nuggets first 16-win postseason.
The first half of the Nuggets season was a delight. As they kick off the second half of their season on an inauspicious Friday the 13th, let’s hope the rest of the journey is a fortuitous one. Here comes the part of the ride that truly matters.
