DNVR Player Grades: Nuggets complete 3-1 comeback, advance to second round

The day may come when NuggLife breaks us. When our courage fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. The Denver Nuggets completed a 3-1 series comeback over the Utah Jazz Tuesday night, becoming just the 12th team in NBA history to pull off the feat, and advancing to the second round in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1986.

A series to be remembered featuring a dual for the ages and two uncontainable offenses came down to a missed shot, after consecutive late-game miscues in an 80-78 slugfest. Go figure.

It was the Nuggets in the end who rediscovered their defense first, and it was a critical defensive play from a sorely missed defender that took fate out of Donovan Mitchell’s hands. After six games of Mitchell vs. Jamal Murray, Denver sealed the deal with a stop by Gary Harris and a series-winning shot from Nikola Jokić. Something about that conclusion brings relief and stability after seven tumultuous games that left us questioning everything.

Head coach Michael Malone stuck with the same starting unit, featuring Murray/Monte Morris/Jerami Grant/Paul Millsap/Jokić. His persistence paid off as the Nuggets starters weathered an early storm before punching back and opening up a sizeable lead. Mitchell scored just 2 points and turned it over 3 times. Denver held the Jazz to only 21 first-quarter points. For the first time all series, it felt as if the Nuggets were out in front. No longer fighting to keep their heads above water, but swimming towards shore with a confident pace.

The Nuggets came close to busting the flood gates open in the second, as they clamped down even harder on the defensive end. Mitchell forced the issue. Gobert was absent. Gary Harris went full Gary Harris.

As fantastic as Gary Harris' defense was on Mitchell with 13 seconds to go, I can't get over what he did to Clarkson right here. His closeout looks like it's in fast-forward. pic.twitter.com/y1dSzKugyq

— Mike Singer (@msinger) September 2, 2020

The first half was without the expected dominant performance by either team’s stars. While Utah’s struggled, Denver received balanced contributions from Jokić, Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. — who scored 13, 10, and 10 points, respectively. Roughly halfway through the quarter, Denver looked home free. The lead was in the double digits. Gobert sat with foul trouble, and Mithcell checked out of the game shortly after, replaced by Juwan Morgan and Joe Ingles. The Jazz was without weapons and already running out of rope. But Murray stayed glued to the bench for another few minutes, and Jokić tried to make it work alongside Morris, Torrey Craig, Porter Jr., and Grant.

Denver should’ve dominated those minutes to close the quarter, but they balked, and what could’ve been a 20+ point deficit was only 14 at the half. The door was left open, and you don’t need to have seen the game to know what happened next.

Late in the second quarter, with a little over one minute remaining, Ingles stepped towards Murray for an intentional foul to stop a fast break. But rather than merely wrapping him up, or taking a lazy hack, Ingles stopped in his tracks and leaned into Denver’s star guard as he sprinted up the floor. Murray hit the floor hard and writhed in pain. He would not be the same player that’s captured the national spotlight for the remainder of the game.

Utah was destined to make a run, and they did behind 13 points in the third quarter from Mitchell. As he found a rhythm, the Nuggets struggled to generate offense without the point demi-god version of Murray. Jokić put up 9 points, but the rest of the team combined for just 6 as the Nuggets lost the quarter by 9. White, the knuckles grew as the lead slipped away like the memory of a pleasant dream.

The juice never returned on offense, and the Nuggets held on for dear life as the Jazz made their push. Finally, Gobert made his presence known on both ends of the court, putting up 10 points in the fourth, and doing all he could to hold off the herculean efforts of Jokić. Ten points from Gobert is tolerable if Mitchell’s held in check. That’s easier said than done, but Harris and company clamped down, holding Mitchell to just 2 points in the quarter.

All told, the Nuggets scored just 30 points in the second half. Seventeen of them came from Jokić, including the most important bucket of the series. The Jazz tied the game at 78 with 47 seconds remaining after Gobert finished off a ridiculous alley-oop from Mike Conley Jr. to beat the buzzer. Malone called for a timeout.

Where do you turn when your superhero point guard is hobbled? What a luxury it is to turn to a man with as strong a resume in the clutch as any player in the league. It had to be Jokić, and it was. With 27 seconds left, Jokić spun on his pivot foot and put up an arching hook shot over the outstretched gargoyle arms of Gobert. It just snuck over the front of the rim, and the Nuggets took the final lead of the game.

🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏 https://t.co/b0uorBvf93

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) September 2, 2020

After a timeout, the ball was with Mitchell. Harris picked him up high and jumped his favored right hand. Mitchell spun left, only to see a stunting Grant cut him off, and Harris, lurking behind, poked the ball free. Murray picked up the rebound and broke to avoid the foul, extending the play, but grew overexcited when he saw a lane to the rim. He drove hard and dished it off to a streaking Craig who blew the point black layup, putting the ball back in Utah’s hands.

It was Conley who put the three-point shot up at the buzzer, and Mitchell, who threw his hands in the air in celebration as the ball went halfway down, before sinking to the floor after it popped back out. Comeback complete.

Jaw-dropping, frenetic, raucous conclusion to this Jazz-Nuggets game. Stolen ball, missed layup in transition, missed 3-pointer at the buzzer — it was perhaps the only appropriate conclusion to a wild 7-game opening round series. pic.twitter.com/qOuknDnJIf

— Positive Residual (@presidual) September 2, 2020

Murray raced to the fallen Mitchell and helped him to his feet before embracing him. The mutual respect was palpable and contagious. These two are linked after the Nuggets draft-night trade with the Jazz in 2017. After their first clash in the postseason, they’ve already etched that link into history. Neither man was the hero in Game 7, but both left it all on the floor and gave us one of the most entertaining opening round matchups ever played.

Mutual respect between Murray & Mitchell https://t.co/PNfNM1K3Co

— Eric Rosenthal (@ericsports) September 2, 2020

After Game 3, I let it fly and assigned the entire team an F. I couldn’t pretend to see anything but quit from a group that told us they intended to compete for a title. It was time for the Nuggets to put up or shut up. In the end, it’s me they’ve shut up as they delivered a historic comeback and restored faith. It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be. The Nuggets fought for their playoff lives, and they won their battle with the Grim Reaper.

One shot, in one game, might be the difference between a season that propels this team forward in its path towards something special, and a season that ends in disappointment, inciting panic and hasty decisions. These windows of opportunity shut faster than we think in the NBA. For Denver, the window is still open, and the dream of shocking the world sooner rather than later is still alive.

There’s just something about Utah and that number 7.

Honor Roll

The Denver Nuggets: A+