Denver had its guns drawn, chambers loaded and index finger on the trigger standing eye to eye with the Warriors on the cusp of Tuesday’s Wild West showdown looking to make a statement to Golden State and the rest of the conference. Instead, it was the Warriors giving the upstart Nuggets a big-time reality check in the form of Michael Malone’s worst nightmare: an old fashioned shootout at the O.K. Corral.
“I think they took it to another level,” Malone said. “And left us in the dust.”
The 1881 gunfight between lawmen and outlaws in Tombstone, Arizona Territory lasted 30 seconds. This shootout took 12 minutes.
Golden State blitzed Denver in the first quarter and jumped out to an 11-2 lead. Two minutes later, it was 20-9. By the end of the period, the Warriors had put a big fat 51 up on the scoreboard. They drained 10 threes in the period and only missed six shots. Kevin Durant looked like he had places to be, making quick work of Denver in the first quarter. He played all 12 minutes in the frame and tallied 17 points. Klay Thompson had 13. Steph Curry hit four threes.
Will Barton put it best.
“I think they came out from the beginning and were ready to play, jumped us,” said Barton. “I kind of felt like they were trying to send us a message.”
“One that they’re two-time defending champs?” I asked Barton in response.
“Yeah,” he said. “Definitely.”
“They blitzed us from the beginning. And you could tell we weren’t ready to play,” Barton continued, elaborating on the opening few minutes of the Warriors’ laser light show which ended in a 142-111 Golden State victory. “And then it just snowballed from there.”
Instead of the Nuggets handing the Warriors an ‘L’ on their way out of town, it was Golden State flexing its championship muscle. The Warriors felt the buzz coming out of Denver over the last few months, about how Nikola Jokic was playing at an MVP level. That Jamal Murray was walking his walk and talking his talk as the Nuggets’ frontman and just maybe the Nuggets would be the team to take the Western Conference mantle from Golden State, who at times this season seemed to be splitting apart at the seams.
“I think they know who we are,” Durant said after the blowout win.
You knew the Warriors were going to try and steamroll the Nuggets if you walked in on Golden State’s shootaround and watched as Durant went through a detailed shooting routine with sweat dripping down his brow like he was getting ready for the NBA Finals and not a Tuesday night matchup in the middle of January.
Durant took his last jumper of the morning session on the same hoop that he’d bury seven first-quarter field goals on seven hours later. Swish. He then walked over to the nearest baseline, plopped down in a black leather courtside seat and fired off a warning shot.
“They’re not an up-and-coming team anymore,” Durant said. “You look at them as one of the elite teams you’ve just got to have a good night against.”
Tuesday loss — the Nuggets’ worst defeat since Denver fell by the same margin in March 2014 to the Spurs — said two things.
First off, Golden State is still the top dog. They’re still the best team in the league and can reach that top gear no other club can. The Warriors hopped on their broomsticks from the get-go and flew up and down the floor after the Golden Snitch, turning Pepsi Center into their own Quidditch Stadium. Secondly, Denver’s defense, which has been sliding in a scary direction for the last two months, has to be fixed.
After spending the first month of the year in the top-5 in defensive efficiency, the Nuggets’ defense slipped to 10th overall in after their latest loss. More worrisome is that Denver is the fourth-worst defense in the league since Nov. 28, a stretch that covers the Nuggets’ last 22 games.
“We’ve got to talk more. Man up and take ownership,” Monte Morris told BSN Denver. “Earlier in the year, we were taking ownership. We’ve got to get back to holding each other accountable, taking ownership and making it tough for your man to score.”
“We just thought I guess that it was going to be easy.”
Perhaps this is the type of loss, even with how high and mighty the Warriors are, forces Denver to take a long look at itself in the mirror. The vaunted defense that propelled the Nuggets to a 9-1 start, a 14-7 record through 21 games, and served as the central reason as to why Denver had taken as big of a step as they did this season, hasn’t been seen in months. Maybe it takes a defeat like this for the Nuggets to realize it’s time to hit the reset button and recalibrate themselves around the core principles that got Denver to this point in the first place.
“Denzel Washington said you need to fail and fail big,” said Nikola Jokic, who finished with 17 points four rebounds and eight assists. “You need to fail because then you think about what you did to get to that high level.”
The Nuggets can rebound from their worst defeat of the season. As Barton said, this loss can teach Denver “how to play in big-time games.”
“You can pick up a lot from that game,” he added. “How hard you’ve got to play. How well you’ve got to execute. Toughness. Everything.”
Still, Denver’s confidence is sky high, as it should be. Jokic is still playing at an MVP level. Barton should find his rhythm soon. Gary Harris, who’s one of the Nuggets’ better defenders, is due back from injury in the next couple of games. The Nuggets only have to play .500 basketball the rest of the way to reach the 50-win threshold, which likely puts Denver comfortably in the playoffs.
The Nuggets are in a great spot, even though they relinquished the Western Conference throne for now. Maybe a step out of the spotlight after a humbling loss to reigning champs will do Denver well and give the Nuggets a chance to get back to the basics.
“We’ve got the pieces. I’m not going to say we’re Golden State, but we’ve got the pieces,” Morris said. “They’re not unbeatable. We showed that we can beat them. We’ve just got to turn our focus back to getting locked in. Because the Warriors, they’re always locked in.”
