The Denver Nuggets are a team built on resiliency. This is the team that roared back from two consecutive 3-1 deficits only eight months ago. This is the team that rises to the occasion and plays their best basketball when they’re counted out. When they face adversity, these Nuggets thrive. Somehow, Denver just manages to find a way.
But maybe resiliency has its limits. Maybe it doesn’t. These Nuggets are about to answer that question because their backs are up against the wall like never before. Friday night in Golden State — on the same hardwood where Jamal Murray tore his ACL 10 days ago — Denver was dealt another defeating blow.
Just 59 seconds into the first quarter, Will Barton went down with a right hamstring strain. Michael Malone said during an in-game interview on ESPN that Barton “heard something pop.” He’ll get an MRI Saturday to find out the severity of the strain, but it’s a soft tissue injury. It’s not good. Barton will miss time. There are 13 games — or three weeks — left in the regular season.
It’s another gut punch to a Nuggets rotation that’s taken multiple right hooks on the chin over the last two weeks. First, Murray was lost for the season. Three games ago, Monte Morris suffered a hamstring strain. With Barton out, Denver’s missing its starting and backup point guards along with a 13-point per game scorer who had shifted into more of a lead ball-handler role over the last few games. Their absences were felt throughout the Nuggets’ 118-97 loss to the Warriors.
Denver’s transition defense was “embarrassing” as Malone put it postgame. Golden State tallied 29 fastbreak points, several of which came during transition sequences where the Nuggets barely put up a fight. This fourth-quarter Warriors run-out was the boiling point for Malone. It was a truly embarrassing effort in what was only a 13-point game with five minutes remaining.
You could sense the Nuggets’ spirit fading throughout Friday’s loss, and you can’t blame Denver if that was the case. Ten days ago, the Nuggets were riding their highest wave of the season. A championship was a real possibility with Nikola Jokic playing at an MVP level. Murray was returning to the lineup and Aaron Gordon was looking like the perfect trade deadline acquisition.
That’s how fast things can flip in the NBA. That’s how quickly a dream season can be upended. It can happen in a flash, in the blink of an eye. Friday in Golden State was just one loss and somehow Denver’s first defeat since Murray was injured. But it felt significant.
How do you maintain a championship-level belief amid a stretch of injuries like this? How do you keep your collective spirit from cratering?
“It’s tough. I think it’s the nature of this season and how many games are packed so closely together,” Gordon said. “But we’ve got competitors on this team. We’ve got ballplayers and we’ve got people who want to win. When you put that on the floor, we’re not backing down. We’re not hanging our head. We don’t feel bad for ourselves. We’re looking to win games. That’s it.”
It’s not in the Nuggets’ nature to surrender, even when their world is crashing down around them. Denver won’t go into a tailspin over the final stretch of the regular season. The Nuggets will fight, and scrap, and claw, because they always do.
They don’t want your sympathy either.
“I think all you guys are fishing for we lost this game because of Will’s injury. Don’t make that excuse for us,” Malone said after fielding multiple questions about Barton’s injury. “Will Barton went down. He’s hurt, and we feel for him. But we all get paid on the 1st and the 15th. Do your job. We didn’t do our job tonight. I didn’t. Our players didn’t. And it’s unacceptable.”
“Do your job. It’s really simple. Do your job. No Jamal Murray, somebody’s got to step in. No Monte Morris, no Will Barton, somebodys’ got to step in. And it starts with playing hard. We did not play hard enough tonight, and that’s the most disappointing thing about this game aside from the Will Barton injury.”
Offensively, the Nuggets were stuck in the mud with no Murray, Morris or Barton. On April 7, Denver had the No. 1 offense in the NBA. On Friday, the Nuggets looked unrecognizable on that end of the floor. Denver shot 38.6% from the field in Golden State — the Nuggets’ second-worst shooting percentage in a game this season — and struggled to generate consistent quality looks. Michael Porter Jr. had the Nuggets’ best offensive night, finishing with a team-high 26 points. He went 7-14 from three.
“We need to play with purpose,” Jokic said. “First of all, we need to know what to do on the floor. We cannot just run around with no reason.”
“We’ve got to move the ball,” Gordon added. “We’ve got to play in a way that’s unpredictable. A lot of the time, we came down and it was quick triggers. We were shooting the ball with 16 seconds left on the shot clock or 18 seconds left on the shot clock. We’ve got to continue to work the offense and play through the big fella.”
One offensive boost could come from Gordon, who it certainly feels like the Nuggets are trying to get more out of on that end of the floor. He tallied 17 points Friday and said it’s only a matter of time until his three-pointers start dropping and his percentages start trending upward for good. Gordon’s shooting only 30% (12-40) in 14 games with the Nuggets but is 4-9 from three over his last two games.
It also seems like Denver’s looking for Gordon more in the post now than it did immediately following the March 25 trade. The forward confirmed postgame that it’s been a point of emphasis to get him the ball on the block.
“I’ve got to take that responsibility and make the right play,” Gordon said. “Whether it be getting a bucket or facilitating or finding the open man. That’s on me. It’s going to take consistent, correct decisions for (Malone) to put trust in me and for the rest of the team to trust me and kind of get comfortable in that playmaking position on that low block. From there it will equate to good offense.”
But it won’t be easy. Nothing is easy for the Nuggets now. Points are hard to come by. Getting defensive stops takes full five-man efforts. The Nuggets are in a position now where every night they need MVP-level play from Jokic, 20-plus points from Porter, Gordon to be a consistent threat, and two-way contributions from everyone up and down their bench.
In the midst of a regular season that’s testing teams like never before, the Nuggets are facing their tallest task yet.
