Malik Beasley hasn’t gotten much sleep lately.
It hasn’t been Denver’s poor three-point shooting that’s kept the Nuggets’ third-year shooting guard up late into the night. It’s Beasley’s newborn, Makai, who arrived in Denver on March 26 at 20 inches, seven pounds and one ounce.
“I’d rather not say,” Beasley joked following the Nuggets’ 113-85 win over the Spurs when asked how much sleep he’s gotten over the last week. “I don’t want that to be used against me.”
Somehow, Beasley looked refreshed just 24 hours after the Nuggets’ loss in Golden State, scoring 19 points against the Spurs — his highest point total in nearly two months — while converting three of his eight attempts from beyond the arc. As a team, the Nuggets shot 12-33 (36.4 percent) from three, the second-highest percentage they’ve shot from distance over the last seven games where their three-point struggles became magnified.
But the Nuggets never overreacted as one three after another continued to clang off the iron, both on the road and inside the friendly confines of Pepsi Center. Denver had shot just 26 percent from three over its last six games where the Nuggets went 2-4 before Wednesday’s victory, and over the last two weeks sported the 30th ranked offense in the league. Michael Malone maintained that he was satisfied with the shots his team was generating during what he called the worst shooting slump that he’s experienced as a head coach, chalking up the misfires to some back luck. The Nuggets shot only 6-29 on wide-open 3s in a rare home loss to the Wizards on Sunday and 2-13 on shots of that same variety in a narrow win over the Pistons back on March 26.
“We never really panicked, or nothing like that,” Monte Morris said from in front of his locker while sporting a glistening necklace featuring a gold and silver lock, a fitting representation of his focused 19-point effort against the Spurs. “We just knew we weren’t making shots and lost games because of that.”
The thousand-pound weight that was planted squarely on the Nuggets’ shoulders over the last few weeks was finally lifted. While you could hear a pin drop in the Nuggets’ locker room following their recent loss to the lottery-bound Wizards, the joy from a team in the midsts of one of their best season’s in franchise history was back. A season-high 41 assists — the second-most assists that any team in the league has recorded in a game this season — certainly helped.
“When everybody’s touching it and everybody’s involved, therein lies the joy, Malone said. “Having the unselfish mindset of I’m going to make a play for somebody else. When we play for each other, we’re a really, really good team. When we just play with each other, we’re just an average team.”
Joy is what will determine how far the Nuggets advance in the playoffs come April. If Denver gets bogged down, loses its confidence on the offensive end of the floor, as it had for portions of the last couple of weeks, and forgets its core principles of unselfish and equal-opportunity basketball, the Nuggets will be looking at a first round exit. But if Denver moves, cuts, plays with pace, takes care of the ball and knocks down shots like it did Wednesday, the Nuggets could make a deep playoff run.
That bliss had largely been absent from the Nuggets as of late but was on display early in the first quarter against San Antonio as Nikola Jokic bounded up the floor, head up and in that familiar confident rhythm where Denver’s All-Star center knows he can do about whatever he wants to on the court. It’s fun to play with Jokic, the Peyton Manning of the NBA. Cut to the basket and if you’re open, Jokic will find you with a pin-point pass. Find the soft spot in the defense and the Nuggets’ big man will hit you in the numbers. Beat the defense down the floor following a miss and Jokic, who finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists, one helper away from his 13th triple-double of the season, will rifle a 90-foot hail mary right into your bread basket. Jokic shot 9-10 from the field against the Spurs, his only miss coming on a 54-foot three-quarter court heave as time expired in the second quarter.
The Nuggets had fun for the first time in a while Wednesday.
“Fun is something that comes with playing good, with playing together,” Jokic said. “When you have a lead, of course you’re going to have fun. I think how we played, how we were aggressive, the bench was there, the fans were with us. It’s easy to have fun when you’re playing like that.”
The Nuggets shot 54 percent from the field and put 113 points on a potential first-round playoff opponent in the Spurs. Denver also held San Antonio to a mere 85 points on under 40 percent shooting from the field.
A much-needed win, but more importantly a rediscovered rhythm from beyond the arc will allow every Nugget, well except Beasley, to sleep a little easier.
