What emotions ran through the Nuggets’ heads after clinching a playoff berth for the first time in six seasons? Joy, satisfaction, relief and for Jamal Murray, hunger.
“We’ve still got to fight for something,” Murray said about how the Nuggets plan to attack their final 10 regular season games. “We fought for the playoffs. We fought to be a playoff team. Now, we’re fighting for home court. After we fight for home court we’re fighting for a one seed and to be the best team in the NBA.”
After clinching their playoff spot against the Celtics, Denver ran through the Wizards and Knicks before an underwhelming end to their final three-plus game road trip of the season in Indiana. Still, their 3-1 mark away from home last week has the Nuggets in the driver’s seat for the second seed in the West, a full three games up on the Rockets.
Denver also has to win just three out of its final five road games to reach its goal of 22 victories away from Pepsi Center that the Nuggets established in the preseason. That won’t be an easy task to accomplish with road dates against the Thunder, Rockets, Warriors, Trail Blazers and Jazz remaining.
But the Nuggets have no chance to reach that mark unless they play more consistent basketball, something that has become a central theme to Denver’s month-long regular season stretch run and reared its ugly head over its recent four-game road trip.
At times over that trip, the Nuggets looked like one of the better teams in the league. But during stretches like the second quarter in New York, where the Knicks outscored the Nuggets 24-19 and Denver shot 6-25 from the field, Michael Malone’s bunch has looked average.
“We need some 48-minutes games in these last 10,” Mason Plumlee said speaking to the Nuggets’ inconsistencies.
Denver also needs to get its starting point guard in a rhythm over the final three weeks of the regular season. Murray is suffering through one of his worst slumps of the season over his last six games, shooting just 32-81 (39.5 percent) from the field and 6-30 (20 percent) from three. He’s coming off a poor outing in the Nuggets’ 124-88 loss the Pacers, where Murray shot 2-12 from the field and turned the ball over four times.
“Right now, his biggest struggle would be when to shot, when not to shoot,” said Malone. “The struggle he has right now is as the starting point guard, OK set the table get everybody else involved, and then when do I pick my spots to shoot? When do I pick my spots to score? … But I think there are times right now when he’s turning down open shots. And then on the other side of it, he winds up taking some really tough contested shots.
“I just want him to relax. If he’s open, shoot the ball if he’s not open, make a play for a teammate and regardless of his shooting struggles as of late, you can still be a playmaker, you can still rebound, and you can still defend. I don’t ever want Jamal to be a specialist who only impacts the game with his scoring because I think he’d be doing a huge disservice to himself.”
A return to Pepsi Center tonight against the Detroit Pistons could cure Murray’s recent cold streak. Murray is shooting 39.5 percent from three at home this season and just 33.7 percent on the road.
The Nuggets’ magic number for clinching home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs is four games, for the second round, seven, and for home-court advantage throughout the entire Western Conference playoffs, 11. How much consistency the Nuggets get from everyone up and down their roster will determine how many of those magic numbers Denver eats through over its final 10.
“With 10 games to go, you want to make sure you’re playing as well as you can going into the postseason,” said Malone.
