Opponents don’t like playing in Denver and until recently the Nuggets enjoyed one of the most dominant home court advantages in the league.
Denver went 191-47 at home from 2008 through 2013 under George Karl, playing a fast-paced, high-possession brand of basketball, taking advantage of the inane home court advantage this franchise was born with.
Exit Karl and enter Brian Shaw and his half-court offense that in theory was supposed to make Denver successful in the playoffs. The Nuggets went 41-41 at home in two seasons under Shaw who chose not use that same formula that made the franchise successful in the Mile High City for years.
“I didn’t like it when I had to come here,” said Nuggets head coach Michael Malone on playing in altitude. “But I love it now.”
Malone has said all the right things this summer and so far this season when it comes to pace and how he plans to integrate an up-and-down game without sacrificing the Nuggets offensive efficiency.
“I know once we open it up to questions all we’re going to talk about is pace, and how I’m a guy that wants to walk the ball up the floor,” Malone said at his introductory press conference. “I have coached 106 games as a head coach. Don’t paint me, and don’t put me in a hole by saying this is who you are. I played to the strength of our roster, and we were efficient.”
So far, the results have been mixed.
Denver ranks a healthy 13th in pace at 100.2 possessions per game, a solid amount of possessions per game that will likely increase as rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay and the rest of this young roster gets more comfortable running together.
The Nuggets are also 3-2 at home this season, dropping games to Minnesota and Utah and winning against Portland, Milwaukee and Houston. Of those two losses, both were winnable games that can be chalked up to a young inexperienced roster, veterans that didn’t show for the home opener, and playing in front of a crowd that already ranks dead last in attendance.
However, is the league trying to take away the homegrown advantage Denver is trying to recapture?
From Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post.
“The NBA already has taken action to reduce that advantage through altered scheduling such as making Denver the first stop coming from the east or putting a day off between the games for teams coming from the west.”
The advantages Dempsey speaks of are of course the altitude; there is simply less oxygen to breath and circulate within players’ bodies at higher elevations and the fact that Denver isn’t close to any other NBA city. The closest would be Salt Lake City which is over a 2-hour flight from Denver. Also, for some reason the airport was built 30 minutes outside the city, adding to the late arrivals for visiting teams.
Dempsey continues:
“So here’s the problem as other teams see it: Denver has too much of an advantage in back-to-back games when the Nuggets are the second leg and said team is coming to play them from anywhere on the West Coast.”
So far the league hasn’t really acted on this agenda.
According to Pro Basketball Talk’s Dan Feldman the Nuggets nine of the 11 opponents Denver plays on the second game of a back-to-backs are playing the night before somewhere on the West Coast.
So far three out of the five Nuggets home games have come against teams coming off a back-to-back, which Denver has won two. Utah is one of the teams that came to Denver from the West Coast (they played in Salt Lake City the night before) while Portland and Milwaukee played on the East Coast before arriving to play in Denver the next day.
If the NBA is planning on limiting Denver’s home court advantage, it hasn’t taken the steps to do so this season.
Commissioner Adam Silver is always looking for ways to improve the product of the league and may look at Denver’s built-in advantage as one way to make the league more fair and balanced, but we’re not going to know until next season’s schedule is released if the league does indeed limit the amount of teams coming to Denver on the second game of back-to-backs.
