The streaking Nuggets' toughest opponent right now? It's themselves

The Nuggets are officially the hottest team in the NBA. Hotter than the No. 1 seeded Jazz, the second-seeded Suns, and a Denver rooftop bar in July.

The Nuggets have won nine of their last 10 games. That’s something no other team in the league can say. Nikola Jokic is the clear frontrunner for MVP, Michael Porter Jr. has morphed into one of the most efficient and effective scores in the league, and Jamal Murray is able to rest a sore knee while the Nuggets continues to rattle off victories.

Denver’s 121-119 win over the San Antonio Spurs was the Nuggets’ eighth win in a row. It’s the Nuggets’ longest winning streak of the Jokic era and the most consecutive games Denver has won since 2013.

Life is as good as a Sunday afternoon at Wash Park with a Breck Brew in hand. But it could be better.

Friday was too close for comfort. The Nuggets walked to their locker room at halftime with a 61-50 lead after dishing out 20 assists on 23 made baskets. Denver was on the verge of another double-digit victory, something which has become somewhat of a regularity for Michael Malone’s crew over the last couple of weeks.

But in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets turned the ball over seven times leading to 11 Spurs points. Overall, Denver gave the ball away 18 times, which resulted in 30 San Antonio points. It’s the only reason why Friday’s narrow win wasn’t the Nuggets’ fifth double-digit victory over their current eight-game winning streak.

“Once we take care of the ball,” Monte Morris said postgame. “I don’t feel like any team can guard us.”

As was the case Friday, the only team that can consistently slow one of the NBA’s most potent attacks, limit the number of open shots Jokic generates for his teammates, and force Denver into contested jump shots that don’t come within the flow of its offense is the Nuggets themselves. Denver is that good. On the season, the Nuggets are the NBA’s third-best offense and 15th-best defense and have won 17 out of their last 20 games.

Ever since one of the low points of the regular season on February 25th when the then 17-15 Nuggets couldn’t execute a 3-on-1 fastbreak with the game on the line against the Wizards, Denver has lost just three games.

3/13 vs. Dallas: Denver runs into a hiccup with its COVID testing that the team says threw off its gameday schedule. Murray shoots just 4-13 from the field in the loss.

3/21 vs. New Orleans: The Pelicans grab 14 offensive rebounds and Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram and Nickeil Alexander-Walker combine for 80 points.

3/24 at Toronto: The night before the trade deadline and in what many thought was Kyle Lowry’s last game (including him) in a Raptors uniform, Toronto ends a nine-game losing streak.

That’s it.

The Nuggets are clearly contenders. They have the offense, the shooters, the scorers, the playmakers, and that coveted extra gear that all great teams possess. We’ve seen it several times over this current run. Denver has the coaching and defense too. I don’t care that the Nuggets are only the NBA’s 15th-ranked defense on the season. They can lock in when it matters.

In Aaron Gordon, Denver has a devoted lockdown defender to throw at LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard in a playoff series. In Facu Campazzo and PJ Dozier (we’ll see about two-way player Shaq Harrison), Denver has defensive specialists to throw at Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell.

For the first time in my five years covering the team, I genuinely think the Nuggets can win the championship. This is a special group assembled by president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. The top-end talent is ridiculous. I challenge you to find a better Big 3 outside of Brooklyn than Jokic, who finished with 26 points, 13 rebounds and 14 assists Friday, Murray and Porter. Over Porter’s last 22 games — he’s played in 42 games total this season — he’s averaging 20 points on 58.6% shooting from the field and 51.3% from three. If you haven’t realized it yet, the kid is a star.

The depth? Denver has that too. Monte Morris chipped in 21 points on 7-8 shooting to go with three rebounds and two assists against the Spurs. He looks like he’s set on reclaiming his title as the best backup point guard in the league. Will Barton is as dangerous of a fifth starter as you can find. Behind Gordon and Jokic, Denver has three rotation-caliber bigs in JaMychal Green, Paul Millsap and JaVale McGee.

Divvying up minutes among those three is the pressing dilemma that Malone’s currently facing. Here’s his full response to a question I posed to him Friday about how he’ll rotate those three players in and out of the lineup.

“That’s my biggest challenge right now. You have Paul Millsap, who’s been a starter here for four years. You have JaVale McGee, who we traded for at the trade deadline. And you have JaMychal Green, who we pursued heavily in free agency. All those guys bring value to our team, but it is truly impossible to play all three. On back-to-backs, I may look to sit Paul Millsap. Thirty-six years old, try to give him some games off. JaVale, he didn’t play when he first got here so this was the first chance for Paul and JaVale to play together. And last game, I thought JaMychal Green was great. I just wanted to give JaVale and Paul a look.”

“We’ll probably experiment a little bit and give guys different looks. They’ve all been very professional. I have to stay that. It’s not easy. I don’t think any of them love the situation. But what trumps everything is this. We’re trying to win a championship. We need all 15 guys in that locker room. And it’s about sacrificing and investing in each other if that is truly our goal. And the guys have been tremendous with their professionalism. As long as I communicate with them, I think they’ll continue to be that way.”

My read is that Denver eventually settles on a Green-McGee pairing as its default second unit frontcourt. McGee just makes plays. He’s so long and lanky, and I can’t believe how athletic he still is at 33-years-old. McGee hauled in 10 rebounds (two offensive) on Friday, but turned the ball over three times and still needs time to acclimate to Denver’s system. McGee has committed nine personal fouls in 30 minutes over his three games with the Nuggets and somehow has almost as high of a foul rate as the foul-prone center that he swapped places with at the trade deadline.

McGee’s athleticism combined with Green’s shooting, team defense, and ability to fit with more lineups and combinations than Millsap does could be the answer off Denver’s bench. I think that’s where the Nuggets eventually land. But how to assign minutes to the back-end of the Nuggets’ rotation is truly a first-world problem for Denver at this stage in its journey.

That’s what the NBA’s regular season is. It’s a journey to find yourself and your team. A journey to determine who you can and cannot trust. A journey to discover what your best lineups and combinations are. The Nuggets still have 20 games to figure out what their optimal playoff rotation will be. Denver has 20 games to clean up the mistakes that nearly allowed the Nuggets to beat themselves on Friday.

Then in 20 games, another entire journey starts.

“We know our ultimate goals, Porter said. “This is just steps in the process. So we’re going to keep fighting to be that team. Our goal is to win a championship.”