Was the Nuggets' defense against the Hornets a step in the right direction?

It wasn’t pretty, but the Nuggets got a 119-115 win Sunday night over the Hornets. Coming out on the right side of the scoreboard against a 7-23 Charlotte squad was the only thing that mattered to Michael Malone.

“We haven’t held an opponent to 42% in a long time,” Malone said. “We haven’t held an opponent to 31% from 3 in a long time.”

Denver found a way. Barely. The Nuggets held the NBA’s worst offense to a poor shooting night. They held the NBA’s worst 3-point shooting team to another bad performance from beyond the arc. To Malone’s point, the last time Denver held a team to 42% shooting in a game was Nov. 18 against Dallas. That was one month and 15 games ago.

Those are the types of victories that Denver has to take right now. It’s been a disastrous season for the Nuggets on the defensive end of the floor. They’ve been so much worse than anyone anticipated. And while their defensive effort against such a poor offensive team like Charlotte doesn’t give you much confidence that Denver is any closer to reaching the defensive ceiling that we thought this team would have heading into this season, it was at least a small step in the right direction.

The Nuggets’ best defensive stretch of the night came late in the 2nd quarter when they reeled off a 17-4 run to end the half and turned a 48-38 Hornets advantage with 4:56 left in the second quarter to a 55-52 lead when the clock ran out. Over that nearly five-minute stretch, the Hornets shot 1-9 from the floor and 1-5 from 3-point range.

It featured a couple of defensive sequences that flashed the potential that this group has.

Bruce Brown’s close out and contest here was a thing of beauty.

The Nuggets currently rank 27th in the NBA in defense. Last night’s performance was good enough to jump the team they were playing, the Hornets, and move up from 28th. On the season, Denver’s defense has only been better than Charlotte, Detroit and San Antonio.

It’s been an embarrassing start to say the least. The Nuggets have looked unserious on defense this entire year. They can’t stay in front of their matchup on the perimeter. They don’t communicate. They don’t get back on defense after makes and misses. They can’t defend the rim. They can’t rotate with the speed or precision requried on the perimeter to keep up with a competent offense. They give up wide-open corner 3s way too often. Star players have the easiest nights of their season against Denver. The Nuggets take no pride in their defense. There doesn’t seem to be much buy-in to what the coaching staff is preaching. They’ve shown little discipline, focus and haven’t come close to giving the amount of defensive effort required to win a championship.

After an offseason where the Nuggets invested heavily in their defensive personnel, there’s been a healthy amount of frustration behind the scenes and within the organization. How are the Nuggets this bad defensively?

“There’s no way in hell we should be 28th in defensive efficiency,” Malone said last night. “That’s just the bottom line. You can’t tell me that in my eight years in Denver this is our worst defensive team. No one can ever convince me of that. So that’s where I’ve got to continue to find ways to help these guys.”

That 17-4 run to end the first half vs. Charlotte was at least a positive that Denver can look back on and hopefully build off of. The Nuggets have proven in fourth quarters this season that they can defend when they want to. When they focus, they can lock in and play real defense. Denver ranks second in the NBA in clutch defense this season — when the score is within five points with five minutes or less remaining — and is giving up just 82.3 points per 100 possessions in those moments. The late-second quarter stretch last night was reminiscent of one of those clutch performances.

Who knows if this is a definite step in the right direction. We’ll see when the Nuggets face the Grizzlies Tuesday at Ball Arena. It should be a telling game that starts what will be a revealing stretch for Denver.

The Nuggets’ next 10 games are all against teams that are .500 or better. Nine of Denver’s next 10 opponents are current playoff teams with Timberwolves as the one outlier. Every one of those teams — Memphis, Portland, Phoenix, Sacramento (twice), Miami, Boston, Minnesota, LA Clippers and Cleveland — is a massive step up from the one that walked into Denver on Sunday and nearly stole a win.

We’ll find out very soon if the Nuggets are actually building toward something real on defense.