"We got booed off the court one time": The once soft Nuggets are finally playing with an edge

DENVER — Seven games into Gary Harris’ rookie season, boos rained down on him and his Nuggets teammates at Pepsi Center. On that mid-November night in 2014, the Portland Trail Blazers rolled into Denver on the second night of a back-to-back and hung 84 points in the first half. It was an embarrassing effort in a season full of them. Then head coach Brian Shaw was canned four months later. Denver’s roster needed to be rebuilt.

On Monday night — roughly 3 1/2 years after getting booed at home — Harris took the court once again against the Trail Blazers. He was back in the lineup after missing 11 games with a right knee strain. The stakes this time couldn’t have been more different. The Nuggets needed a win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Denver got one — scratching and clawing its way to an 88-82 victory — in front of a raucous home crowd.

“It’s huge. We got booed off the court one time,” said Harris, thinking back to his rookie season. “Now to see the stands filled and everybody cheering, ‘Let’s go Nuggets.’ It’s amazing. It’s an amazing feeling.”

The Nuggets could never get into any sort of rhythm offensively but beat Portland anyway, the type of grind-it-out win that seemed unimaginable as many as four seasons ago and as recently as four weeks ago. Denver has ripped off six wins in a row. It needs one more Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves to guarantee a trip to the postseason for the first time since 2013.

“That’s all we’re thinking about: playoffs,” Harris said. “Playoffs, playoffs, playoffs.”

The rebuild effort has chugged along steadily, not suddenly. The Nuggets won 30 games Harris’ rookie season, 33 his sophomore season and 40 in his third. They hit the 46-win total by beating Portland. The Nuggets were still considered a soft team as they narrowly missed out on a playoff spot last year. They could hang 120 on anyone, but even the Kings seemed capable of scoring 120 on them. That finally seems to be changing.

Denver harassed Portland into a 31-for-94 shooting performance. Damian Lillard scored 25 points, but he needed 22 shots to get there. C.J. McCollum missed 13 of the 18 shots he chucked up. The Nuggets forced the Trail Blazers into six turnovers and limited them to 14 points in the fourth quarter.

“That was beyond playoff physical,” Paul Millsap said. “For me, definitely a playoff atmosphere. Our guys came in and accepted the challenge against a good playoff team.”

Millsap was signed last summer in free agency above all else for his defense. Denver was the second-worst defensive team in basketball last season. It’s still struggled on that end most of this year, but Millsap said he’s seen improvement lately.

“I think this whole year we’ve been trying to establish an identity,” Millsap said. “We’ve always been an offensive team. Now we’re locked in on defense. Tonight was a prime example of what happens when we play defense. When your offense isn’t going right, you’ve got to find a way to win games. We did it tonight with stops.”

The Nuggets are allowing 101.5 points per 100 possessions in their last four games. They’ve picked up wins over the Pacers, Timberwolves and Trail Blazers this month even though their offense hasn’t hummed along as usual.

On Monday, they limited Portland to just 82 points for the entire game — two fewer than they gave up in the first half to the Trail Blazers back in the early part of Harris’ rookie year.

“Everybody put their egos to the side,” Harris said. “We’re trying to do whatever we can to win. We don’t care about points. We don’t care about assists. Everybody is  coming together as a team, trying to help each other out. That’s what we’ve been doing — playing great team basketball. Everybody’s been selfless this whole way.”