Will this be the year Denver finally gets over the line? With the West being wide open this season, it seems like this will be the Denver Nuggets best chance of winning the conference and making it to the team’s first Finals appearance.
There has been a big question ever since the Nuggets uber-talented Serbian center Nikola Jovic developed into the 2X and back-to-back MVP player: when will the Denver Nuggets finally jump to the next level and become the elite franchise it has the potential to be?
For the past 4 years, the story of the Denver Nuggets has been great regular season success bitterly mixed with miserable playoff misery as they have been bounced before the Finals round in each of the last four postseasons.
In fact, in the last three years, the Nuggets have been bounced by the eventual West representative (2020: Los Angeles Lakers, 2021: Phoenix Suns, and 2022: Golden State Warriors) to the Finals, which has to feel good in some respect and also hurt like hell in others.
Such a statistic shows that the Nuggets are close to getting over that elusive Finals hump, yet if they continue to just “stay close” then they’ll find themselves further away before they know it. A franchise’s championship window always arrives faster than one expects and closes even quicker, and it appears that the Nuggets realize this as they have been lights out this season.
Nikola Jokic has been his normal, MVP-level self as he’s averaged 25.0 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 9.8 APG, 1.4 SPG, and 0.6 BPG, while the supporting cast of Jamal Murray (18.5 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 5.4 APG), Aaron Gordon (16.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 2.6 APG), and Michael Porter Jr. (16.5 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 1.2 APG) have also been fantastic as they all have averaged at least 16.0 PPG and 4.0 RPG.
Clearly, secondary scoring and rebounding has not been an issue for the Nuggets this season, which is a big reason as to why they currently have 31 wins (2nd most in the NBA), a 31-13 record (2nd best in the NBA), and are atop the West by 0.5 games.
Like always, the Nuggets are one of the league’s best teams being powered by a great supporting cast and the back-to-back league MVP. Still, all of these regular season accolades won’t mean a thing if they can’t beat teams like the Grizzlies, Suns, Pelicans, Warriors, Clippers, and Mavericks in the playoffs to get to the Finals.
So, do I think they can? Well, of course, but it’s going to take a level of dedication the Nuggets have yet to showcase in the playoffs.
I think they can easily sweep aside teams like the Clippers, Mavericks, and even the Suns as all of these sides have a crippling issue that will derail them once April comes. The Mavericks are too reliant on Luka Doncic and don’t have a good enough supporting cast to take up the slack, the Clippers superstars have a strange aversion to stepping on the court, and the Suns’ championship window has passed as internal strife has overtaken the chemistry of the team.
And I can even make a case where the Nuggets can beat the Grizzlies if they can slow down Ja Morant as the supporting cast of Denver is far better (in my humble opinion) than Memphis’.
However, like it has been in the last four years, the Nuggets big test will come when they meet a team like the Warriors or Pelicans in the NBA Western Conference Finals. That’s when we will see if this Denver roster has the fortitude to beat a really good Western team to make it to the Finals.
Nevertheless, I do believe this very well could be the year the Nuggets make that step as this is the best Nuggets roster ever assembled…period.
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