If there are moral victories in the NBA the Nuggets just scored one

PHOENIX—Down four starters the Denver Nuggets wandered the desert a night after getting run off their home floor and saw a similar result in the standings and a very different one in feeling.

Without Nikola Jokic, sitting with calf tightness, the Nuggets have lost on two nights in a row by 19 points at home and seven on the road. Coming weeks ahead of the playoffs and with first place still not locked up, Denver is walking a fine line.

While balancing the Nuggets found something.

I’m not sure what they found, at least not yet but it could be something good.

Say what you will about Michael Malone, everyone knows my boss James Merilatt has, but gosh do his teams battle. Sometimes Malone makes a battle necessary when they’re not required and maybe the last two nights fall into that category. Boy, do they have stones, whether it’s coming back from down 3-1, winning in Utah with seven players, or pulling what they did on Friday.

Down 27 in the second half the reserve Nuggets cut the Suns lead all the way down to four late at their own barn and had chances to make it closer. On top of that, Denver couldn’t shoot.

“We had every reason in the world just to kind of roll over and play dead and get ready for Sunday at home,” Malone said. “And guys just wouldn’t do it—they competed. We got stops, outscored them 53 to 40 in the second half.”

It was gall, defense, physicality and hunger from a bunch of Nuggets you normally never see.

“We just competed. We never let go of the rope. And to do that against that team…there are no moral victories, but I can be proud of our team,” Malone said. “And that’s how I feel about a group right now.”

Aaron Gordon led the way with 26 points on 23 shots, adding eight boards and six helpers. The lone regular Nuggets starter was joined by 16 points from Bruce Brown, 12 rebounds from DeAndre Jordan, 13 points from Reggie Jackson and 11 points from Christian Braun in the starting lineup.

Nothing overly impressive, still consider this, the Nuggets shot 23% from deep on 26 chances, and only hit 11 of their 20 free throws. A couple of makes, especially from Jackson—who missed eight of his nine threes—or Gordon, who missed six free throws, and Denver could’ve scored one of the more improbable wins of the NBA season.

“Yeah I was proud because for the most part, the guys who were playing tonight are reserve-reserves,” Ish Smith, who has only played over 10 minutes 14 times this season said. “So we put our heart into it and all played hard. We didn’t make shots. But we played hard as we possibly can and tried to make it difficult for them and we had a chance to win the game.”

Perfect. All of this isn’t to mention what the Nuggets may have found.

Denver’s closing lineup consisted of Gordon, Brown, Jackson, Zeke Nnaji and Peyton Watson. Before that Vlatko Cancar and Braun were part of the same successful strategy. The Nuggets backups messed around and switched everything. Denver’s reserves one time played around and put into zone with Nnaji at the top on the guards. Malone used the game as a trial run to throw some looks at the Suns… and the Nuggets almost won without four of their five best players.

Particularly impressive was Watson, who easily logged a career-high 27 minutes. And 16 of those came in a row to close the game because Malone couldn’t take him out. He was the only plus Nugget at positive five and between him and fellow rookie Braun, the team finished valiantly against all-time great Kevin Durant.

Maybe it’s a hint of what the Nuggets could do in the playoffs, especially when Jokic is off the floor. But we got a real deal look at Nnaji and Gordon switching the vaunted Chris Paul—DeAndre Ayton pick and roll, and it kind of worked.

So maybe that’s something, maybe it’s Game 77 and this is nothing.

The Nuggets magic number for first place sits at three with five games left, two of which are at home. The West will likely go through Denver but the Suns sure are something and these two teams are gonna meet at some point. In fact, the Nuggets will see the west favorite again on Thursday in Arizona.

Phoenix is now 5-0 when KD plays so all of this might be moot and when I say all of it I don’t mean this story, I mean this season, as a whole. So this is, the fine line the Nuggets walk. What’s real? We don’t know. Is all this rest helping or hurting? Don’t know. What’s a morale victory worth anyway? Don’t know. Is this the year Denver finally breaks through to the Finals? Don’t know.

“It’d be great to get that group together to play some and continue working towards the postseason and have as much chemistry and continuity heading into the postseason,” Malone said.

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