As Nuggets begin franchise defining playoff journey, here’s everything to know

The Denver Nuggets just finished a highly successful regular-season and sure the first place next to their name tells you that but diving in shows just how well it went.

The top three goals for this year’s team over the 82 games were clear:

1. Stay healthy
2. Reintegrate Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. after serious injuries
3. Add pieces around the core and build chemistry

53-29 later and all three of those things have been resounding successes.

Now that’s not to say the regular season was perfect or that there weren’t issues. But we’re going to get what we’ve been waiting years for; a Nikola Jokic-led playoff run supported by a competent supporting cast. Here’s where the pickaxes are at and everything you need to know about Mile High City hoops headed into the postseason.

The back-to-back MVP played a career-low 69 games and he just missed out on average a triple-double for the season, falling 12 assists short. He led the NBA with 29 triple-doubles, averaging 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 helpers on a league-best .701 true shooting percentage and 31.5 Player Efficiency Rating. This equated to an NBA-best 14.9 WS, 13.0 BPM and an 8.8 VORP from Jokic.

The Nuggets star center is likely to finish second place in MVP voting despite likely having the best cast for the award. One could make a case that Jokic was so valuable to the Nuggets and good this season that he nor the team really had to try or play for the final six weeks of the season, thus tanking his MVP candidacy. Jokic missed five of the final seven games and has not played over 30 minutes in a game since beating the Joel Embiid-less 76ers on March 27.

Like he has in the past, Jokic hit buzzer-beaters, gone for 40-plus, and had insanely efficient triple-doubles throughout the year. The middle months of the season were the best we’ve seen yet out of the seven-foot Serbian.

Also, the best he’s ever been was Aaron Gordon who refined his game to work perfectly in tandem alongside Jokic in the front court. AG’s numbers won’t jump off the page but he was the team’s best defender, played through bruises and Swiss army knifed his way into helping the team in whichever way they needed it just about any night. Gordon’s known dunking skills, translated to fifth-most in the league despite only playing 68 games.

Murray and Porter each got back to about where they were before devastating injuries robbed both of last season. Murray averaged a career-high 6.2 assists, scored exactly 20 points per game and his shooting numbers were pretty good. There were flashes where Murray looked even better than he did before his ACL snapped, but later in the season he looked a little sluggish. From before the All-Star Break on, Murray was on the injury report with both knees being banged up and a thumb injury. Still, we’ll get one of the best two-man games in Jokic and Murray for the playoffs. Quietly MPJ actually developed into a great Jokic dance partner. The Nuggets offense was its best this season when MPJ and Jokic were on the floor no matter who else was around them. Porter progressively improved throughout the season and has recently re-flashed his superstar potential. He’s also gotten much better on defense and found ways to use his 6-10 frame to not be played off the court and even better, become part of the Nuggets best five-man defensive unit with Jokic, Gordon and newcomers Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown.

KCP was part of the Nuggets big trade last summer which sent Will Barton and Monte Morris to the Wizards. He has been the Nuggets primary on-ball defender and has been a great floor spacer shooting 42% from deep for the season. Pope rounds out the the Nuggets starting five and has brought a championship pedigree from his time with the Lakers into the fold. He has been sick recently and his shooting has slumped some since the All-Star Break, both things worth monitoring.

While KCP hasn’t performed his best recently Bruce Brown has. Playing in 80 games this season, Brown picked up the slack over the last few weeks with the starters resting. The free-agent addition from the Nets has spent time at every position but center for the Nuggets and has been the perfect six-man who can fill gaps, hit corner threes and is great at cutting.

Behind Brown in the likely playoff rotation are veteran Jeff Green and rookie Christian Braun. Green still has some great athleticism while Brown is a winning player who has added a lot to the Nuggets defense. There are several other players we may see contribute to Denver but think of them more as bullpen pitchers who are matchup dependent. Deandre Jordan and Zeke Nnaji are options if Denver needs to go big, Reggie Jackson can provide a scoring punch, Vlatko Cancar is a capable connector and Peyton Watson is a rookie who has excelled defensively recently.

Overall the group finished with the fifth-best offense by rating and the fiftieth-best defense. In the clutch, which is a better representation of how the playoffs are likely to be played, the Nuggets had the 13th-best offense and third-best defense.

You can extrapolate something from that. Every team for the last 40 years has ranked top five in either offense, defense, or both, with only four outliers, one of them being the Bucks from two years ago who were sixth in offense. Further, 25 of the last 27 NBA Champions were top 10 in defensive rating the season they won the title. The only exceptions were the 2018 Warriors (11th) and the 2001 Lakers (21st.) So if the Nuggets are to win 16 games and a ring, they will be somewhat outliers but their clutch numbers predict that maybe it’s possible for them to be one of the outliers.

The Nuggets path to the NBA Finals will be through Denver, but they’re going to get tough matchups along the way. Their first-round opponent will be decided on Friday when the winner of the loser of Lakers and Wolves the and the winner of Pelicans and Thunder face off. All four are mediocre teams but represent different challenges. The Nuggets would then have to face the winner of Suns-Clippers. Most thing Phoenix is the team to beat in the west since adding future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant to the already strong core that swept Denver out of the playoffs in 2021 en route to an NBA Finals appearance. Then the Nuggets could get defending champs Golden State, upstart Memphis, or the surprise Sacramento Kings.

None of these will be the Nuggets toughest opponent, that will be themselves. Nobody can beat Denver when the team brings their A-game, but can they? After losing five of seven to end the season and staying just above .500 since the All-Star Break, did the Nuggets peak already? Nobody is quite sure which Nuggets will show up on Sunday but everyone has been waiting for this moment for over two years.

Missing from the playoff runs of the past two seasons will be the lack of spacing and talent Denver still squeezed by Portland with. Gone are some of the decision-makers that frustrated fans but so too is Bones Hyland, who helped the Nuggets win a game against the Warriors but was ousted from the team.

Still, the last time Murray and Jokic were healthy in the playoffs the young duo led the team to the Western Conference Final, the furthest the franchise has ever been. They’ve been robbed of building off of that since. Given where guys are at in age, contract status, health and opponents, this could be the Nuggets best chance ever at getting to the NBA Finals.