The Nuggets will eliminate the Suns and might sweep them too

DENVER—The Denver Nuggets are 5-0 this postseason when they out-rebound their opponents.

In Saturday’s 125-107 win over the Phoenix Suns in Game 1, the pickaxes were plus-11 on the glass.

Of Denver’s west-leading 53 wins this season, the Nuggets out-rebounded their opponents 45 times.

You can read the rest of your story if you’d like, it’ll certainly give you more clarity on Phoenix’s glaring issues that were exposed in the first 48 minutes of this best-of-seven. But if you don’t read further you caught the important bit: there’s a correlation between the Nuggets work on the glass and their wins and they’re poised to windex more than Phoenix.

“When we have rebounded an opponent the winning percentage is damn-near 80%, five and nothing early in the playoffs so far,” coach Michael Malone said. “So I think we have all the ability in the world to go out there and rebound at a high level. That is not a gameplan—that’s effort, that’s physicality and that’s just focusing in on the task at hand. I definitely think that is something we can repeat come Game 2 on Monday.”

The Nuggets did come ready as evidenced by Jamal Murray’s game-high 34 points that ended in a shout to the crowd, “We’re ready for this.”

“He’s amazing, I think he is definitely showing what he’s capable of,” Nikola Jokic said of Murray. “And he’s our best player and we are following him right now. He’s bringing the energy, he’s bringing the toughness. Everybody’s following him.”

Jokic had a game-high 19 rebounds and had 14 in the first half to the Suns’ 15 at the break. But Jokic’s work on the glass was a little inflated, going 9-of-21 from the field and collecting many of his own misses.

“That’s how I get most of my rebounds, when I miss layups,” Jokic said. “But I think we controlled defensive rebounds. Whenever we control that part of the game, I think we win the game.”

It wasn’t just on the boards where the Nuggets beat up the Suns, they kind of just out-math’d them everywhere. Denver was able to shoot 101 times to the Suns’ 84 — in part due to rebounds— but also because of a plus-seven margin in turnovers.

Christian Braun and Bruce Brown combined for seven steals alone, as Denver forced 16 turnovers, seven of which came from Kevin Durant.

Now that’s not likely to repeat, the all-world KD only had nine games over the past three years, including in the playoffs, (159 games played) where he had that many or more turnovers. And Denver’s 43% make from deep isn’t going to stand up for four wins either and Murray probably won’t cook for 30-plus a night over the series.

Despite Durant’s lack of care for the rock, he was mostly good on both ends and he and Devin Booker basically tallied their averages.

In fact, all four of the Suns top rebounders were either within one or bested their season norm.

And, while Denver’s deep-range shooting was great, they were sub-par in the paint and truthfully didn’t play their best offensive game.

All I’m saying is the math didn’t work for the Suns in Game 1 and the math says the math won’t work the rest of the series unless there’s a significant change in effort on either side. And a lull is very unlikely for the Nuggets core, who have been waiting on this moment for years.

“Very important,” Aaron Gordon said of the battle of the boards. “It almost seems like rebounding is a direct correlation to us winning.”

The Suns only play two players who are over 6-foot-7 for more than 12 minutes a night, Denver plays four. The star power may be bigger in the desert but the manpower is larger in the mountains and it’s going to win the Nuggets this second-round series, the only question is how soon.

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