Nuggets are primed for a big run thanks to steadying play from X-factor

DENVER—It should be no surprise if the Denver Nuggets break off a massive run over the next few weeks—their starting five is again healthy, there are a lot of home games upcoming, young players are now clicking and the team’s X-factor is putting his game together.

After a hot few weeks to start the season the Nuggets have hovered around, surviving multiple ejections of Nikola Jokic, a lengthy injury to Jamal Murray, missed time by Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and a heaping of road games. Denver is in a great spot at 18-10, third in the West with a better record at this point than they had during last year’s championship-winning season. But this is the exact time Denver was at the beginning of a stretch that saw the team go 19-2 a year ago. The streak basically locked up the No. 1 seed very early. Could history repeat itself?

The Nuggets just finished a 2-1 homestand and are winners of four games out of the last five. Denver has a three-game road trip to the East Coast where they’ll face three teams in the bottom half of the East. The Nuggets then return home for a slate of eight games out of 10 at Ball Arena. Including that immediate future, the Nuggets have the easiest remaining strength of schedule in the west and will have many rest advantage games ahead. There’s a real chance we’re already in the midst of the season-defining 15-2 stretch or something along those lines.

“We’re gonna get there, to start the season the fatigue set in a little bit for us with the traveling we were doing but the home stretch now with a little rest, we’re gonna make a little run,” Caldwell-Pope said on Monday.

The reasons to believe now is the time have been on display over the past few games. Caldwell-Pope’s return to the lineup on Monday against Dallas was huge and came just a few nights after Murray’s return to the roster for good, hopefully. Meaning the Nuggets are whole.

“I think we’re doing pretty good. I don’t think we’re playing the best, I’ve been in and out of the rotation. I don’t think I’ve played 30 minutes in some amount of games, but we’re still just trying to find our rhythm, and all be on the court healthy a long time and let that be consistent,” Murray said Monday night. “Guys are hitting shots some games and some games guys aren’t. For the most part, I think we’ve done a pretty solid job. We just got to be able to do it game to game. Playing a lot of real games early on in the schedule, I don’t want to say we’re tired but it takes an effect sometimes we just gotta keep our awareness and our level of intensity up, especially on the road.”

The biggest sign of life against the Mavericks was not recently injured players performing but Aaron Gordon looking like he did in the playoffs again. In the Nuggets 130-104 blowout win, AG scored 21 points on nine shots with five boards and five helpers in just 24 minutes of action. Not only was it just the second time Gordon has hit multiple deep balls in a game, it was just the third time he cashed on five or more foul shots in a contest this year. Simply said, Gordon’s shot has struggled to start the season. His field goal percentage over his first 19 games this year was down almost eight percentage points and his scoring followed by dropping four points a contest.

“I’m a little bit more deliberate with what I’m trying to do offensively,” Gordon said. “I’m going to be me on defense but now it’s about being consistent on both ends and in the in-between game. I’m just trying to be great for my team, I know what my team needs and they need me to be who I am.”

Over the last five games, Gordon is basically putting up his exact averages from a season ago and on slightly more efficient shooting numbers. If this holds true for the next 20 games, it’s the elixir that led to the Nuggets significant run last winter and 16-4 record in the postseason. In the simplistic stat that is GameScore, a more consumable player efficiency rating, the Nuggets are 12-4 in games this season where Gordon has recorded a mark better than the NBA average of 10. Monday’s game was Gordon’s best of the year, earning a GameScore of 23.1, which followed his previous best, Saturday night’s 20.4. In the playoffs last summer, two of the Nuggets four losses came in contests where Gordon went under 10 in GameScore.

“I think Aaron’s been playing at a high level as of late and what I love about AGs play as of late is that he’s been aggressive. He’s been assertive,” Michael Malone said on Monday. “He’s been playing downhill. He’s been rim-running in transitions and sitting down for early post-ups. He got a couple tonight. And he’s at his best when he’s attacking the basket. And when he can mix that in with knocking down his free throws and making open threes, now you get the Aaron Gordon that we saw last year in the playoffs, so he’s such an important piece to our team. It was a hell of a performance by him (tonight.)”

The starting unit coming back together has allowed Reggie Jackson and the roommates of Christian Braun, Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther to fall into a more usual role which all four are thriving in.

If the Nuggets break off an absurd run this season like they did last, expect it to be now.