The Denver Nuggets haven’t been taking advantage of their best asset this season

For years, coming to Denver and Ball Arena to take on the Nuggets has been a challenge for every team in the NBA. Whether it’s the altitude, the fans or another external factor, the Nuggets have consistently had a great home advantage for years.

This season, that advantage has gone away somewhat, as Denver is 22-10 at home so far this season, tied for the sixth-best record in the league. The Nuggets have the best home record in the entire league (103-29) since 2022 and the second-best record since 2016 (270-109). While having a top-six record this year is good, it’s not the standard this team is used to.

Seven of the ten losses at Ball Arena this year are by double-digits. The last time that happened was the 2021-2022 season in which the Nuggets played practically the entire season without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. while going 24-19 at home.

You have to go all the way back to the 2016-2017 season to find the last time a healthy Denver team lost at least seven home games by double digits. Jokic was in his second season in the league and only averaging 4.9 assists per game, Jamal Murray was a rookie averaging 9.9 points per game and Michael Malone was in his second season as the head coach of the Nuggets.

Aside for the COVID-impacted campaigns… This will be the Nuggets first season with 10 or more home losses since 19-20 (10.) They had 11 in 17-18 but you really have to go back to 16-17's 19 home losses to find a demonstrably worse year at home for Denver.

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) March 13, 2025

What’s the deal in Ball Arena this year?

All of the Nuggets’ double-digit home losses this year have come against playoff contenders. The worst team record-wise is Minnesota, but the Timberwolves are on a hot streak and soaring out of the Play-In Tournament.

In all seven games, the Nuggets have lost the first quarter, putting themselves in a hole instantly. On top of that, they have either tied or lost the third quarter in all seven games. This shows that whatever gameplan head coach Michael Malone draws up before the game or coming out of halftime is instantly getting negated by the opposing coach.

While the Nuggets have pulled off a decent amount of comeback victories, a lot of those have come against non-playoff teams. When they play the best competition, they have consistently gotten off to slow starts and haven’t been able to make up the ground.

This season, the Nuggets have averaged 121.1 points per game, good for third in the NBA. However, in these seven games, Denver has scored 108 points or fewer in five. They have been unable to generate offense at home against some of the top defenses in the league, and they only have so many games to figure it out.

For the rest of the season, Denver still hosts the Lakers (tonight), the Bucks, the Timberwolves, the Pacers and the Grizzlies. While the Lakers will not be the same team Friday as they will be in the playoffs due to injuries, the last matchup showed that they have a new method to guard Nikola Jokic that works.

Denver is only one game ahead of the fifth-seeded Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Playoffs. If the Nuggets want to have home court in at least the first round of the playoffs, they need to figure out their home issues down the stretch in the regular season.

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