Most NBA fans at this point, have acknowledged that the Miami Heat’s 26-game-and-counting wining streak is impressive – almost as impressive as Florida Gulf Coast reaching the Sweet Sixteen, but still quite breathtaking (seriously, FGCU connected on more alley-oops in two games than I did in an entire lifetime playing old-school NBA Jam on Sega Genesis … but I digress). That being said, another impressive story is getting overlooked in the midst of all the bracket busters and hoops pundits trying to guess if the Heat will lose at all in the next three years – I’m talking about the Denver Nuggets and their 15-game winning streak, which came to a crashing halt at the hands of the New Orleans Hornets. Despite this set-back, let’s take a look at the streak…
Sure, having “only” 15 next to the Heat’s 26 seems like a feeble comparison, but a look at their roster might level the playing field in that regard. Miami’s roster came together in a once-in-a-lifetime mind meld of three of the game’s premier players; Denver’s came together through less glamorous circumstances and with far-less scrutinized players. Stuck with a first-round pick at No. 20 or lower for the last decade, they’ve managed to scoop up Kenneth Faried with the 22nd overall pick in 2011 and have seen him evolve into one of the league’s most fearsome rebounders. They’ve also managed to stockpile promising swingmen Evan Fournier and Quincy Miller (drafted at No. 20 and 38 overall respectively in 2012). Oh wait – let’s not forget those massive trades.
It’s not very often that a GM trades away an established superstar like Carmelo Anthony and actually improves his team in the long run. Despite the odds seemingly being stacked against him from the very beginning, Masai Ujiri of the Nuggets has managed to bring in talent like Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, JaVale McGee, Andre Iguodala, Ty Lawson, Andre Miller, Timofey Mozgov, Corey Brewer, Kosta Koufos and Jordan Hamilton via the trade market and craft a roster that, above all else, plays together – a rarity for a squad made up of other team’s spare parts. Add into the mix a free agent like Anthony Randolph, who was discarded by multiple organizations before landing in Denver, and you’ve got a group whose on-court ensemble is definitely greater than the sum of their parts.
Finally, we come to perhaps the most important part of this complex winning equation – head coach George Karl. He has turned an non-threatening roster, at least on paper, into a run-and-gun freight train that has definitely defied their season’s expectations. Sure, they were always going to be a playoff team, maybe even a strong 5th seed in the West, but I’m sure very few predicted that they would be sitting as of Monday, with the league’s fourth-best record and a legit chance of catching OKC (!) atop the Northwest Division and secure the second seed in the West.
The biggest difference? Karl has them playing amped-up defense this season, holding opponents to an average of just .445% from the field, good for 11th best in the NBA (Miami, by comparison, is 8th best at .440%). Mix that with the league’s 3rd-best offense, scoring an impressive 105.9 points per game, and you’ve got a cocktail that most other playoff-bound wouldn’t want to taste.
The Nuggets are sure to enjoy the home court advantage that will surely be coming their way. They’ve dominated teams in their barn this season, losing only three games all year, making a seventh-game scenario extremely favorable for the Nuggets if it’s played in Denver. Though the streak is now over, the fact remains that Ujiri, Karl and co. have transformed the Nuggets’ Island of Misfits Toys into a formidable squad that should have the rest of the West’s looking over their shoulders come April and May.
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photo credit: MattBritt00 via photopin cc
