{"id":118765,"date":"2025-01-18T14:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T19:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=118765"},"modified":"2025-01-18T14:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T19:46:10","slug":"nuggets-are-climbing-up-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/18\/nuggets-are-climbing-up-standings\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Nuggets are Sneakily Climbing Up the Standings"},"content":{"rendered":"

After starting the season 11-10, the Denver Nuggets were sitting at ninth in the Western Conference standings<\/a>. They were without an identity<\/a> and struggling to win games consistently. Twenty games later, the Nuggets are 25-16 with control of a top-four seed in a strong conference. They have finally found an identity, which has allowed them to win 14 of their last 20 games. With half the season over, the Nuggets are fourth in the standings. They are only 1.5 games back of the Memphis Grizzlies and 2.5 back of the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n

Denver Nuggets are Sneakily Climbing Up the Standings<\/h2>\n

Finding an Identity<\/h3>\n

The Nuggets as a team did not find their identity for a while. Starting the season, the team played hero ball hoping Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a> would save them and propel them to victory. Although they could pull out wins, Joki\u0107 was playing too many minutes. With the Nuggets being championship hopefuls, they must keep their stars fresh. Throughout his first 23 games of the season, the Nuggets were playing Joki\u0107 37.5 minutes per game. In his last 12 games, his minutes have decreased to 35.4 minutes per game. Although it’s not a significant decrease, it can be a big difference throughout the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

The reason for Joki\u0107’s decreased minutes has been the improved play of the rest of the roster. They have figured out how to play with one another. Although the team is still learning<\/a>\u00a0to play without Joki\u0107, they have shown improvement at playing with and without him. Michael Malone has tested several lineups and is finding players who play well together.<\/p>\n

DeAndre Jordan<\/a> has earned the backup center minutes and has played well in that role. He is providing rim protection and is a lob threat thriving alongside his fellow veteran \u2014 Russell Westbrook<\/a>. Westbrook has found his role<\/a> and is thriving alongside the starting lineup and leading the second unit. He has created a new dynamic duo alongside Joki\u0107, adding another deadly two-man duo for the Nuggets.<\/p>\n

The biggest difference in the Nuggets’ rise in the standings is Jamal Murray<\/a> finding his groove. His recent play<\/a> has been reminiscent of his former self and more aligned with his expectations. He is scoring more by shooting better from the floor and three. When Murray shoots well it opens up the offense more and allows his playmaking to flourish. Throughout his first 17 games<\/a>, he had one game of 20 or more points and eight or more assists. In his last 18 games, he has five of those games.<\/p>\n

Increased Defensive Intensity<\/h3>\n

After finding their identity, the Nuggets have since been able to re-shift their intensity toward the defensive end. With Murray and Westbrook flourishing offensively, their defense has tightened up. Having other players step up has made the Nuggets less reliant on Joki\u0107 on offense. That has allowed him to turn more of his effort to the defensive end, where he was struggling<\/a> to begin the season.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets give up the eighth-most points per game<\/a> this season, allowing their opponents to score 115.9 points. Throughout October, November, and December, they won by simply outshooting teams. January has been a different story as they have increased their effort. After giving up 118.8 points per game in October<\/a>, 114.9 in November,<\/a> and 119.5 in December<\/a>, they have only allowed 111.1 in January<\/a>. They went from allowing their opponents to shoot above 46% from the field in each of the first three months to only 44.6% this month.<\/p>\n

Consistently providing defensive energy will allow the Nuggets to climb the standings even further, but they have shown improvement in an area they have struggled at. The Nuggets finding their offensive groove has allowed them to shift more of their effort toward defense, which has paid dividends. Their net rating in January<\/a> is +9.1, fourth among all teams. If the Nuggets continue to provide solid production at both ends of the court, they could have a shot at another deep playoff run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After starting the season 11-10, the Denver Nuggets were sitting at ninth in the Western Conference standings. They were without an identity and struggling to win games consistently. Twenty games later, the Nuggets are 25-16 with control of a top-four seed in a strong conference. They have finally found an identity, which has allowed them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5342,"featured_media":118797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1608,62],"tags":[109,72,53],"class_list":["post-118765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-jamal-murray","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-russell-westbrook"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118765"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118798,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118765\/revisions\/118798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}