The Denver Nuggets are set to host the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night in a game that the Denver players have circled as a chance to turn things around. The Nuggets — who still sit in playoff position despite having been without their star forward Paul Millsap since November 19th — have been sliding of late. Denver is just 1-4 in their last five games and 4-6 in their last ten; during that stretch, they’ve fallen all the way down to the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoff picture.
Those ten games came on the heels of an impressive three-game win streak that featured stellar defensive performances against quality opponents. Two of those victories came on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers and the Golden State Warriors with one win came at home in a much-needed victory over the Jazz. In all three instances, the Nuggets held their opponents to 85 or fewer points in each game. Confidence was sky high, and there was a budding excitement surrounding the Nuggets.
Much has changed since then. The Nuggets blew a 14-point lead to Philadelphia at the Pepsi Center, gave a disappointing performance in a sloppy road loss to the Sacramento Kings, and, of course, suffered an embarrassing home loss to the NBA’s deepest of cellar dwellers — the Atlanta Hawks.
So what’s changed in these last ten games? According to Mason Plumlee, it all starts with the defense:
“I think our defense has been lacking,” Plumlee told Mile High Sports. “We haven’t been taking people away from what they want to do on offense and it’s turned into a scoring contest—and when you’re not hitting shots in those contests you’re not gonna win games.”
Despite the recent struggles, Plumlee maintained that confidence remains high in the Nuggets locker room and elaborated on this topic to Mile High Sports at shootaround prior to the Nuggets taking on the Mavericks on the Pepsi Center floor.
“I do not think guys have lost confidence. I think we’re just ready to get to the next game and get a win,” Plumlee explained to Mile High Sports. “The message right now is this is a game where we have to get back on track and this is a game we need to win tonight.”
‘Getting back on track’ was a term used more than once at today’s shootaround and, according to Mason, that starts with an improved defensive effort as he continued to explain to Mile High Sports.
“Yeah for sure,” Plumlee told Mile High Sports when asked if the Nuggets’ improvement needs to come on defense. “When we’ve played good defensively we’ve always given ourselves a shot to win.”
Will Barton views the situation similarly. He echoed Plumlee’s comments about the defense, pinning that down as the pivot point of a potential turnaround, while also noting that Denver’s best basketball comes from the right approach on the defensive side of the ball.
“I definitely agree, 100 percent. I feel like you can always turn things around with your defensive activity and your energy and then things will start to click,” Barton said. “I feel like when we are at our best (turning) defense into offense, but I feel like we have so many scorers that, at times, we try to turn offense into defense.”
Despite the defensive woes, Barton also insisted that the confidence level remains high throughout the Nuggets’ roster.
“I don’t think we lost confidence at all,” Barton explained. “Like I said, it’s just a tough time right now, and we’ll get out of it.”
There was not, however, a consensus on the heart of Denver’s troubles. The Nuggets’ star center, Nikola Jokic, delivered a message that was reminiscent of the one head coach Michael Malone gave the media during the shootaround from last Thursday; the issue is focus and consistency with Denver’s approach to every single game.
“I think it’s about focus, we have not focused…there was the Sacramento game, then we have a good game against Golden State, then a bad game against San Antonio,” Jokic explained at shootaround before taking on Dallas. “I mean, I think (defense) is not the main problem. The main problem is that we have not focused for 48 minutes or for every game.”
While Jokic did not agree with defense as the main issue, he did concur that confidence is not an issue for this young Nuggets’ team.
“I think we are good. I mean, we play so good against a high-rank team or whatever,” Jokic explained. “I think we are confident, I think we are ready to play, but, like I said, the main problem is focus and we are going do that starting tonight.”
Multiple players on this Nuggets roster seem to agree things have been different lately, but not only are they confident that they can turn it around, they’re confident it all starts with this game against Dallas. Mason Plumlee put it perfectly.
“We plan on coming here tonight and getting a win.”
