The Nuggets know how to entertain us, that much is for certain. Their seven-game stunner with the LA Clippers gave us a lot to marvel at, and they’ve rekindled the dramatics against the winningest team in the league. Three of these first four games have been heart-racers, with Oklahoma City claiming the lone blowout (mega-blowout, if you will; a 149-106 score earned that).
No matter where this series goes, the public should appreciate what Denver is doing. A season that once looked lost to executive-suite turmoil and petty beef found redemption in Inglewood. The team is now showing resolve against the West’s clear-cut No. 1, limiting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander down the stretch and winning the clutch minutes with unshakable cool (Russell Westbrook is a celebratory yeller, fine, but these guys are a chill bunch overall).
Both MVP candidates have shown their usual brilliance, but neither look completely themselves. Gilgeous-Alexander was 0-for-5 behind the arc in Sunday’s Game 4 win and is below 22 percent there for the series. He’s still doing his thing — a tidy assist-to-turnover ratio, steady free-throw makes and good positional defense — and has been markedly better than Nikola Jokić. The three-time MVP finished below 40 percent from the floor in each of the last three games. He had seven turnovers in Denver’s Game 1 upset and eight more in the Game 3 win. The Thunder defense is a very complex storm in an arena-sized teacup.
OKC is in a good place considering its struggling supporting cast. Chet Holmgren has the starting lineup’s third-best shooting percentage at 39.6, which is not good. Jalen Williams, the very same 23-year-old All-Star we’ve come to know and appreciate this season, is languishing at just 37 percent. Lu Dort has dipped below 29.
These teams are squaring up and covering every inch of hardwood, a seesawing retort to the critics lazily decrying modern defense. Jokić, a player of near-unprecedented efficiency, seems particularly disoriented by OKC’s length and coverage. The Nuggets have clamps out, too, if you’re brave enough to revisit the aforementioned shooting splits of Dort, Holmgren and Williams. It’s not much of a stretch, but this swing game will be claimed by the better supplemental offense.