As we head down the home stretch of the NBA regular season, those who haven’t paid attention for five months all of a sudden have a need to know:
Who is the most feared team in basketball right now?
Ask 30 NBA coaches and I’m guessing you’d get three responses …
- A vast majority won’t want to be bothered by such nonsense in the middle of March and will take the no-brainer expressway: The defending champ who also has been the best team this regular season, the Thunder.
- Maybe a handful who have recently gotten bonked on the head by a Victor Wembanyama swat will consider it cool to pick the new kids on the block, the Spurs, failing to consider that the NBA playoffs take on a football persona and Wemby more closely resembles a figure skater.
- And then there’s the guy who’ll elicit a laugh by citing the UConn Lady Huskies, perhaps hoping the headlines will help continue to get Geno Auriemma to realize what a great thing he has when said NBA coach’s boss considers a replacement this off-season.
How can you dispute any of those? Well, here’s how …
Imagine if there were a team that’s a proven winner: A champion in 2023 who then came within one game of a second and third straight trip to the Western finals.
Imagine if that team were led by the dominant force in the league, a guy equally adept at scoring as he is assisting others. And he rebounds pretty good, too.
Imagine that superstar having a high-scoring sidekick who complements a two-man game the likes of which the league hasn’t seen since Stockton and Malone.
Imagine that dynamic duo playing alongside one of the best two-way forwards in the NBA, a guy who has played 1,500 fewer minutes this season than the guys against which he will be chasing down rebounds in April and May.
Imagine the league’s most perfectly molded trio getting help from two defensive-minded swingmen, one who has found time to make 40 of his last 68 shots, the other who has connected on 33 of his last 53.
Of course, we’re talking here about the Nuggets, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson and Christian Braun. And you know what they say about that team:
Take Jokic off the court and they go from the penthouse to the outhouse without a parachute.
Alas, that’s no longer the case …
Imagine the NBA’s most physically gifted reserve, a dunking, shot-blocking marvel who now all of a sudden can shoot (41% on 3’s this season).
Imagine the league’s best 3-point-shooting reserve guard as your seventh man.
Imagine a fellow veteran who has made 17 of his last 31 shots, and another defense-first guy who has drilled 18 of his last 30.
Imagine the best backup big man in the league, a guy who punishes his counterpart while the boss rests.
You heard that right: The Nuggets now employ what rates statistically as an average NBA bench. That’s a vast improvement, but that’s also misleading.
The aforementioned top five backups – Peyton Watson, Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown, Spencer Jones and Jonas Valanciunas – have been pressed into making 87 starts, leading to various rookies and two-way players watering down the reserves’ numbers.
If this team can stay healthy … that’s a big if. They were all out there Sunday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, giving their home fans – and the rest of the league – a glimpse into the future.
The Nuggets, who at this point barely know each other, dominated a pretty good Portland team in pretty much every aspect of the game. They shot well, passed well, defended well … and, oh yeah, had Jokic on the court.
The key is: They’re all healthy now, which makes those 42 games missed by Gordon, 36 by Braun, 26 by Johnson, 22 by Watson … even the 16 by Jokic blessings considering the gauntlet of the Western playoffs ahead.
And that’s yet another reason to fear the Nuggets.
The Eastern playoffs figure to be more competitive than ever this year, with the likes of the Hawks, 76ers, Magic, Heat and Hornets all fully capable of pulling first-round upsets.
The most feared team in the East? Your next playoff opponent.
The West isn’t as deep, but one team lurks in the shadow of the Thunder and Spurs – the Nuggets.
They could be the first-round opponent of a top-four team in the West. All that hard work and imagine that.
Fear the Nuggets. It’s just March, but already it’s building.
