Denver Nuggets
The 2020-21 Denver Nuggets season can be defined by the fact that despite Jamal Murray tearing his ACL on April 12th, the Nuggets finished with the third-best record in the West and beat the Blazers in the first round before getting swept by the Suns.
What did we learn?
Nikola Jokic was the 2020-21 NBA MVP. The first MVP by a center since Shaq 21 years ago.
No player in the NBA meant more to his team’s success this season, and no player in the game right now makes those around him better than Jokic.
The Joker played every single game of the season. A ridiculous fact. You can always count on Big Honey.
Slangin’ hilarious dimes and scoring in the most unusual ways. The moonshots have become constant and expected. The sombor shuffle, a delight of the highest fancy.
Jokic will still surprise us, and we couldn’t mean that in a more heartfelt way. The way that he plays is so unorthodox. He does things no other players would dare even think of because there is no way they could pull it off. But the Joker can, even when it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to, by hook or by crook, Jokic gets the job done and carries the Nuggets.
The Joker was truly incandescent all season long, the backbone and maestro responsible for just about everything the Nuggets do, increasing his scoring by nearly 7 points per game because he had to. 26.4 points per game, 10.8 rebounds and 8.3 assists by a center.
Remember how the Nuggets looked in the bubble? You know, when Jamal Murray went flame-thrower mode. Well after the bubble playoffs, we pondered if the previously inconsistent Murray had officially turned the corner and was on the elevator to go up another level. This season didn’t start that way. He was still scoring a fair amount, but nothing to write home about, and he wasn’t setting his teammates up as much.
He wasn’t Bubble Playoff Jamal Murray or anything close to it, but then sometimes we would see flashes of that killer every so often, and we would wonder, won’t you return to us, old boy? And there was actually a stretch where he showed that part of him does still linger within, deep down, he is still capable of lighting the world on fire. Most specifically, it was a 50-piece that Murray dropped on the Wizards (it’s always the Wizards) on a random Friday night in February, 21-of-25 shooting along with 8-of-10 from 3. Bubble playoff vibes, for sure.
But then that fateful Monday night in mid-April against the Warriors, Murray went down with a torn ACL, taking the Nuggets championship aspirations along with him.
Yet after Murray went down, the Nuggets went 9-1 over the next two weeks with a top-5 offense and top-5 defense and finished the season out with a 13-5 record, tied for the second-best record in the league over the last month. That’s what happens when you have the Most Valuable Player.
The Joker’s two-man game slid over to Will Barton for a few games to great success, and then Barton went out with a hammy. Enter Michael Porter Jr. who completely took off, skyrocketing up a few levels to All-Star caliber production. The dude can shoot it over the top of anyone at 6-foot-10. He’s such a potent weapon for Jokic to utilize. Over the final month of the season without Murray, MPJ averaged 23.5 points per game along with shooting 56% from the field and 49% from 3 on seven attempts per game. Talk about seizing an opportunity. The kid struggled to get playing time last season!
The trade for Aaron Gordon looked really great at first, the exact type of defensive versatility that Denver needed, but he seemed to fizzle out over time. Austin Rivers and Monte Morris really stepped up when called upon. And Campazzo sure got a lot of run.
This Nuggets roster had some changeover which was a different mechanism for a team founded upon continuity and togetherness. But the Joker kept it loose and made things easy for everybody the same as always.
Denver really had no business being that good without Murray. They worked the Blazers in 6 games, withstanding that epic Game 5 from Dame in double OT.
And the second-round sweep handed to them by the Suns was not all for nought.
At the very end there, we got to see something we had not seen before.
Something intriguing and surreptitious.
The Evil Joker.
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Did our preseason Over/Under prediction hit?
Over 43.5 wins. The Nuggets have the offense to roll in the regular season, but the defense could be problematic come playoff time.
Nuggets 2020-21 Record: (47-25)
YES, our preseason Over/Under prediction hit! The defense could have been better, sure, but the Nuggets had more of a no Jamal Murray problem.
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What’s Next?
Key free Agents: Will Barton, Paul Millsap, Austin Rivers and JaMychal Green who just declined his $7.6 million player option. We know how much this team emphasizes continuity.
Michael Porter Jr.’s upcoming rookie extension ought to be interesting given his murky injury history with back surgeries and drop foot issues. There will likely be some fine print injury clauses in that one for sure.
Ever since that one quarter in the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers, we have been aboard the PJ Dozier hype train. We are ready for more PJ Dozier minutes.
Still waiting for the unleashing of Bol Bol!
And now waiting on the return of Jamal.
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Favorite Nuggets Highlight from the 2020-21 Season:
Hilarious and deadly.
MVP.
