The steps to healing some of the fractures that ail the Nuggets began over a meal Monday night.
Jameer Nelson, who has been with the team for only two weeks, had everyone on the staff who made the road trip come to his house in the Philadelphia area for some food, fun and fellowship.
Heavy on the fellowship.
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“I think things like that over the course of a season, whether you’re winning or losing, are very important,” Nelson said. “Just to get guys in the same setting. On every team you have this clique of guys, that clique of guys. It is what it is, guys click with other guys, but having team events and stuff like that matters.”
There are three more road games this week for the Nuggets, who are in a stretch in which they’re playing six of seven games on the road.
And though the roll call of opponents doesn’t appear to be super challenging — Philadelphia, Boston and Detroit — the 19-29 Nuggets are no longer in a position to view any other team in the NBA as a game they should definitely win. Those three teams are looking at the Nuggets in the same way. Every win gained will be hard-fought.
“We’re not in a position to be fooled by anything,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “But don’t let the fact that they don’t recognize most of the names on the roster, or their record, fool them. Because they play harder probably than anybody in the league.”
The Nuggets are looking to snap a two-game losing streak. But more important, they are trying to separate themselves from a trying weekend of two blowout losses, which led to frayed feelings in both the coaches and players, and salvage the remainder of the season.
That began Sunday with a practice during which Shaw wanted the team to just get up and down the court and get back to the basics of just playing hard for extended periods of time.
“We played and they competed for a good hour and 30 minutes straight,” Shaw said.
The proof of how well that worked starts to crystallize against Philadelphia, which, with a young but talented roster featuring a couple of lottery picks and 11 players with three or fewer years of experience, has been playing better basketball of late.
“We’re just going to try to get better every day,” Nelson said. “Stick together, so when we hit those stretches of adversity during the course of a game, just to come tighter. The thing I used to say in Orlando was when water and grease combine, that’s the hardest thing. You can’t keep it together. So let’s just continue to figure out a way to stay together.
“And we have the personnel to do it. We have the personnel to be in games in the fourth quarter to give ourselves a chance to win. I just think we have to do it. Obviously it’s everybody, it’s from top to bottom.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
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Spotlight on Nerlens Noel: The springy 76ers center missed his entire rookie season due to ACL rehab, so he’s playing that out this season. And the numbers are encouraging for the sixth pick in the 2013 draft. He leads all rookies in double-doubles with seven. He is averaging 12.5 points over his past two games, shooting 12-of-16 over that span. He’s always been a shot blocker, and has at least two blocks in each of his past four games.
NOTEBOOK
Nuggets: The last time the Nuggets practiced, on Sunday, neither Kenneth Faried nor Darrell Arthur participated due to an illness that kept them out of Saturday’s game against the Hornets. Both, however, are with the team on this road trip and should be ready to play, though the Nuggets will know more about the status of each closer to game time.
76ers: Point guard Michael Carter-Williams (ankle) and Luc Mbah a Moute (left adductor strain) are probable for the game. … Carter-Williams is tied for the NBA lead in triple-doubles with three. … Philadelphia has lost seven of its past 12 home games against the Nuggets.
Christopher Dempsey, The Denver Post
