Urgency seems to be fitting the Nuggets like a well-tailored suit.
With the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference tightening and the remaining schedule intensifying, Denver has picked a good time to start playing some of its best basketball.
tallied his fifth triple-double of the season and scorched the nets for the second consecutive game to lead the Nuggets to a 129-114 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night at the Pepsi Center, Denver’s season-high fourth win in a row.
The Nuggets are now 2½ games ahead of Portland in the race for the eighth playoff spot in the West.
But the coach of this suddenly surging team wasn’t pleased with the warts that came with the latest victory.
“I think it’s a win and we’ll take it,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I thought our defense was awful, to be very honest.”
Improvement on the defensive end since the all-star break has given way to a higher standard, and Malone called Thursday’s effort a ” big step back” after Denver gave up 68 points and allowed the Clippers to shoot 60 percent in the second half. Still, he didn’t discount an offense that has made the Nuggets difficult to handle during their longest winning streak of the season.
The Nuggets took advantage of the Clippers resting all-star big men DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin by running things through their own burgeoning frontcourt tandem of Jokic and Mason Plumlee.
Denver was without its own starting forwards, and , but Jokic and Plumlee kept the offense humming with their usual blend of post scoring and crisp facilitating, which helped the Nuggets shoot 53.5 percent.
Jokic finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists. His five triple-doubles are the fourth most in the NBA this season behind Russell Westbrook (34), James Harden (17) and (10), and Denver is 5-0 when he stuffs the stat sheet to that degree.
“A lot of times when teams go small, coaches will adjust to a small lineup,” Plumlee said. “I thought our coach showed a lot of confidence by playing big. We took advantage of the paint.”
Plumlee flirted with a triple-double himself, finishing with 10 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, continuing to form chemistry alongside Jokic on both ends.
“It’s just getting used to another big who can pass and playing off that,” Plumlee said.
But it was Barton, emerging from a deep offensive slump by letting it fly, who lit a fuse for the Nuggets. When he entered the game off the bench with five minutes left in the first quarter, the Nuggets led 15-13. Barton didn’t leave the court again until the halftime buzzer, having sparked Denver to a 59-46 lead.
Barton scored 15 of his career-high 35 points on 6-of-10 shooting in that 17-minute span, connecting on his first three 3-pointers. It was a repeat of his high-scoring flurry against the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday, when he scored 19 of his 22 points in the first half.
“This time of the season you can’t make excuses,” Barton said. “The coach and the team needed me to step up, and that’s what I wanted to do. We know where we are trying to get to, and my focus is doing what I need to do to help us win games.”
added 20 points. He and Barton combined to hit 10-of-15 shots from 3-point range, part of a 15-of-28 performance (56 percent) by the Nuggets.
, making his first appearance since suffering a back injury on Feb. 24, had 12 points and six rebounds. He also had a highlight lob pass to Plumlee for a dunk.
“I’m just happy to be back out there with those guys and going to war every night,” Faried said. “Watching from the back and watching them from the floor is kind of hard. To be out there tonight was fun and exciting for me. I felt like a kid in a candy store again, basically.”
Chris Paul had 18 points and 14 assists for the Clippers, who dropped their third straight. J.J. Redick scored 22 points. His 3-pointer with 10:11 left in the third quarter helped the Clippers trim a 15-point lead to 61-55.
“The entire second half was very frustrating, undisciplined,” Malone said after he watched his team’s 25-point fourth-quarter lead get trimmed to as few as 12 points late in the period. “We had guys gambling in the backcourt for steals that would lead to a three. Leaving J.J. Redick in the corner. We don’t leave strong-side shooters and we leave him open. When you build a lead, it’s great that you can build a lead, but we think we can start playing free-wheeling. I thought defensively we let go of the rope and let them have whatever they wanted.”
Fortunately for the Nuggets, as has often been the case since the middle of December, they had enough offense to overcome a sloppy defensive effort and inch another step toward the postseason.
