couldn’t resist a smile, because even for a dude who’s seen just about everything over 13 NBA seasons, this one was new. Even the Nuggets’ veteran power forward had to admit there were two ways to process the way his side nearly blew a 27-point halftime lead against Detroit late Tuesday en route to a 95-92 victory.
On one hand, you, um, nearly blew a stinking 27-point halftime lead. At home.
On the other, you still managed to somehow wrangle the gate shut when it counted late.
“Itap about winning games, you know?” Millsap, the locker room’s greybeard at age 33, chuckled after the Nuggets moved back into a tie for the best record in the Western Conference (50-23) with Golden State. “Blowing a 27-point lead and (to) still be able to win it, is still pretty good.”
Especially when you consider this: Just four NBA teams, the Nuggets included, tote a roster where the average age per player checks in at under 25. The Nuggets have the fourth-youngest roster in the NBA at 24.7 years old; only Phoenix (24.4 on average), Chicago (24.2), and New York (23.7) skew greener than that.
The combined record of the Suns, Bulls and Knicks in games decided by three points or less, the nail-biters? 15-19 (.441).
Denver’s record in games decided by three points or fewer? A mark of 13-3 (.813), tops in the NBA.
Some kids grow up faster than others. Or, like they say in March: Survive and advance.
“(The) playoffs are not going to be perfect,” Millsap said of the Nuggets, who take to the road for a salty back-to-back stretch at Houston (47-28) and Oklahoma City (43-31) on Thursday and Friday. “We’re not going to shoot the ball well all the time. Things like this are going to happen. We’re going to have to be able to pull those off. So I think this (was) a good learning-environment situation for us.”
They made it harder on themselves, granted. They took their collective feet off the gas. They stopped attacking the rim and stopped taking care of the rock, piling up 10 second-half turnovers to the Pistons’ two.
And yet …
“That was a great win,” said , who chipped in a game-high 33 points and drained a pair of clutch free throws with nine seconds left. “So letap not make it a downer.”
Do you wring your mitts after watching leads of 27-9 after one period and 66-39 after two nearly turn to dust? Or do you take ’s view?
“My message coming into the locker room was like, ‘We have the killer instinct,’” offered the Nuggets’ backup center, who produced one of three Denver double-doubles on the evening (10 points, 12 rebounds). “You don’t finish the game with those plays, those shots — () getting a dunk, Jamal (Murray) hitting the floaters, thatap the instinct.
“But you can have that when you’re up 20. You can have that in the third quarter. You don’t have to wait until they make it interesting. And we’ll make that (work) — that’ll switch for us.”
And yet …
“Good teams,” forward stressed, “don’t do that.”
Although young teams often do. Murray turned 22 in February. The freshman class he entered with at Kentucky would be, from an eligibility standpoint, seniors now. Among the Nuggets’ current roster, 11 out of 17 were born after Coors Field made its April 1995 debut.
Which might explain why Millsap — a veteran of 87 playoff tilts — smiled when he was asked how this crew compared to the others he’s hopped into the postseason pool with.
“(Itap) definitely a lot younger,” the Nuggets forward replied. “I think thatap pretty much the only (unique) aspect … The only thing is just, with youth, itap good or bad. Who knows? We’ll see.”
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