The luck of the Irish was with Michael Malone.
Wearing a green quarter-zip for St. Patrick’s Day adorned with his team’s vintage Maxie the Miner logo, the Nuggets coach rolled out a doozy of a lineup in San Francisco. He might as well have been rolling a pair of dice.
He rolled boxcars.
With no Nikola Jokic, no Jamal Murray and no Christian Braun, Denver bounced back from one of its worst losses of the season with arguably its best win — a wire-to-wire 114-105 triumph Monday over red-hot Golden State. The Nuggets (44-25) have won nine consecutive games against the Warriors, who entered this one on a 14-2 surge since trading for Jimmy Butler.
First option AG
It’s been documented ad nauseam by now. Aaron Gordon may have transformed his game to fit alongside Jokic after the Nuggets traded for him in 2021, but in situations like these, it still helps to have a player who has been a first option in his career.
Denver’s do-it-all power forward must have been wearing an Orlando Magic jersey in his imagination Monday. He dropped 38 points on 14-of-23 shooting, his highest-scoring game as a Nugget, to lead the way. He set the tone by tallying the first five points of the game with a bucket inside the arc and a pull-up 3-pointer. The Nuggets were off and running. They never trailed.
Gordon is up to 45.7% beyond the arc on 3.2 attempts per game this season after shooting 29% on lower volume last year. The vast improvement has been a lifeline for the spacing-deprived Nuggets. He’s making his shots from everywhere on the court and in a variety of ways — off the dribble and the catch.
Michael Porter Jr. also stepped up. He was a team-leading plus-20 while recording a 21-point double-double.
Hustle transcends sloppiness
The Nuggets did not play anything close to a perfect game, which was to be expected under the circumstances. They turned it over 20 times, a few real head-scratchers among them. They had some inadequate free-throw box-outs. They missed some layups and air-balled jumpers.
Needless to say, their performance was not pretty.
But it was gutsy enough to overcome the errors. They also secured 18 offensive rebounds. When a double-digit lead had been trimmed to 99-94 with six minutes to go, Vlatko Cancar, who had struggled to protect the ball against Golden State’s pressure, wrestled a clutch offensive board and put-back. He finished with eight rebounds. Gordon bullied his way inside and retrieved his own miss in traffic for another bucket the next possession.
Peyton Watson guarded Steph Curry admirably and blocked four shots, including one from behind with four minutes left. Hunter Tyson made his first career start and impacted the game with hustle plays and intangibles. He finished with nine points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals. Two-way forward Spencer Jones battled with Draymondian physicality in a game that often resembled rugby more than basketball.
Russ gets his 203rd
Nobody embodied Denver’s grit despite messy execution quite like Russell Westbrook, who was unfazed by a 5-for-17 shooting game and two air-balls in the fourth quarter while posting his 203rd career triple-double: 12 points, 11 rebounds and 16 assists. He was at his absolute best as a passer, even if that meant forcing some unnecessary risks in a seven-turnover night. He tried to take a charge on Curry late in the game. He added three steals and two blocks.
And he kept on shooting through the ugly misses, knocking down a dagger 3-pointer from the left wing with a hand in his face. It gave the Nuggets a 106-96 edge with 4:10 left.
Naturally, the depleted Nuggets needed a little help to pull this off, and Golden State obliged with one of the worst-played basketball games of the entire NBA season. Curry had 20 points on 6-of-21 shooting with seven turnovers, capped by an ill-advised lob out of bounds late in the game. The Warriors shot 24% from 3-point range and 15 for 27 at the foul line. They committed 20 turnovers as a team.
