The Nuggets want you to forget what you heard about the Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets have heard in recent months that they could not be trusted in the playoffs, that Nikola Jokic, a two-time most valuable player, could not lead them to postseason success, that their record, the best in the Western Conference for most of the season was something of a mirage.

No one was afraid of them in the playoffs, or so the story went.

But in the first two rounds of the playoffs this year, the Nuggets had defied their reputation for fading in the postseason by easily dispatching Minnesota and Phoenix. They appeared to do the same with the Lakers on Tuesday night as they dominated most of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. But as the second half progressed, Denver allowed room for doubts about their playoff toughness to creep back in.

Fair or not, what’s at stake for the Nuggets in this series, which they lead 1-0 after a 132-126 win on Tuesday, is their ability to prove their elite play isn’t an illusion that will disappear in May .

“We’re a long way from what we’re trying to do,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone told his team in the locker room after the game.

The Nuggets have never made it to the NBA Finals and have not competed in a championship round since their last season with the American Basketball Association, in 1975-76. Most of that disappointing history cannot be attributed to their current group.

But even now, year after year, something happens that keeps the Nuggets from competing for a title, and they’ve been blamed for it.

Jokic has been an All-Star for the past five seasons, but Denver has only made it to the conference Finals once in that time, in 2020. The Nuggets lost to the Lakers in five games that year, played in a closed field at Disney World in Florida due to the coronavirus pandemic. They fell out of the postseason even faster in each of the next two years without their talented point guard Jamal Murray, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee about a month before the 2021 playoffs.

Then this season’s Nuggets started to look unbeatable.

They were in or tied for first place in the West from December 20 until the end of the season. Jokic had another MVP-caliber year, though he lost the award to Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. Murray revived after a year and a half recovering from his knee injury. The Nuggets won 75 percent of their games in January and February.

Perhaps it was their lackluster effort in March, when the Nuggets were 7-7, that convinced observers that they weren’t as dominant as a top seed should be. Or maybe they were just chastised by public opinion for past playoff appearances.

They seem ready to change the conversation this time, though they claim to ignore it.

They cruised past the Timberwolves and then humiliated the Suns in the second round with a 25-point victory in Game 6 that closed the series.

“I don’t think I know what a championship team looks like,” Jokic said after the series, “but I think that’s what it’s supposed to look like. We were so focused on every detail.”

But now the game against the Lakers brings back memories of a Denver team these Nuggets don’t want to face: the team that lost to the Lakers in the 2020 conference finals, the last time they met in the playoffs. . Now both teams are almost completely different except for the stars: Jokic and Murray for the Nuggets and LeBron James and Anthony Davis for the Lakers. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a key player for the Lakers in 2020, is now a key player for the Nuggets.

They are all older, for better or for worse. Previously, the Lakers were driven by James’ play. Now Davis’s role is much more important than it used to be.

For two and a half quarters of Tuesday’s game, this year’s Lakers appeared to be no match for this year’s Nuggets, and skepticism about Denver’s championship aspirations felt foolish.

Denver scored 72 points to lead with 18 at halftime. Jokic already had 19 points, 16 rebounds and 7 assists.

“It took us a half to get into the game,” said James. “That was pretty much the ball game there.”

In the previous series of the Lakers this postseason, against Memphis and Golden State, the mere presence of Davis shocked opponents. That wouldn’t happen against the Nuggets. For much of the game, Davis was chained to Jokic in a way that kept him from being the force he had been against the Warriors.

The Lakers hadn’t faced someone like Jokic in the playoffs, in part because there’s no one like him—a big man who passes as effortlessly as he scores. That’s why Lakers coach Darvin Ham had jokingly suggested Monday that maybe the only way they could stop Jokic was to kidnap him.

Halfway through the third quarter, Jokic had already scored a triple-double.

Then, to stop a Lakers run late in the third quarter, he hit an off-center, step-back 3 at the buzzer, with a choking Davis swinging his arms. Davis left the court with a wry smile. He had done everything he could and it still wasn’t enough to stop Jokic.

Jokic finished with 34 points, 21 rebounds and 14 assists. Davis had 40 points and 10 rebounds.

In the Nuggets locker room after the game, Malone addressed his team with pride and caution. Good win, he said in commentaries broadcast on ESPN, but also play better defense.

Ham hinted that he had not shown all of his possible adjustments in Game 1. Malone said he would rather fix mistakes after a win than after a loss.

Ultimately, what will be more important in legitimizing the Denver Nuggets as a championship threat isn’t how they win these games, but that they do.