Denver Nuggets: New Year Means New Look For Denver
The Denver Nuggets look like a brand new, completely different team in 2015 so far. We’ve left the team that ended 2014 by losing 11 of 16 games in December in the dust.
The Nuggets are shooting 49.4 percent from the floor in January, which is second best in the NBA. They’re also grabbing 47.2 rebounds a game, which is third best in the NBA. They’re blocking 6.3 shots a game in January, which is seventh best in the NBA, and finally, they’re averaging 108.3 points a game so far in 2015, which is fourth best in the NBA.
Oh, did I forget to mention they’ve won five straight games to start the new year? My bad! They lost on New Years Day in a close one to Chicago, but their 83.3 winning percentage is January is still third best in the NBA. In general, the team looks far more adept and confident than they did at the end of 2014. They actually think they can win again.
Seriously, WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?! How is this the same Nuggets core that whose shooting percentage is 22nd best in the league over the full season? How is this the same core that whose 102.6 points a game over the full season is eighth best in the league? The same core that is remains two games under .500 with a 18-20 record on the season?
Well the improvements have come on the shoulders of the Nuggets guards, and it seems as though trading Timofey Mozgov to Cleveland and Nate Robinson to Boston has also sparked the locker room’s energy. If they can keep up the excellent play, I may be looking like an idiot for declaring their playoff chances dead.
I mean – they are only 3.5 games behind Phoenix for the eighth seed right now! If January is an indication for how 2015 is going to shake out, then 3.5 games is clearly a deficit the Nuggets can overcome. Who expected that when the Nuggets only won five games in December, the same amount of wins they already have in January?
I admit, six games isn’t exactly a full sample size for an NBA team. Lots of teams play well over six games, right? However, this Nuggets team has shown flashes of exploding like this already, as they won 8 of 10 games to end November.
With the new roster and their newfound confidence, they justttttt may have put the pieces together, and they justttttt may be able to extend their good play for the rest of the season.
Part of extending the winning streak will depend on the Nuggets’ guards maintaining their excellent play though. Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo have emerged as a dangerous backcourt duo – they are averaging 42.4 points, 11.7 assists, 7.6 rebounds and shooting a blistering combined average of 55 percent from the field in January, according to NBA.com/stats.
Lawson has been doing it all year, he’s averaging 17.1 points and 10.1 assists on the season, so in reality the Nuggets need Afflalo to continue this “New Year’s hot streak” for the team to rack up the wins and get back in the playoff conversation.
Head coach Brian Shaw seems to think that Afflalo can continue his play,
“The spacing has been better,” Shaw told the Denver Post about Afflalo, is allowing him to have a little more time to get his shots off. I think the numbers are just coming back to what they normally are.”
Afflalo’s 21.1 points a game on 51.9 percent shooting in January is a “normal” the Nuggets absolutely need to make a playoff push.
It’s normal that, combined with Ty Lawson’s great play, Kenneth Faried‘s return to normalcy (the Manimal is averaging 13.7 points and 13 rebounds a game this month), and Jusuf Nurkic‘s general magnificence (I mean, impact on defense) can get the Nuggets front and center into the playoff picture.