Denver Nuggets: 5 keys to making the playoffs in 2017-18
By Brendan Vogt
4. Hot start to the season
This year’s Denver’s Nuggets team will have a luxury that last year’s did not: an understanding of their identity. It took the Nuggets until mid-December to discover that Jokic was their center of gravity and the key to unlocking a lethal offense.
With Nurkic on the court and a healthy Gary Harris back in action, Denver displayed some of the league’s best spacing and most exciting ball movement. This year, they’ll start fresh with a clear understanding of who they are as a team, and a brand new toy in Paul Millsap.
It’s important for every team to get off to a hot start, but given Denver’s grueling schedule in 2017-18, they’ll need to come out firing from the jump.
January will be a tough month for Denver. According to strength of schedule numbers crunched by Yaya Dubin, it will be Denver’s second0most difficult month of the year. Some of those matchups include an away game at Golden State and a brutal road game against San Antonio on the back-end of a back-to-back — two separate times.
Every NBA team's SOS by month. Sixers have it really rough to start the year. Toughest SOS in Oct/Nov and Jan. pic.twitter.com/eGpjLfFjBn
— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) August 15, 2017
It won’t help that February is projected to be the toughest month on the schedule for any team. It’s a bit of a cop-out to say that playing well for a particular stretch of the season is a key to a successful playoff run. But January and February are brutal for Denver.
Even in March, when things cool down in terms of SOS, the Nuggets will head out for a 13-day, seven-game road trip — their longest of the year, and right as the playoff race starts to heat up. If Denver truly is a playoff team, they’ll be able to survive this. But it’s hard to imagine it being their best stretch of the season.
There won’t be many breaks for Denver this year. Dubin’s numbers suggest they have the sixth strongest schedule in all of basketball, but their easiest months appear to be (in ascending order): October/November, March, December. Capitalizing on the 2017 half of the schedule will be crucial. Winter is coming in Denver, and there will be no time to play catch up.