Denver Nuggets: Would a second round exit be a successful season?

The Denver Nuggets have the second-best record in the Western Conference. Would advancing to the second round of the playoffs make this a successful season for this franchise?

The Denver Nuggets have been one of the most surprising teams in the NBA this season. Yes, they have dropped four of their last seven games. This includes a pair of losses to the Indiana Pacers and Houston Rockets, who beat the Nuggets by 36 and 27 points, respectively.

Denver also suffered another double-digit loss (116-102) against the defending champion Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. If you really want to nitpick, you could also point to the fact they are barely an above-.500 team on the road, with a 20-19 record away from the Pepsi Center.

On the other side of the coin, there are a few positives that are worth talking about. For starters, they have seven players who are averaging double figures in the scoring column, led by Nikola Jokic, who’s averaging 20.1 points and 10.8 rebounds per contest. The Nuggets have the second-best record in the Western Conference at 52-26.

This win-loss total is significant, as this team hadn’t cracked the 50-win plateau since the 2012-13 campaign. The Nuggets have been decent scoring team over the past few seasons, as they never averaged less than 100 points per outing.

Where they have shown a noticeable level of improvement is at the other end of the court. To see how far this ball club has come from a defensive standpoint, let’s look at the body of work over the past couple of seasons.

In 2015-16, Denver was in the bottom third of the league in opponent scoring (105 points per contest) and their 108.9 defensive rating was the seventh-worst mark in the association.

In 2016-17, the Nuggets finished 27th in the league in points allowed, giving up 111.2 points per contest, and the were ranked 29th in defensive efficiency at 112.7 points per 100 possessions.

The following season, the Nuggets improved to 22nd in points allowed (108.5 points per contest) and finished with a defensive rating of 111.0 — good enough for the sixth-worst mark in the NBA.

This season, however, it has been a completely different story. They are currently ranked sixth in points allowed at 106.6 points per contest and they have a defensive rating of 108.7 — placing them 10th in this category.

From a defensive standpoint, the Nuggets hadn’t ranked higher than 20th in points allowed in recent history. In other words, they have come a long way in this department over the past few seasons.

It is also worth noting that the Nuggets are ranked in the top 10 in both offense and defensive efficiency and they lead the league in opponent 3-point shooting, limiting their opposition to 33.8 percent.

Simply put, the Nuggets have had a pretty spectacular season. Considering the fact that this team doesn’t have the same level of experience on the big stage as some of their conference counterparts, would it be fair to label them as a success if they were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs?

Well, this team has missed the playoffs in each of the past five seasons. On top of that, Denver hasn’t advanced past the first round of the postseason since 2009, when it fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the conference finals.

Taking those factors into consideration, it would be more than fair to say that making it to the second round of the playoffs would still make this a very successful season.

Reaching the conference finals should still be the goal, but given this group’s lack of playoff experience and how they made the leap from lottery team to 2-seed in the West in just one year, a second round exit shouldn’t be viewed as a disappointment.