When it was over, the national commentators joked about what they saw as the excessive celebration going on inside the Pepsi Center. The Denver Nuggets had just finished beating down the New Orleans Hornets, winning the first round play-off series in five games, and the Denver fans were celebrating “like they’d won a championship or something” laughed TNT’s Kenny Smith. .jpg)
The Nuggets and their fans should be used to being dismissed by the national media by this point. Few if any people outside this state thought the Nuggets were a legitimate number two seed in the West in the first place, and let that be known. When Denver destroyed the Hornets by 58 points in game four, all the post game talk was about who LOST the game rather than who won it. Little or no praise was directed at Denver, it was all about New Orleans weak effort. (Five years from now, a great majority of NBA fans will recall that New Orleans lost a play-off game by 58 points back in ‘09, but few will remember who they lost to. Such is life in the Mountain Time zone.) It’s not that the Nuggets don’t get any respect – TNT”s Charles Barkley picked them to beat Dallas in five games as well – it’s just that the Nuggets don’t get noticed a whole lot. They are the most anonymous second seed in NBA history.
While even those outside of Denver knew it had been 15 years since the Nuggets moved past round one, if you hadn’t spent those years here, you didn’t know how looooooong those years really were. You probably wondered about that huge collective exhale that came from the Mile High city when game five was over. Yes, it’s a big deal here. But don’t worry, these Nuggets aren’t done yet. They know they have plenty of work left to do. The question is can they do it? How far is this Nuggets team capable of going?
We have several comparisons available, since we’ve had champions and near misses around here this decade. So are these Nuggets like the 2005 Denver Broncos – good enough to get to the conference championship match in the superior conference, but not good enough to win it and get to the big game? Are they the 2007 Colorado Rockies, getting hot at the right time, blowing through the play-offs but just not quite good enough to win that final, title defining series? Or are they the 2001 Colorado Avalanche, bolstered by new blood that arrived during the season (Chauncey Billups) and now ready to hoist the Trophy?
We have to wait for Sunday to get any further clues. Round two – a place very unfamiliar to these Nuggets – will present a different type of challenge than what they saw from New Orleans.
Conventional wisdom would say that Denver, which swept the season series from the Mavericks, should beat Dallas is six or seven games. Dallas is playing good basketball right now, but so are the Nuggets, and they take that momentum into the first two games AT HOME starting this weekend. That same common sense logic would tell you that the Lakers are just too big and strong for the Nuggets to handle…and possessing the best player on the planet in Kobe Bryant does hurt, either. The Lakers look like the class of the league. That would make these Nuggets the equivalent of those ’05 Broncos – not quite the best in the west, but certainly working that direction.
Then again, upsets happen. That’s why the play the games, as the saying goes.
If some how, some way, the Nuggets were able to upset the Lakers, they’d likely face Cleveland and LeBron James in the NBA Finals. Even though they would not have the home court advantage any longer, you’d have to think that after upsetting the league’s best team, no one from the weaker Eastern Conference would be a match for the Nuggets. Then again, we though that “Rocktober” would never end, either. Beat Dallas and LA and then worry about pop the cork time.
The question remains. How good are these Denver Nuggets? Only time, and most likely the Los Angeles Lakers, will give us our answer.
(AP Photo of Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks)
For more info: Denver Nuggets Examiner Mike Wolf
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