While The Memory Tourist isn’t designed to be a sports-centric website, I hope that there have been a few things that are clear. I love basketball. I love looking into the history of The NBA and understanding these magnificent athletes who sacrifice their bodies for our amusement. It’s their exertion, their ability to go further, and jump higher. They’re a great unifier, giving us reason to believe that underdogs can rise, that a younger class can emerge, and prove that a new generation is ready to take over the mantel.
That’s what 2020 felt like and to some still does, at least in the eastern division. In the west, I’ve watched every team that I hold dear fall to The Los Angeles Lakers. Somehow that is where this narrative wound up, with these aging brutes pushing down The Denver Nuggets and somehow getting the referees to make some of the worst, most favorable calls imaginable. With that final domino knocked over, every team that I loved in the west is gone. Watching every team fall, I felt a bigger piece of disappointment lodged in my throat. By the time that The Los Angeles Clippers were pummeled after a 3-1 lead, it felt like this wasn’t going to be my year.
Then again, there was some hope at the tail-end. If you had asked me to rank my list of contenders for the final round, I would likely include The Clippers, The Houston Rockets, or even The Dallas Mavericks. To me, those teams have an exemplary level of talent, capable of rising above the competition. All of them have struck me as more plausible than what ended up happening.
How, in all sincerity, did The Nuggets end up being one of the greatest teams in the league? Nobody would’ve predicted them to have gotten nearly as far as they have, winning two rounds after Game 7’s. I understand that they were ranked third, but it still never made sense to me. I had seen them play during the regular season and the myth of Nikola Jokić never quite lined up. As Charles Barkley would say on Inside the NBA during a game against The Mavericks, they had bad habits. They were a young and scrappy team that I liked on principle but never could see getting anywhere in The Finals.
To put it simply, I see The Mavericks the way that everyone else had seen The Nuggets. My favorite teams are those that are as much about being great as they are interesting. If I wanted to watch a great game of basketball, I have decades to pull from. If I want to watch an interesting game, where each variable is likely to surprise me, I can tune in live and see a team that had something going on in every corner. Not only that, but The Mavericks had one of the hottest games in The Bubble against The Rockets, where the final score was 149-153, favoring The Rockets. The Nuggets, until The Playoffs, never gave me that. They had nobody that I enjoyed watching as much as Luka Dončić.
And yet they were a calm before the storm. Any doubt that they could be a good team slowly began to fade away. It all started in the first round, where they went up against The Utah Jazz. Even at this time, there was something that suggested a Jazz favoring. Watching the season games made me see the potential of players like Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley. To me, they were the ones constantly pushing themselves to be better. I imagined them getting to the next round, being knocked out by my beloved Clippers. Instead, I was living a fantasy. The Nuggets were hiding their cards until absolutely necessary.
By some irony, The Nuggets played best when they were cornered. In the first and second rounds, they were the losing team in a 3-1 lead. Everyone wanted to count them out, and yet they refused. By the time of Game 7 against The Jazz, it was clear that whoever won would do so by the skin of their teeth. Had The Jazz made that final shot, the legacy could’ve been a different story. The Nuggets would’ve done exactly what everyone predicted. Instead, as that ball bounced away from the net, The Jazz fell to the ground in defeat. A hard-fought series was over, and it was time for the big boys.
In a moment that has constantly been cited in commercials ever since, Jamal Murray joked with the interviewer about how he was packing his clothes the night before, understanding that if they lost they would have to leave The Bubble. Then he proudly declares “I’m not packing my clothes.” At the time it felt like they had another week of residency tops. Nobody expected them to get much further because, as you know, The Clippers were favored.
To discuss this next portion would be difficult without just diving into my belief that The Clippers were suffering mentally. The troubles of the outside world wore down on their players, especially Paul George, and the murders in Kenosha, WI likely made the whole idea of basketball seem useless (not to mention California being on fire). To me, The Clippers weren’t there even if their bodies were. They had everything that could’ve gotten them further, but it’s clear that the time off worked against them. They stopped gelling, needing those months of build-up to form chemistry. I don’t believe that it’s any one person’s fault (don’t fire Doc Rivers). It’s just the pressure of being in a Bubble.
Still, it’s amazing to know that The Nuggets were capable of coming back from a 3-1 deficit TWICE consecutively. It was somewhere in Game 5 or Game 6 that you began to understand what was special about them. Sure, they weren’t defeating The Lakers, but there was something more to the team that became downright inspiring. It had been there all season, but more invisible. They didn’t flaunt it with as much effort, and I think it worked in their favor even if it made me apathetic to the team as a whole. Outside of these games, I can’t claim to have been riveted by The Nuggets for more than a game here or there.
But it becomes clear that I had been taking them for granted. They were in for the long haul. They were willing to play up to those Game 7’s with a fierce energy that they needed to win. There’s something so rich and symbolic about Jokić managing to capture all of the rebounds and passing to Murray as he shoots the ball. Everything was clicking and in place. You can argue that Jokić had the advantage of being tall (a strong seven-footer), but they clearly intimidated The Clippers too much. They had more endurance and focus, making you believe that they were the young team that could.
Which is the most exciting narrative of the season. Imagine if they made The Finals over a team like The Lakers. How exciting would it be that this underdog team was capable of surprising us all, giving way to a match-up that went against every instinct? After all, we’re talking about a season where The Milwaukee Bucks fell in five games quite swiftly. The Clippers now have one of the most disappointing seasons of recent memory. Even last year’s winners, The Toronto Raptors, had fallen in the second round. Everything feels unexpected all over again.
More than anything, I love the hope that The Nuggets gave me during the past few rounds. To be so surprised by their durability, the way that they could pull through at every turn is an inspiring narrative. You had to wonder what they were growing in Denver to make such a sturdy team, that they could constantly steal the ball from right under you. I began to appreciate the threat that Jokić, Murray, and Paul Millsap brought to the team. They were diving for the balls, dunking on their opponents, and giving the game a fresh life.
I would be remiss if I finished without talking about one of the greatest surprises of the whole Bubble. Where we’ve seen rookies like The Miami Heat’s Tyler Herro step up during these games, I am personally excited to see where The Nuggets’ Bol Bol goes. Despite being a rookie who was signed during the previous draft over a year ago, he’s been training with The G-League and mostly been quiet. You had to assume that he would make his debut sometime in the 2020-2021 season. Whereas most attention had been shifted to The Grizzlies’ Ja Morant or The New Orleans Pelican’s Zion Williamson, Bol has been hiding in the shadows, waiting to impress.
Now to be fair, he’s never been a decisive force in the games, but I just love watching him play. Usually, when a game is going good, he’ll get a few minutes in the fourth quarter, and it’s always enjoyable to watch. I imagine him being a better player next season, but for now, shows potential in how he’s able to hold his own against teams like The Jazz and The Clippers. If nothing else, he is a snazzy dresser, appearing at The Draft in a flamboyant jacket, making sure he would always stand out.
To be honest, their war against The Lakers was always ugly and I’d likely sound bitter if allowed to run long. While we all predicted the outcome (myself included), there was some small hope that the team with a better dynamic would win. I hated watching the referees clearly favor The Lakers with their bad calls. Not only that but watching LeBron James turn into Pagliachi every time he got fouled is not something I’m looking forward to. With the exception to Anthony Davis, this team lacks grace and class that makes them worthy of rooting for. At best, I’d root for their legacy… but I’m not giving into their dumb “Doing this for Kobe!” campaign that they insist this is.
I understand if this piece feels like it’s all over the place. Personally, I didn’t pay that much attention to The Nuggets over the season. They just never had moments where they demanded your attention. And yet they kept winding up as the third-best team in the league. It was something incredible, unexpected. It’s what makes basketball worth watching. It’s the hope that you’re about to see the next big player blossom into their true selves. The Nuggets just had a higher mountain to climb than anyone not named The Phoenix Suns. For the most part, they did it with actual craft and passion.
My worry is that I won’t see that again from them until it’s absolutely necessary. They are a great team when they need to be, but when they’re not they’re far from interesting. At most I look forward to seeing how Bol Bol fits into their line-up, to see if he’s as great as I believe him to be. I do hope that, like this time in The Bubble, that they’ll surprise me once again when I least suspect it. After all, Jokić is one of the best players right now. He deserves to be recognized for it. I just hope his team doesn’t let him down at doing that.
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