Better great than never.
An exhausted, depleted Nuggets team staring at an uncertain future responded with urgency Thursday night.
Desperation is the world’s worst cologne, but it provided a heck of a bump to a former championship team in a 119-107 victory.
It was everywhere eyes could see at Ball Arena from Jamal Murray grinding through an illness, Nikola Jokic working through scratches on a double-sleeved right elbow, Julian Strawther shedding his cloak of anonymity, and Aaron Gordon shoving Alex Caruso.
Truth is, they did not have a choice. But we have seen so many teams check out in these spots. The only gag reflex the Nuggets had was Murray’s ugly morning of sickness that threatened his availability. (He was never missing this game, right?)
And how about the fans? Muted on Mother’s Day because of the afternoon start, they faced the brink of despair with towels up and angry boos at officials and OKC’s parade of floppers. So eager were some to witness this resilience, two imposters wandered into the arena with fake press passes and made it behind the Nuggets’ basket before getting escorted out into a pool of legal trouble.
In fairness, this is the kind of series you want to sneak into. It has a Finals feel. It set up as a platform for the Thunder to announce its arrival as the Next Best Thing. The problem is these Nuggets have become the annoying rash on their back, the cockroach in the garage corner. They refuse to go away.
“We understood that collectively we had to find a way to come through,” said Strawther in his on-court interview after he poured in 15 points, his highest total since a Feb. 20 win over the Chicago Bulls. “We knew what was at stake.”
This is fun, isn’t it? How it should be.
A team with a ring decided it was not ready to go home. This is who we thought the Avs were. But leave it to the Nuggets to overcome late-season dysfunction and return to a second consecutive Western Conference semifinals Game 7.
There is no other way this could end. The Thunder arrived at Ball Arena convinced they could tuck the Nuggets into bed, end their season and hit “purchase” on tickets to Cancun.
Instead, they were left to testify to the tornadic frenzy of Murray, the dead aim of Strawther and the unnerving consistency of Jokic.
Murray looked spent, but as he is wont to do, he showed up. His 11 first-quarter points helped establish a tone of defiance. He is defined by big moments, improving his record to 9-3 in elimination games with averages of 27.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.4 assists.
It was Murray who met the collapses in Games 4 and 5 with calm. The Nuggets blew fourth-quarter leads, shooting like they needed Lasik surgery. He never flinched. When asked if he was confident that they would return to Oklahoma City for a deciding game, Murray said without hesitation, “Absolutely.”
Of course, these are the Nuggets, so this win came with accompanying drama. They squandered a 10-point first-quarter lead as the Thunder went on a 38-16 run. As they fell behind by double digits, they rallied to end the half. That sequence turned doubt into belief.
The unlikely catalyst for holding it was Strawther. You could have asked the sellout crowd to pick an X factor, and of the 18,000 guesses, only friends and family would have landed on Strawther. The last big moment he had a Ball Arena was walking out with his family to the car after an easy win over Portland in the last game of the first half.
He was heading to the Rising Stars game. Then he injured his knee and his impact disappeared.
“But tonight my teammates were finding me,” Strawther said.
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These were the old Nuggets with a new look. They were mad. Their failures in the previous games, if you ask them, were not them. The common refrain was “We can’t play worse than that,” something Gordon, who appeared to suffer a concerning left hamstring injury in the final minutes, repeated multiple times.
They did not want to be shoved to the edge of the cliff to respond like this. But that is how desperation works.
It forces you to look in the mirror. To sit up straight. And with the crowd at full throat, deliver a punch to Oklahoma City’s face.
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