After making a late season double-firing, the Denver Nuggets ended the 12 months on a three-game win streak.
The Denver Nuggets created the loudest noise throughout the NBA on the last lap of the common season. Within the wake of their regarding downslide regardless of Nikola Jokic’s brilliance, they pulled a daring transfer by dismissing head coach Michael Malone and basic supervisor Calvin Sales space.
This transfer was met with such criticism contemplating that the NBA Playoffs is already nearing, however the franchise was compelled to maneuver on out of the worsening feud between the 2 Nuggets staffers.
Regardless of main organizational adjustments, Denver emerged resilient, ending the season evading the Play-In Match by profitable their final three video games en path to postseason qualification because the No. 4 crew of the Western Convention.
Whereas they undoubtedly deserve reward for surviving the season and reaching the Playoff stage, the true problem is but to return for the Nuggets.
What Denver drew for the opening spherical of the 2025 Playoffs is solely a frightening one, a surging LA Clippers crew that defied the percentages and expectations imposed towards them.
Whereas it might undoubtedly be a seven-game banger for each groups, Draymond Inexperienced believes that the Nuggets are critically at drawback relating to the teaching standpoint.
“Right here’s the place you will miss Mike Malone. You’re going up towards Ty Lue, who’s pretty much as good as they arrive. A coach that’s coached 4 video games as a head coach or no matter it’s, and is about to tackle Ty Lue in a playoff sequence, that’s powerful,” the Golden State Warriors star mentioned on The Draymond Inexperienced Present with Baron Davis.
“In saying that, I feel that makes it an enormous, huge distinction on this sequence.”
With Malone out, the Nuggets tapped assistant David Adelman to turn into the crew’s head coach on an interim foundation.
The son of Corridor of Famer coach Rick Adelman, David deserves loads of credit score for main the Nuggets regardless of the chaotic flip of occasions recently across the franchise. However it will probably’t be denied that he’ll really face an uphill techniques battle towards a seasoned one like Ty Lue.
“I don’t know, man. It’s onerous to go towards the Clippers while you’re about to place a three-game tenure head coach up towards Ty Lue. I feel that lengthy is simply going to be virtually inconceivable to beat,” Inexperienced mentioned. “
“That motive alone, it’s onerous to go towards the Clippers. I don’t know David Adelman that properly, I do know he’s not Ty Lue. Can he presumably be someday? I don’t know.”
Though he’s uncertain if the Nuggets can pull it off by way of the X’s and O’s, Inexperienced is in the meantime bullish about one Denver star who can play a essential position in going head-to-head towards the Clippers, past Nikola Jokic.
For Inexperienced, Russell Westbrook might be a game-changer for the Nuggets along with his power and protection.
Inflicting lots of chatter beforehand on the subject of his disastrous blunders towards the Minnesota Timberwolves and thrown into hypothesis about Malone’s departure, he’s anticipated to play a distinguished position.
“You really want Russell Westbrook on this sequence, you really want Russell Westbrook defensively,” Inexperienced argued. “He’s the one man I feel they’ve that they’ll throw at James [Harden] or Kawhi [Leonard] and he may cause some havoc.
“You aren’t stopping both a kind of guys, they’re superstars for a motive, however Russ I feel may cause some havoc. That’s vital, Russ is for certain the x-factor in that sequence.”
Time will inform how the battle between the Nuggets and the Clippers will unfold. It does seem like we’re up for a thriller sequence between two title powerhouses.
