The Denver Nuggets are the 3rd seed in the Western Conference playoffs, by virtue of the Clippers loss Sunday to the Thunder. Thus they'll face the same Blazers team who they lost to in the regular season finale, 132-116 in Portland, as they are the 6th seed.
Head Coach Michael Malone was less than pleased with the effort of his first unit in the loss, as they fell behind 43-22 in the 1st quarter. "they know us, we know them, really well, obviously," Malone said. "We'll need our starting 5 to play with a lot more urgency and care, compete and show up than we did tonight. I think that was really disappointing. I think the rest of our roster played really hard."
Going into Sunday's game, the Nuggets weren't sure whether they would be the 4 seed or move up to 3. And they didn't know whether their 1st round matchup would be against Dallas, Portland or the Lakers, who actually finish as the 7th seed and will have to play the Warriors in the NBA's new "play-in" tournament this week.
Malone wouldn't let the emotion of how the first unit played change the way he handles his team this week. "We've kind of set the schedule up a while ago," he said. "We'll get home late tonight, we'll give them tomorrow off, a chance to get away. Then Tuesday, we'll bring them back into the gym. Probably have a team dinner that night, talk about our opponent. Then on Wednesday start going live. It's really important how we use this week to prepare both mentally and physically. Because, when Game 1 comes around, we're gonna have to play with great effort and great energy, and play for 48 minutes because that's what it takes to win a playoff game and playoff series."
Nikola Jokic had an MVP season and acknowledged postgame this was his best season. He played in all 72 games, posted 16 Triple Doubles and averaged, 26.4 Points, 10.9 Rebounds and 8.4 assists. Veteran Paul Millsap said that having the league's Most Valuable Player this year will be the biggest difference in this team, from the team 2 years ago that lost to Portland in Game 7 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals at Pepsi Center (now Ball Arena).