Panic Time for the Nuggets and Knicks?

Should the Knicks and Nuggets – #3 seeds with title aspirations now down 2-1 in their respective series – be seriously concerned? I swear, I titled this post before I saw Zach Harper’s piece.

The New York Knicks

Knicks fans might feel like they’re stuck in a bad dream. In 2021, they lost their first round matchup to the Atlanta Hawks, as Trae Young averaged nearly 30 points and 10 assists. This loss has lasting damage on New York fans, and they still seethe with resentment towards Young despite the fact that he’s no longer on the Hawks. That was a long time ago, and the only Knick left on the roster from then is backup center Mitchell Robinson.

Back to the present. After a Game 1 that was competitive until the 4th quarter, when the Hawks offense went cold, Atlanta has responded with back-to-back one point wins. CJ McCollum, the savvy 13-year veteran who was traded from Washington for Young at the trade deadline, has been the focal point of Atlanta’s offense. Make no mistake – just because McCollum was traded for Young straight-up, that doesn’t mean that McCollum is a similar caliber of player. Young is a 4-time All-Star, and McCollum has always been a nice role player – Atlanta was looking to get off of his large contract.

As I detailed earlier, the Knicks and the Hawks play two very different styles of hoop. The Knicks are a slow, deliberate team that takes time to set up their half court offense. The Hawks prefer to push the pace and score in transition. But guess what happens during the playoffs? The game slows down. It gets more physical. When that happens, the ability to score in the half court against a set defense, especially off the dribble, becomes the most important attribute. So though any team could have traded for McCollum at the trade deadline (I suggested that the Houston Rockets do so after watching their season opener in October, as my relatives that I emailed can corroborate), he’s become an invaluable part of this team. His respectable 19 PPG in the regular season has skyrocketed to 27 – and remember, teams score fewer points during the playoffs, making such a figure even more impressive.

But the Knicks have Jalen Brunson – one of the premier guys at half court offense in the world. Yet in the past two games, McCollum has outdueled Brunson. And these are literal duels, as the two guards are weak defenders and therefore target each other. McCollum hit the Game 2 winner, and Brunson had a chance to win the game as well, but turned the ball over instead. Now New York finds itself down in the series. If they can deny CJ the ball – as was the key to success in Game 1, or stick one of their wing defenders in OG Anunoby or Mikal Bridges (both of whom did not come cheap for the Knicks) on him and therefore avoid McCollum hunting Brunson, New York should be able to even up the series. But given that last year they made it to the Conference Finals for the first time in a quarter century and still fired their coach, the pressure is on.

The Denver Nuggets

Following the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 119-114 dramatic victory – in which they came back from a first-half 20-point hole over the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of their Western Conference first round matchup, Jaden McDaniels, an elite two-way wing, had this to say:

It’s true, Denver had the 21st-ranked defense in the regular season. They made up for it by having the league’s best offense. But those are, to put it mildly, fighting words from McDaniels. An NBA playoff series can breed resentment. In the regular season, you usually play a different team every night. But in the playoffs, if your series goes the full seven games, that’s more than two weeks of facing the same team. The play is more physical, the games more intense. Usually there’s some pushing and shoving, and serious trash talk.

Plus, the Timberwolves and Nuggets have history. As I detailed in my playoff preview, they faced off in 2024 in an all-time series that saw the Wolves pull out the dramatic Game 7 victory. But they also met the previous year, a decisive five game victory for the Nuggets en route to their 2023 title.

You would think a team like Denver, with their experience, pedigree and talent, would respond to McDaniels’ statements. That should be bulletin board material. This is a team that is more or less the same as the world champions of three years ago! Instead, what happened was a seismic wire-to-wire ass-kicking. The Nuggets scored just 11 first quarter points on a dismal 3/21 shooting. The margin ballooned to more than 20 before halftime (the largest lead for Minnesota was 27), and the rest of the game was never in doubt.

Jokic, by his standards, had an awful game. Yes, he still had 27 points and 15 rebounds, but it came on 26% shooting and he only notched 3 assists. Rudy Gobert’s stifling defense on Jokic was a big story from Game 2, and it carried over to this game as well. Jamal Murray lead the Nuggets in assists with a measly 4 – Denver as a team only recorded 12 to Minnesota’s 31. Other notable statistics: Denver got out-rebounded by a margin of 13, Minnesota had 10 more points off turnovers despite both teams turning the ball over 10 times, points in the paint favored the Wolves by 34, and fast break points by 14. McDaniels backed up his talk with 20 and 10, while bench spark plug Ayo Dosunmu (acquired from Chicago at the trade deadline) poured in 25 to go with 9 assists.

So, should the Nuggets panic? They still have the best player in the world, and the knowledge that they’ve beaten this Minnesota team in the playoffs before. But to get dominated like that is concerning. On the health side of things, Anthony Edwards is off the injury report for Minnesota, while Aaron Gordon is questionable for Denver with left calf tightness. That’s the same injury that he dealt with in last year’s series loss to OKC. Gordon is such a Swiss Army Knife for his defense and suddenly-reliable three-point shooting. Not only can he space the floor and force Gobert out of the paint, but he can also cut to the basket to finish lobs and crash the offensive glass. Without him, the Nuggets don’t have a big body outside of Jokic (backup center Jonas Valanciunas was a healthy scratch in Game 3). But despite the statuses of Edwards and Gordon, I think the Nuggets have the pedigree to bounce back and take Game 4 and head back to Denver for Game 5 at 2-2.

If not, it would require a Herculean effort for this team to come back down from 3-1. But if anyone could do it, it’s Nikola Jokic.

So while there is more pressure on New York, I also think their solution is more feasible. CJ McCollum is a good player who is playing his ass off, but he’s not Michael Jordan. The Knicks have two excellent wing defenders who should be able to neutralize him. The Nuggets have already won the title, so they have less pressure in that sense. But I’m not as sure about a possible solution. If I was a gambling man, I would say both teams win on Sunday (Saturday night back home). But this is the most competitive first round we’ve seen in what feels like a while, across the board, with every series except for OKC-Phoenix looking feisty. I love NBA playoff basketball.