MINNEAPOLIS — Three days off during a playoff series is a conveniently long time to recover from physical ailments. It’s also an unusually long time to dwell on the past.
In the Nuggets’ case this week, “that was miserable,” Michael Porter Jr. said.
During that painstaking wait for Game 3 after a 106-80 collapse Monday in Denver, Nuggets coach Michael Malone got radical in his search for motivation. What he came up with might not have been seen by Denver’s entire roster, but it tapped into a defining theme of this second-round series against the Timberwolves so far: To have a psychological edge is a pendulum. It would behoove both teams to take advantage when it swings to their side.
Now it’s Minnesota’s turn.
“I had an edit made, and I wasn’t sure if I was gonna show it to the guys,” Malone said after Denver’s 117-90 win Friday night. “And I showed it to DeAndre Jordan. And he said, ‘Oh, hell yeah. We’ve gotta show it to the guys.’ It was a two-minute edit of every talking head in this country, saying that the series is over. ‘The Nuggets are done. It’s a wrap. They’re toast. Minnesota’s the better team.’ All the big personalities. You know who they are.
“And not that they were wrong. This is not a shot at those people, because after those first two games, I probably would have said the same thing, but I didn’t want to show it. Because most of the time I don’t give a damn what they say. But I knew that this would maybe strike a chord deep inside you.”
According to a team spokesperson, it was ultimately determined that it was Jordan’s responsibility to send the video out to his Nuggets teammates via text. Multiple players told The Denver Post they were unaware of such a video existing after Friday’s game.
So maybe the competitive fire Malone witnessed in Game 3 was nothing more than a team punching back. That’s beside the larger point. Whether or not Denver’s players were privy to the series verdicts reached by Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless after Game 2, they’re each smart enough to know what the public perception was in a 2-0 situation. They each knew (from Malone in practice this week) that only five teams have ever won a series after losing the first two games at home. Backup point guard Reggie Jackson was on the winning side of one of those comebacks.
Nikola Jokic had a good feeling Game 3 would tilt the Nuggets’ way after the first quarter, even though their lead was only 28-20.
“Everything was sharp,” he said. “Everything was fast. Good screens. Good cuts. Some shots you make, some shots you miss, but I think it was quality basketball.”
“Even if we got into a bad spot or a low clock, we were able to not turn it over,” Jamal Murray said. “Get it into some sort of set or action that we’re comfortable with and at least get a shot up.”
The roles will reverse after the road blowout Denver just pulled off. Game 3 was obvious proof that a tough enough team is capable of weaponizing its own home-court embarrassment. Denver proved its toughness and inverted the chemical balance of this series. If there’s doubt going into Game 4, now it’s focused on Minnesota.
The psychological advantage, perhaps more important than anything tactical through three games, has swung to the opposite side of the pendulum.
“We’re not gonna celebrate,” Malone said. “Because once again, we finally played a game as close to 48 minutes — it might’ve been the best game of the playoffs for us, to be honest. I don’t think we played great in the first round. We had moments. But in the playoffs, you’ve gotta start stringing quarters together, halves together, games together.”
How are the Nuggets going to repeat that in the same deafening road environment Sunday, when all of Malone’s talking heads are taking their side now? It might help that players haven’t actually seen that mysterious video yet.
“If that doesn’t resonate within you as a competitor,” Malone said, “I don’t know what will.”
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