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The Denver Nuggets and Michael Malone are moving to the second round. They booked their ticket to the Western Conference semifinals after dispatching the San Antonio Spurs in a nail-biting 90-86 victory in Game 7.
After the series-clinching win, Malone applauded Denver's improvement on defense, especially on threes, per David Aldridge of The Athletic:
This isn’t complicated:
"The reason we have missed the playoff two years in a row is because we were a bottom five defensive team-an elite offensive team, but we couldn’t guard anybody…to go from 30th to first in 3-point defense is remarkable."
-Denver’s Mike Malone
— David Aldridge (@davidaldridgedc) April 28, 2019
Denver went from allowing opposing teams to shoot 37.8 percent from deep last season to just 33.9 percent this season.
The Nuggets certainly proved that Saturday night, holding San Antonio to just 6-of-23 shooting (26.1 percent) from downtown in Game 7. After seven grueling contests, San Antonio shot just 33.8 percent from three throughout the entire series.
Denver, on the other hand, shot horribly from deep in Game 7. The Nuggets made just 2 of 20 from distance after converting on nearly 39 percent of their threes through the first six games.
Despite the cold shooting night, the second-seeded Nuggets still managed to get past the seventh-seeded Spurs in the first round.
With the Portland Trail Blazers and their sweet-shootung backcourt tandem of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum waiting in the wings, Denver will surely need to keep its top-notch 3-point defense engaged and active.
Game 7 between the Nuggets and the Spurs was a slow, grind-it-out game from start to finish. Denver looked like it was pulling away as it went up by 17 points in the third quarter. However, the veteran Spurs surged back and trimmed the deficit to two heading into the final quarter.
The game went down to the final 40 seconds of regulation. Spitfire guard Jamal Murray nailed the biggest shot of the game with a one-handed driving floater to give Denver a four-point cushion with 37 seconds remaining.
The Spurs failed to score on the following possession and endured a bizarre ending to the game, when they allowed the Nuggets to dribble out almost all of the clock.
