After Jamal Murray's latest "Flurry," Denver Nuggets rise in the CBS Sports NBA Power Rankings
After an impressive string of wins, combined with a serious "Murray Flurry" on Wednesday night, the Denver Nuggets have put themselves in a great position to land a favorable Western Conference playoff seed at season's end.
They are heading into the All-Star Break on an eight-game win streak, and as a result the CBS Sports NBA Power Rankings has them at the No. 6 position. They've moved up one spot since the last rankings and author Colin Ward-Henninger writes that they "have the potential to keep climbing if they continue down the path they're on."
Guard Jamal Murray led his team in scoring against the Portland Trail Blazers at Ball Arena in Wednesday night's 132-121 win. He scored a career-high 55 points in a performance Nuggets coach Michael Malone called "his best game ever from a numbers standpoint."
Late last week the Nuggets jumped ahead of the Houston Rockets in the conference rankings. They are now only a half-game out of the No. 2 seed currently held by Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies.
"With their eight-game winning streak and the Rockets' stretch of poor play, the Nuggets have officially seized the No. 3 seed out West, with the Grizzlies square in their sights," Ward-Henninger says.
While clinching the No. 2 seed seems entirely in the realm of possibility, catching the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder is another matter altogether. There are 27 games left in the regular season, and the Nuggets would have to make up some serious ground in a short period of time. They currently trail the Thunder by 9 games.
Despite that fact, should those two teams meet in the playoffs, the Nuggets have several years of deep playoff experience up and down their roster, plus the three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, and that could definitely help against a still relatively inexperienced OKC roster when it comes to the postseason. (The two teams haven't met in the postseason since 2011.)
"Right now they look like the conference's biggest threat to Oklahoma City, especially with Jamal Murray dropping 55 points on 36 shots against the Blazers on Wednesday," wrote Ward-Henninger.
Ward-Henninger noted that while many other NBA teams made trades before the NBA deadline earlier this month, Denver was smart to keep their roster as-is.
"Why would they (make a trade)? They've rattled off eight straight wins to get within sniffing distance of the No. 2 seed in the West," he wrote.
