Prepare yourself, Denver sports fans. Nobody believes the Nuggets can beat OKC in the second round of the NBA Playoffs.
Heck, most basketball 'experts' think it's a long-shot for David Adelman's group to win more than a single game against the Thunder.
Heading into round two, Oklahoma City is the betting favorite to win the NBA title. The odds of Denver winning this series are +500 – or 5-to-1 – according to DraftKings Sportsbook.
The deeper you look at these numbers, the more they paint a hopeless picture. However, there is one big, beautiful, Serbian silver lining for Nuggets fans - you still have the best basketball player on the planet: Nikola Jokic.
As Lloyd Christmas would say "so you're telling me there's a chance!"
How can the Nuggets silence Oklahoma City's thunder and advance to the Western Conference Finals? The road to an upset starts with one giant step by Denver's Joker.
Denver Nuggets
Here is the Denver Nuggets' schedule for the second round vs. OKC Thunder
Jokic must play efficient, not electric
In four games against OKC during the regular season, Jokic averaged 24.5 points per game on 52.6-percent shooting from the field. Both of those figures are below his season-long average, and they're even skewed by his monster game on March 10th where he went for 35 points and shot 75-percent.
The other three match ups against the Thunder are more representative of what Jokic will need to avoid if Denver wants any chance to steal this series - inefficient shooting nights.
Jokic shot anywhere between 43-and-46-percent in those three games, including one 2-for-10 effort from behind the three-point line on national TV. Nikola is not normally known for ego, but there have been times this season where he's seemingly felt pressure to take over a game and out-score Denver's opponent - that simply cannot happen against OKC.
I only have anecdotal evidence for this, but when Jokic scores between 18 and 26 points on 55-plus-percent shooting and double-digit assists Denver is darn near unbeatable. The Joker's true superpower is his ability to engage and elevate his teammates.
To upend the heavily-favored Thunder, the three-time MVP will need to be facilitator first and scorer second.
From Mr. Nugget to X-factor, Aaron Gordon is the key
This is my go-to take as it relates Nuggets' success this season – Aaron Gordon is the straw that stirs this drink.
Gordon was a consistent force in that first round series against the Clippers, although rarely does his box score statistical output paint the full picture of his impact on the game.
What was most encouraging to me was that - especially in game seven, Gordon seemed to still have bounce in his game.
Spring in his step.
The calf injury that's hampered most of his season isn't going away until the year comes to a close for Denver, but the immense amount of attention being paid to both rest and rehabilitation by both Gordon and the Nuggets' training staff is clearly paying off.
Gordon led the Nuggets with 22 points in that series-clinching victory, and if they're going to wash-rinse-repeat that success (like I do with my "Aaron Gordon is the X-Factor" takes) the man fans affectionately call Mr. Nugget will need to be just that: the guy.
Looking back at their regular season match ups against OKC, Gordon really only played one true game against the Thunder – an October 24th drubbing in which nobody really played well.
However, in just seven minutes before exiting due to aggravating that calf injury on March 9, Gordon showed exactly how he can lead the Nuggets to an upset in this series: drain threes*.
He made two of three in that limited action, and during the regular season he shot the best three point percentage of his career: 43.6-percent.
That's the highest three point shooting percentage on the Denver Nuggets (even higher than Nikola Jokic's 41.7-percent), and it would rank him sixth in the entire NBA (except he missed a few too many games due to injury to be ranked... whatever).
Now, Gordon did not shot the long ball well in round one against the Clippers - finishing the series just below 30-percent. But over the representative sample size of this season he's been an impact player from three, and the Nuggets will need that firepower and floor spacing to match an Oklahoma City group that shoots nearly 40 three's per game.
*footnote: I'm taking for granted that Gordon's defense will continue to hover at an all pro level. Both AG and Christian Braun will need to carry their excellent defensive effort from round one into round two if Denver is going to have any chance to win this series.
Ride the Westbrook wave
Russell Westbrook would make a terrible Jedi knight.
You need only read the Jedi code to know that Westbrook isn't cutout for that life:
There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony.
Westbrook's game relies on both emotion and passion - at times, he is chaos personified.
And sometimes, in order to create an upset, you need to embrace the dark side.
"To be a force of nature on the floor is what I pride myself on," says Westbrook when talking about his game.
"It may be a turnover, it may be a missed shot," he says with a wry smile. "But it may be a steal, it may be a dunk, it may be a missed three, it may be a made three, it's going to be all of that. It's going to be everything. You just take it for how it comes and whatever happens you go with it."
That's one way of describing the way Russell Westbrook can impact a basketball game, but Westbrook himself also likes to put it a bit more simply:
"To go in and [mess] [stuff] up," Westbrook says, with heavy censorship by the author.
In games one, five, and seven against the Clippers, Westbrook was a key cog in earning a victory. Especially in the series finale, Westbrook may have been the most important player on the court.
Not only did he score 16 points – the same amount as Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray – but he also forced five steals. That was 33-percent of the Clippers' total turnover number in the game.
If the Nuggets are going to win this series they're going to have to steal at least one game in Oklahoma City, and to do that they'll need someone to create instant-energy and silence the hometown crowd.
That second bit may be a challenge for Westbrook - he's still a legend in OKC and his emotions likely will be high returning to the genesis of his NBA career.
But that's ok - as stated earlier, Westbrook's emotion fuels his game.
"He's an emotional guy and I think that energy drives him," says Jokic.
There's no way Denver wins this series without significant contributions from Russell Westbrook - so as fans we're going to have to ride that proverbial wave. Missed threes, turnovers, layups gone so awry they make you question your own sanity - all of that is on the table with this chaos merchant.
However, so too are clutch buckets, highlight reel dunks, and a roar that may be loud enough to drown out both the NBA pundits and the Thunder.
Nick's prediction: Denver shocks the world, advances to the WCF
Call me a homer, but I've watched enough sports to know that when everyone believes they know what's about to happen - they're usually wrong.
The most popular bet heading into this series is for Oklahoma City to win in five games - suggesting Denver is only good value to win once.
What if the Thunder are rusty in game one? They haven't played a basketball game since April 26th - they'll have had eight days off before facing the Nuggets on Monday.
That's the exact same number of off days that the Rockies had in between winning the NLCS and being swept by the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 World Series.
I'm not suggesting that Denver will sweep OKC, but to think that this group with championship pedigree and a three-time MVP (let's be honest, it should probably be at least four-time and probably five-time) is going to get run out of the post season is bordering on insane.
So yea, I'm picking Denver to win. Sue me.
Nuggets in 6.