Nuggets Credit Coaching Change for Game 7 Breakthrough

After weeks of internal uncertainty and external scrutiny, Denver routed the Clippers 120-101 in Game 7 on Saturday night — and much of the credit, at least from the players and staff, is going to interim coach David Adelman, who replaced Michael Malone in a late-season shake-up that stunned much of the league.

“I think the owner … wanted to change something, to change the energy, and probably he did,” center Nikola Jokic said, per Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. “He got the result he was looking for.”

The result? A team that had been sliding in April suddenly looked locked in. Balanced scoring. Defensive cohesion. Role players stepping up. Everything the Nuggets hadn’t been in the final weeks under Malone, they were when it mattered most.

“If we don’t make the changes, there’s no way we’re even in a Game 7,” a Nuggets executive told Shelburne. “The energy was gone. The belief was slipping. Adelman brought it back.”

It wasn’t just lip service. Jokic finished just shy of a triple-double. Six players hit double figures. The Nuggets looked a lot like the group that won it all in 2023 — methodical, mature, unshaken.

“I thought it reminded me of the year we won it,” said Adelman, who spent years as Malone’s top assistant before taking the reins himself. “There’s a lot of humble confidence in there. You’ve got to respect who’s across the hall, but you also have to believe in what you’ve built.”

What they’ve built lately has come from the inside out, and from players like Christian Braun, who delivered 17 points and said Saturday night was the kind of moment he’s been chasing since last year’s playoff exit.

“Obviously, [Minnesota] was better that night,” Braun said of the Nuggets’ 2023 second-round Game 7 loss. “But I just felt like there was opportunity left on the table. Tonight was exactly what I wanted.”

So the Nuggets are more than just alive. They appear to be united. And maybe, as some within the locker room suggest, finally free of the weight that had been dragging them down.

The change was bold. It was abrupt. And who knows? Maybe it saved their season.