The Denver Nuggets celebrate their Game 1 win in the West semifinals, capped by an Aaron Gordon game-winning 3.
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OKLAHOMA CITY — The Denver Nuggets truly don’t care that Draymond Green is bothered by their new slogan. Or Baron Davis, for that matter.
Yes, they know that “We Believe” was the official mantra of the legendary Golden State Warriors team that upset the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks as a No. 8 seed in 2007, and which included Davis as the star point guard. But given everything they’ve been through in this past month — from the shocking firings of their coach and general manager with just three games left in the regular season to the resilient seven-game series win over the LA Clippers in the first round that followed — no one in a Nuggets jersey is about to feel bad about this bit of motivational thievery.
Even less so after the madness that ensued Monday night in Oklahoma City.
Everywhere you looked inside the visitor’s locker room of the Thunder’s Paycom Center, where Denver rallied back from a nine-point deficit in the last three minutes to pull off a stunning Game 1 win against one of the most dominant regular-season teams of all time in their second-round series, there were those Nuggets T-shirts and towels that riled Green and Davis so on a recent podcast.
“We Believe,” they read.
It’s unoriginal, to be sure, but the messaging is proving quite prophetic of late. Interim coach David Adelman, who spent the past eight seasons as an assistant under former coach Michael Malone, has received rave reviews from players who had grown weary of his predecessor’s abrasive style. Interim general manager Ben Tenzer, who has been with the organization for 16 years and spent the last four as vice president of basketball operations, is taking the selfless, supportive route after the departed Calvin Booth paid the price for his “cold war” with Malone.
By all accounts, the bad vibes that compelled team president/owner’s son Josh Kroenke to make such an extreme organizational move are much better now.
So while Green even went so far as to say that “someone should be fired” by the Nuggets as a result of the marketing move, the odds of that happening are quite slim. Especially since the idea, as it turns out, came from the very man who does the firing in these parts, Josh Kroenke.
As Nuggets guard Jamal Murray put it, “Draymond’s always gonna talk.”
Insert shrug emoji — and a smiley face — here.
Ironically, neither the Nuggets nor the Warriors have the necessary rights to feature the “We Believe” messaging on team apparel (a company called “47 Brand” does). So when Denver heads back to Ball Arena for Game 3 on Friday, it’s back to the “Keep Climbing” messaging that comes without the complications.
Truth be told, these underdog Nuggets would love nothing more than to stun the Thunder in this series and field Green’s complaints in person in a Western Conference finals matchup (the Warriors are 1-0 against Minnesota in their second-round series).
“It’s corny, but it’s also true,” Nuggets big man and resident veteran spokesman DeAndre Jordan told The Athletic about the motto. “We believe in each other. We believe in what we can do. And we’ve got a lot of great guys in this room who have won, who can contribute to winning, and what our ultimate goal is. I think the environment is just us against everybody else, man. We have faith in this group.
“I think with DA (Adelman) at the helm now, people think we’re a wounded animal. We let go of our coach and our general manager with three games left in the season. I mean, if I were on another team, I would think the same thing, too. But I think this has been a great thing for us to bond together. We’ve become stronger and more resilient.”
Translation: All that matters to the Nuggets is that it’s working.
Not only is Nikola Jokić still playing at the historic level that carried them to this point, but there has been a noticeable — and welcome — uptick in his vocal leadership of late. In the eyes of some within the organization, it’s Adelman’s more understated, collaborative approach that has empowered Jokić to use his voice even more than before. The latest example came in the second quarter of Game 1.
“We are just telling the truth, and we are accepting it,” Jokić said afterward when asked about the state of the team’s culture. “We just want to win, you know? It’s a great feeling inside of the team, and hopefully we can continue to play like this — and feel like this.”
With Michael Porter Jr. seriously limited by a shoulder injury he suffered in Game 2 against the Clippers, Aaron Gordon — who is playing through a serious calf injury — has been huge. Gordon, whose putback buzzer dunk in Game 6 against the Clippers was already the most memorable game-winner of the playoffs, added to his clutch highlight reel with the game-winning 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds left on Monday.
His remarkable playoff run has been made all the more meaningful because of the tragedy he and his family endured last May, when his 33-year-old brother, Drew, died in a car accident. And when the time came for Aaron to take the postgame podium after Game 1, he wasn’t alone. Two of his nephews, whom he has gone to great lengths to support after their father passed, enjoyed the moment alongside him.
The list of Nuggets who have been coming up big in this past month is long. And true to form, it includes Murray, their perennial playoff riser, who is loving the mood shift of late. He had 21 points, six rebounds, six assists and was a plus-12 in Game 1 against the Thunder.
“We’ve been trying to move in a positive direction,” Murray told The Athletic about this past month. “I mean, Malone was so close with everybody — won a championship, been through all the adversity. He really built the culture here with the core who’d been together — Jok, (former Nugget) Gary Harris, me, and then it was Mike. We’d been together for a long time.”
Yet that’s part of the appeal with Adelman as well, as the 43-year-old has nearly a decade of experience with this group.
“He has the attention of the locker room, and that’s all you can ask for,” Murray continued. “He knows his stuff, and so he’s confident in the group, confident in the way everybody can do it. He knows everybody individually. And I think he’s just done a great job. It’s not easy to do, to have that kind of pressure and be able to go in game after game, to stay consistent. I think it’s undervalued what he’s been doing, because we’ve been winning, and guys have been having such great nights. But he’s been great.”
Adelman’s contract was set to expire after this season, and the chance for Kroenke to see him in this head coaching role was known to be part of his calculus when it came to the coaching change. Adelman previously interviewed for head coaching vacancies with the Lakers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Charlotte Hornets and has been widely seen as an up-and-coming coaching talent. And at this rate, with the Nuggets believing again after their season seemed lost, his odds of landing the job beyond this season are getting better by the game.
“I’m just more comfortable every day,” Adelman told The Athletic. “It’s like anything else in life. You just take it day by day, hour by hour, and the most important thing for me is I’m just part of this group. I’m just filling a role, and everybody else took a step up.
“I know these guys. I’ve known them for a long time, so the relationships are already there. Trust is already there. It’s just a matter of us all getting back on the same page, them getting used to me and the way I do things. But the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, it’s what they’re doing. And being a part of this right now is really cool.”
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Sam Amick is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic. He has covered the Association for the better part of two decades while at USA Today, Sports Illustrated, AOL FanHouse and the Sacramento Bee. Follow Sam on Twitter @sam_amick.
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