This Week In Basketball can only pay homage to a title defense on the rebound

The Nuggets couldn't have been more impressive in Minnesota in response to numerous pundits (including yours truly) who doubted their ability to recover from two home losses to the Timberwolves

You only have to rewind a week to take us all back to a time when the highly anticipated Tim Connelly Bowl had sweep potential.

The defending champions from Denver stunningly lost the first two games of their second-round showdown with Minnesota at home, plunging Nikola Jokić and his Nuggets into a swamp of despair unlike anything they came close to confronting during last spring's 16-4 march to a title.

One publication wrote that the Nuggets, at 2-0 down and facing three full off days of gloom and criticism before Friday's first chance to make amends in Game 3, were suddenly in the midst of: A title defense in tatters. Sadly that publication was this one and its chagrined publisher is me.

After two weekend games in Minnesota, well, cue Richard Marx.

Should've known better.

Yours truly especially should have known better because, even though only five teams in league history have managed to win a seven-game series after losing the first two games at home, I've personally witnessed two of those comebacks from close range. The Mavericks beat the Houston Rockets in seven games in 2005 after dropping Game 1 and Game 2 in Dallas. Then in 2021, in even more of a roller-coaster, Dallas lost in seven games to the LA Clippers after the road team bizarrely won each of the first six games.

And those two instances, mind you, featured first-round matchups that involved teams with no championship pedigree. The Nuggets just issued two loud and impressive statements about who they are and what separates them from the other seven teams still alive in these playoffs by drawing even with the defensively rugged Timberwolves with two wins that came after Minnesota welcomed back Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert.

To be clear: Denver's resurrection did not occur controversy-free. It has to be especially galling for the Wolves — who, remember, have only won a playoff series three times in the 35-season history of the franchise — that Jamal Murray was not suspended for Game 3 after his myriad transgressions in Game 2. The Nuggets won Friday night in a 27-point rout that surely would not have been as comfortable without Murray as it proved.

Yet there's no denying the steel and defiance we just witnessed from Jokić after collecting his third MVP award in a span of four seasons … and Murray after he seemed so limited by his calf issues in the first two games in Denver … and an increasingly dangerous Aaron Gordon. It appears now that the three full days off that the Nuggets were forced to wait until resuming the series whipped them into a vengeful frenzy.

So …

Looks like we might very well get that Second Round Series For The Ages that Nuggets/Wolves was initially projected to be. From "punked" and "manhandled" in the first two games, to use Reggie Jackson's words, Denver has pulled even in the Connelly Bowl at 2-2 and gets two of the next three games back at home in the Rocky Mountain altitude.

So, yeah, please forget that we ever posed that question in last week's Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza about a possible new title favorite in the NBA.

You wouldn’t dare ask that on this Monday.

Not yet.

#thisleague

Onto all the other standout experiences from the week we just completed …

Tweet of the Week

Ideally I should be featuring one of my own tweets, but Atlanta's Dejounte Murray won post-lottery Twitter with this Instant Reaction to the Hawks unexpectedly scoring the No. 1 overall pick despite only a 3.0% chance going into it:

Murray's probably not wrong. Just since Sunday afternoon's proceedings, considerable speculation is already bubbling leaguewide even more feverishly than it was before about the Hawks' expected willingness to trade Trae Young or Murray in the wake of landing the No. 1 pick, Houston's presumed desire to use the No. 3 overall pick it just won in pursuit of more win-now talent and the likelihood other lottery teams (such Memphis and Utah) will be active in the offseason trade market.

Stories of the Week (published here)

Monday: Saying farewell to the first round of the playoffs and setting a new personal record for pictures published in a TWIB compilation.

Tuesday: "A title defense in tatters" was indeed my "that aged badly" reaction to Denver losing the first two games of its second-round showdown with Minnesota at home.

Wednesday: The latest from the NBA Coaching Carousel.

Sunday: Two traded-minded teams to watch and more around-the-NBA notes.

Games of the Week (that I attended)

Saturday: Mavericks 105, Thunder 101

Attending Game 3 of the Dallas/Oklahoma City series, however, made even TV viewing of another must-see game impossible for me Saturday.

I'm not a Pirates fan, but I really wanted to see Paul Skenes' MLB debut because Skenes starred at my high school (El Toro HS) under the coaching of former classmate Mike Gonzales. In the late 1980s we were known for quarterbacks, sending Steve Stenstrom and Rob Johnson to the NFL back-to-back and really three QBs in a row to the pros once you factor in Bret Johnson's time in the Canadian Football League. Now? ETHS is a baseball factory. Gonzales had two future Gold Glove-winning third basemen in the program (Nolan Arenado and Matt Chapman) before the most eagerly anticipated pitching prospect since … Stephen Strasburg? (Do the seamheads in the audience have a more fitting nomination than Strasburg?)

Podcasts of the Week (that I co-hosted)

Monday alongside Turner Sports' Chris Haynes:

Friday edition of #thisleague UNCUT with special guest Stan Van Gundy:

Phone Notification of the Week

I've explained many times in the past that sportswriters, as I was taught, are supposed to root for hotels, restaurants and flight upgrades rather than teams. Which is why yours truly gets irrationally excited that Marriott has recently begun sending pushing notifications like these to me:

Coffee(s) of the Week

One for here and one to go.

It’s a frequent order from this coffee addict.

In this case we're talking a cortado and a cappuccino from Merit Coffee in Deep Ellum, Texas:

Quote of the Week

"Just about everything this time of a year is a one-game season — or feels like it. Every game is monumentally important. And, so, getting down 0-2 is difficult. It's a big hole and coming home doesn't guarantee you anything as we found out in Game 3. That was a real struggle to be able to come back, find a way for Andrew [Nembhard] to hit that shot. … Each game has been different in some way, shape or form. Everything is so sensitized, so important, that there's really … there's no need to overstate it. It’s just there."

— Pacers coach Rick Carlisle … aptly summing up how this second round has felt all over the league, with momentum fleeting in each of the four Round 2 matchups.

Final Word(s) of the Week

As I've mentioned often previously, I loved loved LOVED This Week In Baseball in my youth and have frequently compiled what I've referred to as TWIB Notes on this Substack to pay homage to the great Mel Allen and that life-changing show which debuted in 1977. Now my goal is to make it more of a full-on roundup of what I wrote, said, did, saw and maybe even ate, bought, etc., in a given week … with categories that I suspect will evolve as I get a better handle on what this piece should look like. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated in the comments section below.

(Editor’s note: After affixing two banners to this file for the fourth successive week, one at the top and one at the bottom, it is probably time to concede that running This Week In Basketball on Mondays has become a thing … which unfortunately crowds out Monday Musings. The NBA, of course, always names its Players of the Week on Mondays during the regular season, so maybe I shouldn’t fight it.)