Spurs-Denver Nuggets first-round playoff series at a glance
(Nuggets lead best-of-seven series tied 3-2)
Game 1: Spurs 101, Nuggets 96, Saturday, Denver
Game 2: Nuggets 114, Spurs 105, Tuesday, Denver
Game 3: Spurs 118, Nuggets 108, Thursday, San Antonio
Game 4: Nuggets 117, Spurs 103, Saturday, San Antonio
Game 5: Nuggets 108, Spurs 90, Tuesday, Denver
Game 6: Nuggets at Spurs, Thursday, 7 p.m.
Game 7*: Spurs at Nuggets, Saturday, TBD
* If necessary
(All times central)
SAN ANTONIO – Their season flickering like a candle in the wind, the Spurs are banking on the support of the home crowd at the AT&T Center and a renewed effort on both ends of the court to stave off playoff elimination Thursday night in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets.
“It’s always better to play at home, play with your own fans at your back," San Antonio center Jakob Poeltl said after Game 5. "Makes it a lot easier to play out there. I’m looking forward to Game 6."
The Nuggets took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a 108-90 victory Tuesday night in Denver, where the Silver and Black won the opener and led by 19 points in the third quarter of Game 2 before collapsing in the fourth period.
The teams traded victories until the Nuggets won Game 5, pushing the Spurs to the brink of playoff elimination. A loss Thursday night would send the Spurs to their second consecutive first-round ouster for the first time in the Gregg Popovich era.
Denver, the youngest team in the playoffs, is trying to advance to the second round for just the second time in the last 25 seasons.
“We’ve grown up a lot and we still have a lot more,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after Game 5. “A close-out game is the hardest game that many of our young players will ever play in, especially against a team like San Antonio.”
In the playoffs for the first time in six years, Denver entered the postseason as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. San Antonio, which made the playoffs for an NBA record-tying 22nd consecutive season, advanced as the No. 7 seed.
Despite getting throttled in Game 5 – they trailed by 30 in the fourth quarter – the Silver and Black are determined to force a Game 7, which would be played Saturday in Denver at a time to be determined.
“Leave it all out there,” Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge said Tuesday night, when he was asked what he thought the team’s mentality would be heading into Game 6. “Nothing to lose right now. Go play your game, be confident, come ready to go to war.
“Let’s make it a dogfight, let’s play confident, and let’s just take our shots with confidence, and if they don’t go in, they don’t go in, but you’ve got to shoot it with confidence.”
Point guard Derrick White expressed confidence that the Silver and Black will bounce back.
“I mean, throughout the whole year, every time we’ve been doing real bad and it’s real low, we usually respond well so, that’s just the guys in this locker room,” White said.
White had a stellar performance in Game 3, scoring a career-high 36 points on 15-of-21 shooting and helping hold Denver guard Jamal Murray to only six points.
But the Nuggets have clamped down on White in the past two games, limiting him to a total of just 20 points. Denver coach Mike Malone made a defensive change after Game 3 that has paid off nicely, assigning Gary Harris to guard White.
White had only eight points and finished with four turnovers in Game 4, and scored 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting and dished out just two assists in Game 5.
“They are just being more physical and not letting me get to my spot, so I’ll have to make an adjustment here,” White said.
A second-year pro, White spent most of his rookie season playing for the Spurs’ G League team in Austin. He was expected to be relegated to a backup role this season, but was thrust into the starting lineup when starting point guard Dejounte Murray sustained a season-ending knee injury in the preseason.
Popovich has written off White’s struggles to growing pains.
“He’s basically a young kid who’s feeling his way,” Popovich said. “Playoffs are different than the regular season. He’s growing and every night is an education, whether he plays poorly or whether he’s great.
"He’s a willing young man and is going to have a great future, but he’s got to have this kind of experience. Hopefully, he’ll bounce back on Thursday.”
While Denver has neutralized White in the last two games, no other Spurs player has stepped up to help LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan with the scoring load.
Rudy Gary, the team’s third-leading scorer during the regular season, has struggled mightily since coming off the bench to score 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 2-of-3 from the three-point line, in San Antonio’s Game 1 win.
Gay has scored only 24 points in the past four games, shooting 21.2 percent overall (7-33) and 16.6 percent (1-6) from the three-point line. He hit rock bottom in Game 4, scoring just two points, and going 0-7 from the field overall and 0-1 from beyond the arc.
Aldridge and DeRozan led the San Antonio scoring in Game 5 with 17 points each. Aldridge also finished with 10 rebounds to get a double-double, but DeRozan had only four rebounds and one assist. Center Jacob Poeltl (12) was the only other Spur besides Aldridge, DeRozan and White to score in double figures Tuesday night.
Backups Marco Belinelli (6), Patty Mills (5) and Davis Bertans (3) had a tough night in Game 5, combining for only 14 points on 6-of-20 shooting. They were 3 of 12 from long distance. Mills scored 12 points in Game 4, but he was only 2 of 8 from the field, including 1 of 5 from the three-point line in Game 5.
“We just have to shoot with confidence,” White said. “I think we are getting good looks, we are just missing them but game six is a must win so we just have to go home and win or go home.”
The Spurs won’t extend the series if they don’t do a better job of slowing down Nuggets center Nikola Jokic and guard Jamal Murray. They also must do a better job of defending against Denver’s three-point shooting.
Jokic is averaging nearly a triple-double in the playoffs (19.6 points, 11.6 rebounds and 9.0 assists), and Murray has averaged 18.8 points. He has gone 7 of 14 from the three-point line in the last two games.
“They play really well together,” Poeltl said, referring to Jokic and Murray. “It’s tough to compare it to anybody else They kind of do their own thing. I don’t think anybody else in the league plays that way, with a lot of back-and-forth, hand-offs, pick-and-rolls, it’s very unpredictable.
"That makes them hard to guard. They’re both good players so we have to deal with that and do the best we can.”
Denver’s three-point shooting has been a big factor in the series. The Nuggets have shot 41.3 percent from beyond the arc, nailing 60 of 145 attempts.