Significance of an otherwise insignificant game against the Suns.

     An individual who hasn't kept up too much with the western conference playoff picture or the Nugget's season so far this year might look at the schedule on NBA.com and see the Nuggets Suns game and think this is a pretty irrelevant game. Just looking at the game on its surface, it seems they would be right. The Nuggets have 57 wins and have the 4th best record in the league, while the Suns have a lowly 25 wins and have the 4th worst record in the league. I would beg to differ, to me, this game is the most significant game the Nuggets have played this year, and the most significant non playoff game in years. Now before you exit the the page because of how rediculous you think that statement was, hear me out!

     Now most of you know that this game's significance jumps way up for the fact that if the Nuggets win, they will clinch the 3rd seed in the western conference. The third seed represents to me for this team more than just playing an easier team in the playoffs, it represents a resilient team, that was unwilling to give up and use excuses to roll over. At the end of December, the Nuggets where 17-14 and were struggling to gel, playing a tough schedule and fighting to stay in the playoff picture, while the Clippers where 24-6, the thought of the Nuggets finishing above the Clippers was almost laughable. Did the Nuggets use this as an excuse and give up? No, they continued to gel and improve every game. The Nuggets later went on a 15 game winning streak, and just when it looked like the Nuggets had it all going, their leader, Ty Lawson went down with an injury. This was a perfect time to lay down, but the Nuggets didn't feel bad for themselves and continued their winning ways. Then six games ago, Danilo Gallinari, the Nuggets leading scorer for most of the year, went down with a season ending ACL tear, another great excuse for bad play, but they went on to win that game and four of the next five games (1 and a half games without Kenneth Faried).

     All this being said, the Nuggets still must win this game to have the greatest regular season in franchise history in my books. Yeah, yeah, I know that the Nuggets this year have the most wins in franchise history, but look back to the 2008-09 season. In 2008-09 the Nuggets barely held off 3 teams who were right behind them for the 2nd seed in the west. Even though they only won 54 games as opposed to 56-57, they did their job and kept that 2nd seed and to this day, had the best regular season in Nuggets franchise history. Now you see the significance of this game against the Suns, the significance is not only one of the best teams in the league playing one of the the worst, or even getting the 3rd seed, the significance of winning this game is having a really good year or having the greatest year in Nuggets franchise history. What will it be? We will find out tonight at 6 MST!

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