Nuggets navigating NBA’S longest trip
WASHINGTON» On a chilly Thursday in the nation’s capital, Michael Malone embarked on a two-hour walk. The Nuggets coach stopped at the Washington Monument, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Lincoln Memorial, snapping photographs that he will later add to a collection of albums from 18 years of traveling to Washington during his career.
“Just (wanted) to get out of the hotel and reflect on things that are a lot bigger than basketball,” Malone said at Friday’s shootaround before Denver’s win over the Wizards. “Getting outside and experiencing and getting to know each city is always something that I’ve enjoyed doing.”
And there’s been plenty of opportunity for that over the past week. The Nuggets (40-33) are in the middle of navigating the longest continuous time away from home for any NBA team this season — seven games played over 15 days, with five time zone changes and a trip across the border.
It comes at a critical time for a Denver squad that entered Saturday one game behind Utah for the coveted eighth playoff slot with nine games remaining. But it also leaves Nuggets players, coaches and staff members hours to occupy with a mixture of work and downtime, as they bounce from the South, to the Midwest, to the East Coast, to Canada and to the Great Plains until next Saturday.
“By no means are guys just hanging out in their hotel room ordering room service and eating bonbons,” Malone said. “There is still a method to the madness. Just trying to be smart this time of year and giving guys rest but still making sure we’re getting our mental work in and also getting our physical treatment.”
When Malone got his first glimpse of the Nuggets’ 2017-18 schedule over the summer, he acknowledges that his first reaction to this Memphis- miami chicago-washington-philadelphia toronto-oklahoma City gauntlet was, “Who’d we (tick) off?”
It ties for the most games on a road trip this season with New York, which played seven in 12 days, including one against the crosstown Brooklyn Nets. The Nuggets will travel more than 6,500 miles over the course of the two-plus weeks that crossed the halfway point Friday in Washington.
The late timing of the trip also leaves the Nuggets’ staff aiming to find the ideal workload. Though they had not held a formal practice on the trip through Saturday, some players got shots up on their own at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Tuesday and on the court at the team hotel in Washington on Thursday.
The training staff has set up a room in each hotel for rehab and recovery. Richard Jefferson — a 17-year veteran who recalls playing four road games in five nights earlier in his career — said the consistent days off between games are beneficial, particularly with leading scorer Gary Harris on the mend from a knee injury and starting power forward Paul Millsap battling illness.
Still, that leaves large chunks of free time in some of the NBA’S top travel destinations. Will Barton went back to his hometown of Baltimore on Thursday and “kicked it with my people.”
Nikola Jokic dined at a Serbian restaurant in Washington, but typically spends off nights playing “League of Legends” on his Playstation that he brings on the road.
Jefferson took a Soulcycle spin class and shopped in Georgetown, but he also settled in for reruns of “terrible daytime television” such as “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “King of Queens.”
To avoid the Chicago cold, Torrey Craig binge-watched Netflix’s thriller “Black Mirror” late into the night.
“I’m like, ‘Man, I need to go to bed,’ ” Craig said. “Then I’ll watch one more episode. The next thing you know, it’s 2:30 (in the morning).”
The Nuggets hopped on a train from Washington to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon for the shortest leg of this road adventure. Then they will grab their passports for a three-day stint in Toronto, before wrapping up in Oklahoma City on Friday.