A mile-high obstacle awaits
Win or go home. That mantra, trite as it may be, gets tossed around often in the NBA playoffs.
For the Spurs’ Derrick White the goal is to do both.
White hails from a suburb of Denver, where the Spurs open their first-round series Saturday against a Nuggets team their starting point guard once cheered from the upper reaches of the Pepsi Center.
If it feels like the inverse of a childhood dream for White, well, think again.
“It doesn’t really matter,” White said before the matchup was locked in. “That’s my hometown, but wherever we go will be fine.”
The Spurs left the AT&T Center after Wednesday’s 105-94 victory over Dallas still unsure where their charter plane would be headed for the start of the postseason this weekend.
A Denver win over Minnesota later that night — made possible by an 11-point Nuggets comeback in the final four minutes — booked the seventh-seeded Spurs’ ticket to the Rocky Mountains.
Had the Nuggets not rallied, Houston would have earned the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and the Spurs would have begun the playoffs 180 miles east down Interstate 10.
As it stands, the Spurs can be avoid either No. 1 Golden State or No. 4 Houston — both considered bad matchups for them — until the conference finals.
“It’s no huge difference to us,” said guard Bryn Forbes, whose team finished 48-34 in the regular season. “If we do what we are supposed to do and lock on our game plan and the way we play, I think we can beat anybody.”
Beginning Saturday, Forbes’ belief will be put to the test in the mile-high altitude of Denver, where the Nuggets lost only seven times this season for the Weest’s best home record.
At 54-28, Denver returns to the postseason for the first time since 2013 in a big way, earning the West’s No. 2 seed. It is the Nuggets’ highest finish since 2009, when they chugged all the way to the conference finals.
Nikola Jokic, Denver’s 7foot Serbian center, is a nightly triple-double alert and apt to be the club’s highest-balloting MVP candidate since Carmelo Anthony.
Michael Malone, who in four seasons has transformed the Nuggets into a more-than-the-sum-oftheir-parts beast, is a prime Coach of the Year candidate — if you ask a guy who has won three Red Auerbach trophies of his own.
“He’s been a student of the game for a long time,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s done his work. He understands the game. They have bought into the system, and the culture is starting to show and grow.”
Spurs players, who got Thursday off for rest and rehabilitation, are scheduled to return to the court for a practice session Friday before their flight to Denver.
The Spurs split four meetings with the Nuggets this season, winning both games in San Antonio and dropping both at the Pepsi Center.
“I think we are all happy with how we finished,” Forbes said. “There have been a lot of tough times this year, but to finish strong was the biggest part. We kept moving forward.”
For the Spurs, moving forward now means moving upward — in terms of both altitude and weight class.
For at least one Spurs player — their up-and-coming point guard — the old mantra gets flipped on its head.
For White, the idea is to go home and win.
“I think we’re all excited for the postseason,” White said. “We all have to step up a little bit and accept the challenge. I know it’s going to be a different animal.”