In one month, David Adelman could go from brilliantly blunt to awkwardly stumped, from unbridled to unmasked, from offensive whisperer to defensive disaster.
This stretch will determine if the Nuggets made the right decision 10 months ago.
The fact is, Adelman’s promotion from interim coach was based on the idea that the guy with the lighter touch was a better fit to achieve a second championship.
Fail to regain homecourt dominance, lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves this weekend, and it would bring that notion into doubt.
For the first time since he took over under the most unusual circumstances — three games remaining in the regular season — Adelman finds himself under pressure.
Every injury is available to give him a pass, but once the calendar flips to March and the starting lineup returns, it does not work like that.
The Nuggets woke up Thursday tied for third, but only two games ahead of the sixth-place Lakers. If the Nuggets fail to avoid the play-in, Adelman will get blamed.
This roster was constructed to win a title, not fend off the likes of the Suns, Warriors and Blazers to earn a tournament berth.
It has been an odd season, Adelman pulling the strings in remarkable wins and humiliating losses.
The Nuggets went 10-6 without Nikola Jokic. That is coach of the year stuff. Denver has gone 5-6 since he returned. Um, what?
It was around this time a year ago that his predecessor, Michael Malone, lost the locker room. His abrasive personality, so necessary to win a ring, had run its course. The team’s inability to play defense — and not give a damn — drove Malone bonkers. The scathing, public criticism of effort, while not wrong, no longer struck the right chord.
Adelman is different, the bell pepper to Malone’s jalapeno heat.
His matter-of-fact tone was celebrated when they stayed in the race without Jokic. But the mild-mannered professor did not come across as ideal when the Golden State Warriors JV team routed Denver last weekend in the fourth quarter.
Questions arose.
Was Adelman up for this challenge as a first-time head coach with the loftiest expectations?
What played out Wednesday at Ball Arena restored confidence, even if belief only lasts until the next game as Denver faces the NBA’s toughest remaining schedule.
The Nuggets responded to their embarrassing loss to the Warriors by holding the Celtics to 84 points, the fewest Denver has allowed this season.
Clearly, Adelman has the ear and respect of his players.
“When you have a job like mine, you just do it the best you can, you be as honest as you can with these guys because the whole point of this is to help them succeed. If they succeed, we all succeed. That’s how I look at it,” Adelman said when I asked about this stretch and recent adversity. “While I am here, I am just going to be brutally honest with them. And try to keep a good vibe in the locker room.”
Adelman knows the pulse of his team. Understands their challenges. The danger of staying too positive, though, is that players can use it against a coach.
Thus far, Adelman has navigated this slalom course. When the roster and starting lineup were changing daily, he was the one who wrung out the best from Peyton Watson, Jalen Pickett, Zeke Nnaji and DaRon Holmes II. He got them to buy into playing the hot hand.
But with the starters expected to be intact as early as next Thursday, no one wants to hear about how the young players developed. Well, maybe Calvin “Too Easy” Booth does, but no one cares what he thinks.
It is about the Nuggets’ best players reaching their ceiling together. That is how this season will be defined. It was always going to come back to this as soon as the original five — owners of an 8-2 record when together in November — came back.
The Golden State loss, the choke against the Clippers, the meltdown against Cleveland began to percolate the perception that maybe, just maybe, the Nuggets were taking advantage of Adelman.
Where Malone was a hammer to a nail, Adelman leads with numbers, nuance.
Malone was direct. But it came across as a punch in the nose. Adelman relies on a velvet glove to make his point.
Malone coached like he was in the NFL, unwilling to surrender a quarter, let alone a game. Adelman provides cover for players, admitting the length of the schedule, the back-to-backs, makes defensive efforts like that against Boston impossible to replicate every night.
He points stuff out. But he does wear them out.
The Nuggets insist the method is working, that they can handle the truth.
“That is how it is supposed to be. Because this is our team. Nobody else is going to come and do the job for us,” Jokic said Wednesday. “If we want to be better, we need to be honest with ourselves.”
Added Bruce Brown, who changed Wednesday’s game with his coverage of Jaylen Brown, “You like coaches like that. You don’t like coaches who beat around the bush and won’t tell you like it is. If I come out slow, I need him to get on my (butt) a little bit. I think as a team we like it.”
Then prove it. The Nuggets have 23 games remaining. Roughly half should include Aaron Gordon and Watson. There will be no excuses.
Adelman is accountable and smart, his tone more yacht rock than rock fight. Is this the right approach to make a deep playoff run?
The question lingers as the Nuggets face games that must be grabbed by the throat. Adelman, ever selfless, always focuses on the players, makes it about them. But, fair or not, these next six weeks are going to tell us a lot about him.
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