With the NBA now moving towards a return, the talks will now shift to the teams and their contention for a championship. You have the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, and LA Clippers as the three biggest favorites heading into the playoffs, but there are a couple of teams who are capable of spoiling our dream match-ups.

The Denver Nuggets are among the ‘tier two’ contenders that are equipped to make some noise, even in the mighty Western Conference. Guard Jamal Murray knows that and he’s pretty confident of Denver’s chances. He shared as much in a recent Zoom interview:

 “We know we can go win the title … Me and [Nikola Jokic] have been in Denver this whole time, working out.”

“We have proven to be one the best teams year in and year out since we have been building. We have beaten good teams consistently. We shouldn’t have lost to Portland [last year in the conference semifinals]. That was more on us, our inexperience and they are a good team. But we don’t think that there is a team that can beat us in a seven-game series when we are playing at our best.”

The Nuggets fell one game short of appearing in the Western Conference Finals last season and they were able to parlay the experience into a strong 2019-20 campaign.

While a 43-22 record isn’t exactly impressive on the surface, it includes double-digit wins over the Bucks, Lakers, and Clippers, as well as other tough contenders, like the Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, and Utah Jazz. They are a combined 10-6 against those teams, with seven wins coming by 10 or more points.

Also inspiring Murray is the supposed body transformation of his main partner in crime: Nikola Jokic. ‘The Joker’ is apparently hard at work on carving up a chiselled frame, particularly on his abs.

Nuggets President Tim Connelly also hyped up Jokic, and joked that the All-Star big man is “beach ready.”

“He’s beach ready. He has abs … He showed up in great shape. He’s sitting there. He sent me a picture. No shirt on. He’s got abs. I’ve never seen him have abs before.”

It will be interesting to see how good the Nuggets’ star duo will be once the season resumes, as both were having good streaks prior to the league’s COVID-19 hiatus in March.

Jokic was putting up 20.2 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 6.9 assists per game on the season and just had his second-straight appearance in the All-Star Game.

Murray, meanwhile, came back from 10-game absence in early February and fired away 21.9 PPG on 50.4%-shooting in his next 15 games (up until the games were indefinitely suspended on March 12th).