The Denver Nuggets faced off with the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday, Jan. 5, with more than just odds against them. Denver’s lengthy injury list, heading into the sixth game of a seven-game road trip, featured Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, Cameron Johnson, Jonas Valanciunas and Tim Hardaway Jr.
The Nuggets entered as 14.5-point underdogs; even a local Denver news reporter told viewers to skip the game and return when the team wasn’t down its best seven players.
However, facing a fresh Philadelphia lineup with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, Denver’s B-team clawed out a 125-124 overtime victory in one of the toughest and most unexpected wins in recent Nuggets history.
That win, with four traditional bench players scoring 19 points or more, marked an unprecedented amount of cooperation and ruggedness, taking the Nuggets to another level. It proved they can win on the road while missing major pieces, and it put Denver’s bench unit on the map as one of the best in the NBA.
Denver’s Rotational Strength Led by Peyton Watson
In the wake of a plague of injuries to the Nuggets’ starters, the reserves have been given extra minutes to make names for themselves. Small forward Peyton Watson has stood out, making the most of getting starts since Braun’s injury in mid-November.
Watson has sharply fine-tuned his scoring, averaging 23.7 points per game in the new year. In the three most recent games without Murray – on top of others – Watson has scored 24 (at Philadelphia), 25 (vs. Atlanta on Jan. 9) and 19 (vs. Milwaukee on Jan. 11) while grabbing almost nine rebounds a night.
Watson’s 19 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night was complimentary to Hardaway Jr.’s 25 points in another scrappy victory. This time back in Mile High city, Denver took down the Bucks with a 31-point Giannis Antetokounmpo double-double, to advance the Nuggets’ record to 4-3 since the Jokic injury.
Watson still adds a proficient level of defense day in and day out, with 26 games this year having at least one steal and 24 with a block. He’s adding cohesion to a backup group that’s also benefited from positive play from the duo of Spencer Jones and Jalen Pickett, two players who can flex throughout the court position-by-position.
Jones and Pickett have both played minor roles for their entire careers with the Nuggets, but are being optimized this year under head coach David Adelman. Jones has been in the starting lineup since Gordon hurt his hamstring on Nov. 22, and has crafted a +5.5 on-court plus-minus.
Pickett’s subtly increased every facet of his game and had a career-high 29 points in the win against the 76ers.
Bruce Brown has also done a good job providing leadership to the young players like rookie DaRon Holmes, who could grow into a lethal threat if developed properly.
Nuggets’ Bench Status in a Dangerous Western Conference
The NBA’s 2025-26 season is seeing an imbalance of competitiveness between the Eastern and Western Conferences. While the East has the young, fiery Detroit Pistons atop the table, as of Jan. 12, four of the top five records in the league dance in the West.
Denver needs to shuffle its way through the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, rival Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets, just to reach the Finals.
The Thunder just won their first title in 2024-25 with the second-youngest roster, setting them up for contention for years to come. The Spurs have a superstar ready to make noise for the next decade, as do the Lakers and Timberwolves, which all adds up to a truly daunting conference.
On paper, Denver’s bench stats are very underwhelming. The Nuggets rank 19th in bench points, 16th in plus-minus, 22nd in rebounds and 27th in assists. However, with how many starters they have been rotating in and out of the lineup, a lot of their regular bench players’ stats don’t count towards those figures.
Denver is playing sufficiently and winning games without their best player. The team is now facilitating within itself, without the puppet master Jokic, and now even with Murray inconsistently on the court. The identity and solidarity of Denver is uncanny from last year’s, and will compete with the best of the league throughout the season.
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