102222-murrayporter.jpg
Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO -- For a team that has legitimate, external championship expectations for the first time since Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups studded the roster, the Denver Nuggets don't exactly seem tightly wound.

During warmups prior to Friday night's nationally televised matchup against the defending champion Golden State Warriors, the coaches and players on the court broke into uproarious laughter and excitement when 36-year-old forward Jeff Green -- affectionately known as "Uncle Jeff" throughout NBA circles -- threw down a windmill dunk to conclude his pregame routine.

Green's exhibition was followed by an impromptu dunk contest from some of the members of the coaching staff. Player development coach Stephen Graham, a 6-foot-6 former NBA wing, missed his attempt. That was followed by an endearingly self-aware tap-the-backboard layup by relatively diminutive assistant coach Ognjen Stojakovic. The show-stopper, however, came from nine-year NBA vet Darrell Arthur, now a basketball operations associate with the Nuggets, who thundered down the lane for a windmill jam of his own. He had somewhat of an advantage, given his 6-9, athletic frame and the fact that he had already worked up a flop sweat while defending Nikola Jokic in the post during his warmup drills, but he was still showered with praise.

The loose pregame atmosphere was at least somewhat surprising given that the Nuggets were coming off an unexpected loss to the ragtag Utah Jazz in the first game of the season -- not to mention that they were about an hour away from a road matchup against the Warriors, one of the league's most devastating home teams for nearly a decade.

Whatever the Nuggets were doing, it paid off.

Denver raced out to an 18-point halftime lead and, despite some late-game foibles, held on for a 128-123 road victory -- all the more impressive considering point guard Jamal Murray was held out of the game due to routine maintenance on the surgically repaired left knee that caused him to miss the entire 2021-22 season.

The return of Murray and forward Michael Porter Jr., a 6-10 sharpshooter who played just nine games last season before undergoing the third back surgery of his career, have many experts picking the Nuggets to be in the elite tier of true NBA title contenders next to teams like the Warriors, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks.

Add Murray and Porter alongside Jokic, the reigning back-to-back MVP, and the Nuggets should shatter last season's 49 wins, which earned them a No. 5 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Or at least the thinking goes.

Unfortunately for Denver fans, things aren't that simple.

"I know everybody just thinks it's, you know (snaps) they're back and they're back to where Jamal was in the bubble a few years ago and Michael's back to being the player that we know he can be," Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said. "But physically coming back from those injuries, it doesn't happen that easily -- emotionally, chemistry."

Matters are complicated partly because, at least for the beginning of the season, Murray will be on an unrelenting minutes restriction after going over 18 months between NBA games. Malone said he wants to help get his point guard back into game shape and rhythm, but that's difficult when he has to continually look over and ask the training staff how many minutes remain before he has to send him to the bench to rest.

Murray played 26 minutes in their opening-night loss to the Jazz and 27 in Saturday's 122-117 home-opening win against the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is "kind of where we want him right now," according to Malone. Porter appears to be without a restriction, averaging over 30 minutes in the first three games of the season.

Beyond health, there's also the task of reintegrating two prolific offensive powerhouses into a team that got used to playing -- and winning -- a certain way last season. Jokic was the first, second, third and fourth option offensively last season, but that changes when Murray and Porter are on the court with him.

"To be honest, I play lots with Jamal, especially with pick-and-roll, I think we are really good at that," Jokic said. "So I think I need to play a little more with Mike -- I think that's gonna be the challenge. ... I think we can work, maybe we can work better."

As expected for a player of Jokic's basketball IQ, he's right on the money. In a tiny sample size so far this season, the Nuggets aren't exactly lighting up the scoreboard (relatively) with Jokic and Porter on the court. Their offensive rating together is 117.1 -- very good, but a far cry from the 121.1 points per 100 possessions they produced together during Porter's breakout 2020-21 season.

One reason that the Jokic-Porter lineups need to be extremely potent offensively is because of the drop-off in defense, never Porter's forte. Early in the win over the Warriors, Porter showed that his timing and reads are still a bit lacking after his long layoff. First, he gambled on a steal attempt that took him out of the play, leaving Jokic on an island against Andrew Wiggins.

Then Porter inexplicably left Wiggins to help in the paint, resulting in a wide-open 3-pointer.

A couple of possessions later, he invaded Stephen Curry's landing space to give him a dreaded four-point play.

Defense has been an area of concern in the early season, particularly in the loss to Utah, and Malone and the Nuggets have the added challenge of incorporating six new players to the roster, in addition to Murray and Porter. They acquired Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith from the Washington Wizards, signed Bruce Brown and DeAndre Jordan in free agency, and drafted rookies Christian Braun and Peyton Watson. For a Denver team that has trotted out largely the same roster for several seasons, the unfamiliarity is a novel concept.

"I think for a long time our continuity was a great strength," Malone said. "When you lose eight players and you bring eight new guys in, we have our core still in place, but that's a lot of guys that you're trying to integrate into a new system and a new locker room, and that is challenging."

Luckily the Nuggets have a potent antidote for any potential problems in the form of a 6-11 Serbian basketball wizard. Offensively, he makes things easy for his teammates due to his uncanny passing and playmaking ability. The only thing the Nuggets need to worry about is not getting drilled in the head by a pass they never saw coming.

"A lot of times he's not looking. He throws across his body, whatever it is," said Braun, who played 11 minutes with Jokic in the win over the Warriors, during which the Nuggets put up a plus-21.2 net rating. "He's really like a teacher. He's a coach on the floor. He knows everybody's spot. So you've just got to be ready when you're playing with him."

Jokic is why most people aren't too worried about Murray and Porter quickly getting back to their old form. Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who knows something about reincorporating star players into the fold, thinks Jokic's "brilliant" passing will make the adjustment much easier for Denver.

"You watch them from afar, all those back-cuts. I mean, those guys who were injured, they're still gonna remember those passes, so they're gonna keep back-cutting," Kerr said. "Mike does a great job and they've established themselves as a really good team over the last few years, so I don't imagine there's gonna be huge growing pains."

That's exactly the sentiment that the Nuggets are battling this season. All the championship expectations rely on Murray and Porter getting back to their previous levels of production, and the new players acclimating themselves to Denver's system. The fits are great on paper, but getting them to coalesce in reality is a difficult proposition.

The first three games of the season -- a surprising loss to a bottom-tier team followed by a road win over the defending champs and a closer-than-expected handwringer against the tanking Thunder -- might be the type of variance we can expect from Denver for the first few months of the season while they figure things out.

"This is definitely a work in progress, and it's gonna require patience on everybody's part," Malone said. "I know full well that we will continue to improve as the season goes along -- 82 games is a really long season, and we just have to stay the course."