Welcome to the Denver Nuggets Weekend Moment! Throughout the season on the weekends we’ll take a quick look back at a moment in Nuggets history that has some relevance to the current NBA season. To start us off let’s talk about opening night in the NBA. What’s unique about this opening night for Denver is they are slated on the National TV schedule, something that hasn’t happened since 2009 (and even then it was the ESPN opening night which was a day after the NBA’s official opening night on TNT). And as it just so happens, that night is the subject of our weekend moment.
To set the stage, the Nuggets were coming off of their run to the Western Conference Finals the previous year with most pundits expecting Denver to once again make the playoffs, but few expecting another deep run. Optimism in Denver was of course at an all time high with the team returning virtually the same one from their playoff run, sans Linas Kleiza. Despite the lukewarm reception from analysts, the Nuggets still landed the second half of the ESPN opening night double header in a matchup with their division rival, the Utah Jazz. Denver fell behind early but closed the gap to take a two point lead heading into the fourth. With the quarter half over and the Nuggets lead closing in on double digits, Carmelo Anthony put the exclamation point on the night and the eventual victory when he stole a bad lob pass from Paul Millsap and proceeded to put it on Millsap’s head with a monstrous dunk. Melo then shouted to the stands “I’m back!!” in celebration. Truly one of the great dunks in Nuggets history and probably the best dunk Melo ever gave us in a Nuggets uniform.
