OKC Thunder give Utah Jazz the blues: 5 takeaways

The Denver “golden” Nuggets remain the golden boys of the division.

Unexpectedly, the Denver Nuggets burst onto the NBA scene as legitimate championship contenders this year. They currently sit in second in the Western Conference standings and only 1.5 games behind the Golden State Warriors. Their overall record within the Northwest Division is 8-2 with two games remaining against Portland, two games against Minnesota, one game against Utah, and one game against the Thunder in Oklahoma City.

OKC currently sits three games behind Denver in the standings, but there is still time to surpass them with 15 games remaining in the regular season. More importantly, however, the OKC Thunder just need to find their winning groove again, and they have just under a month remaining to do so.

Winning and playoff seeding are both important, but Oklahoma City needs to remember the most important factor in winning a championship – peaking at the right time. Russell Westbrook has stabilized in his gameplay, Paul George has time to reestablish his MVP self, and Dennis Schröder can continue to be a top tier sixth man.

The priority right now is getting everyone healthy and eking out enough wins to make the playoffs. The OKC Thunder can let the Nuggets continue to be the division’s golden boys while OKC focuses on regaining its strength.