Julian Strawther thought he was out of Nuggets’ playoff rotation. Now he’s an elimination game star

A man without a driver s license and without a tooth stood in the way of a historic NBA gang s date with destiny Like a hockey defenseman whose face is familiar with the warm embrace of a puck Julian Strawther played through it It was the fourth quarter of Tournament and he had received contact to the head sending his right incisor flying across the floor Fortunately it was a fake When Strawther lost his baby tooth in that spot the replacement never grew in He keeps a prosthetic in the gap By the time his work was done the pearly white was back in place Thanks to the ball boys Strawther announced They came through for me Is there a more appropriate metaphor for what the Nuggets have endured Left to die without a head coach or general manager then battered by the Clippers and Thunder they re somehow still playing at least for one more championship And was there a more random path to Battle a more unexpected figurehead for their survival than Strawther and his Competition fireworks On a memorable night in Denver a -year-old guard who had played fewer than minutes since the start of March suddenly wreaked havoc on an NBA playoff series that belongs among the classics To earn such a lofty status a inadequate benchmarks must be met The tropes that make for great theater The character archetypes such as the unlikely hero Strawther takes his bow He was drafted th overall by Denver in He appeared in games as a rookie He represented the bottom of the rotation as a sophomore And after spraining his left knee on March he went about his recovery process under the assumption that he would not be a part of Denver s playoff rotation he recounted The Denver Post That s where my mind was at Strawther mentioned And the staff was transparent with me We may or may not need you to stay ready The timing of that injury was super-tough understanding that I would be cleared to play either with a contest left or two in the regular season Barely any time to ramp up So my main thing was just trying to battle back The Nuggets were tied at when Strawther erupted He scored eight of their points during a swift - run at the end of the third quarter burying two momentous -pointers and urgent out his in recent times introduced thumbs down celebration after the second As he hopped back toward the defensive end he detected himself face-to-face with Damian Massey Watson s close friend and manager who was seated courtside The two shared an emphatic high-five We go to the gym all the time at night Peyton Julian and Michael Porter Massey commented So I see the work these guys put in and how well they shoot Strawther scored all of his points during a -minute window of battle time shooting for outside the arc It was his first double-digit scoring meeting since Feb and his th championship in the NBA with or more points I thought he held water defensively too That was a big deal interim coach David Adelman noted You want to keep an offensive athlete out there but they have to be able to handle their own on the other end And he did We didn t have to change schematically defensively because he sat down moved his feet and guarded That was unfailingly the snafu with Strawther s prospective playoff minutes He was deficient as a one-on-one defender inconsistent as a bench scorer If he was going to be viable for high-leverage playing time despite his limitations the Nuggets would have to trust that his offense would show up But in this matchup they entirely haven t had much of a choice Oklahoma City s depth has slowly caught up with Adelman throughout the series culminating with a pair of fourth-quarter comebacks leading into Challenge Thunder coach Mark Daigneault has been abundantly transparent about his intention to rotate fresh legs onto Denver s increasingly exhausted star players So Adelman has tried to find approaches to play eight Mostly to no avail Encounter their role players make s Championship Lu Dort makes s Adelman stated Tonight we had a guy step up It was just really good to see him catch that rhythm show that emotion and get everybody going Jamal Murray disclosed I really like even when Oklahoma City kind of came back or had a run his vigor really set the tone for us While he rehabbed Strawther also continued to procrastinate in his free time He has never obtained a driver s license from his hometown of Las Vegas to college at Gonzaga to adult life in Denver He often relies on Watson to chauffeur him to and from the airport when the Nuggets have a road trip Related Articles Concern for Nuggets Aaron Gordon high for Event David Adelman says after hamstring injury PHOTOS Denver Nuggets top OKC Thunder - in Tournament of second-round NBA Playoffs series Renck Nuggets respond to desperation like champions force Event at OKC Nuggets-Thunder Battle -pointers Julian Strawther plunges the dagger Christian Braun makes his episode Jamal Murray delivers through illness as Nuggets force Battle with Thunder They ll maybe carpool together on Saturday when the organization flies back to Oklahoma City one more time I should ve worked on that Strawther admitted to The Post about his driving tuition I m gonna try to tap in on that whenever the season s over Hopefully end of June Want more Nuggets news Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis