On Sunday night, the Denver Nuggets looked like the Denver Nuggets should look.

Forget the result, although the 141-111 win over the Atlanta Hawks was as refreshing for the struggling Nuggets as finding an oasis in the middle of the desert. Focus on the process. The Nuggets made 62 percent of their shots. They moved the ball on offense. They were stingy defensively. They took over the game with one of the best first quarters they had played all season and built on that for the rest of the game.

It was a desperate performance from a struggling team that had suffered more than enough this season. But that’s not nearly enough to take away the stink of Saturday night’s embarrassment, losing to the lowly Washington Wizards, being blown out by a potentially great Cleveland Cavaliers team, or many nights where the Nuggets listlessly paced up and down the floor. seemingly without a care in the world.

But Sunday was a blueprint for what this team can still be when completely locked down.

For coach Michael Malone, for superstar Nikola Jokić, for the Nuggets fan base, Sunday’s performance is a little like that of the college student who played around all semester, went into the finals and needed a special performance, and then an A-plus achieved. It’s frustrating for everyone involved to know the potential is there and then look at the collective effort. But there are the nuggets. Everyone is waiting for the team that can compete at the highest level. The Nuggets are plagued with inconsistency, characterized by frustration, locker room confusion and disbelief when you look at the Western Conference standings and see a 12-10 record. If the season ended today, the Nuggets would be a play-in tournament team.

Given the results, we can ask ourselves a fair question, and a scary question given the overall talent on the roster: Who are these Denver Nuggets?

“I think after 20 games of the season we should know who we are and what we should do on the pitch,” Jokić said. “In some moments we look good and look the way we should look when we play the way we should play. Then we stop playing the way we’re supposed to play and then we look bad.”

The eye test is confusing. This Nuggets team hasn’t shown nearly the consistency we’re used to. This past weekend sums up what Denver was as a whole. There is no excuse for the Wizards’ loss. Washington was 2-18 before Saturday night. The Wizards were missing important parts of their starting lineup with Kyle Kuzma and rookie Alex Sarr. The Nuggets needed a win after a 12-point loss in Cleveland, so lack of energy was no excuse and Jokić delivered perhaps the best single game in Denver franchise history: 56 points and 18 rebounds.

But even worse, not only did the Nuggets lose, but they also allowed the Wizards to control the game.

When you compare that to Sunday’s performance, the completely contrasting nature of each game should be a red flag. This is the same Denver core that won a championship in 2023. This Jokić could be the best version of himself, even better than his three MVP seasons. Are the Nuggets still as good as they were in 2023? No. This version was by far the best team in the NBA. But with this version of Jokić and with Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon around him, this team is capable of competing for a championship. At least on paper.

Still, the Nuggets have relied on Jokić to a disturbing degree. Further proof came Saturday night in Washington when Jokić sputtered down the home stretch because he lost his legs after all the work he had done in the first three quarters. What we’ve seen is a version of Murray that everyone should be concerned with, as his 17.8 points per game average is his lowest since his second year in the league, while he’s shooting just 33 percent from 3-point range and has not been nearly the reliable secondary offensive option he has been in previous seasons.

And the nuggets we saw form a group lying separately on the ground.

Consider Thursday evening in Cleveland. On a transition opportunity in this game, shooting guard Christian Braun led a rushing attack with Peyton Watson on one wing and Murray on the other. Murray spread out to the 3-point line and would have had a completely open look. Braun chose Watson, who was fouled while cutting to the basket. When Watson was ready to go to the free throw line to take two shots, Gordon called for a quick team duel. This is common. People are insulted. The teams quickly huddle together to spontaneously talk about the next or last move. It is a good means of communication. But as Gordon tried to call for his teammates and the referee tried to speed up the free throw process, Murray walked away, dejected that he hadn’t gotten the ball from Braun.

“Don’t worry about it,” Gordon told the officer as he watched Murray walk away. There was no quick crush.

It was the clearest indication yet that the Nuggets’ mood isn’t quite where it should be. Did it play a role in the inconsistent and sometimes lifeless play? That still needs to be clarified. But if Denver wants to get back to championship level, the consistency certainly needs to improve. As always, this is a heated and competitive Western Conference. When the Nuggets won a title, they did so as a No. 1 seed. They are currently ranked No. 7. The 1995 Houston Rockets, seeded sixth, were the lowest seed to win an NBA title.

Malone, for his part, has dug deep into his bag of coaching quotes. He will wear his emotions on his sleeve, and that makes him unique among NBA coaches. You can tell that something has taken a toll on him this season.

“We have 16 games behind us and we are talking about effort. “We have to ask ourselves the question: Who do we want to be as a team?” he said after a 27-point win at home against the New York Knicks on November 25th.

“We’re not close,” he said after the Dec. 5 loss to the Cavaliers when asked if that matchup was a benchmark for his team.

“Obviously as head coach I did a poor job of preparing this team, not just to win but to execute,” he said after Saturday night’s loss.

Malone tried different rotations. In the endless search for stability behind Jokić, he has cycled through three backup centers, Dario Šarić, DeAndre Jordan and Zeke Nnaji. He brought rookie guard Trey Alexander into the rotation for a few games. This weekend he delivered a true Hail Mary, playing against second-year point guard Jalen Pickett, who actually played well. He tried second-year forward Hunter Tyson. The Nuggets currently have eight true NBA-level rotation players on their roster. Malone is looking for a ninth.

The good news is that Jokić is playing at a historic level. He leads the NBA in scoring, he is second in the league in assists and he leads the league in rebounding. This is a great thing for his stats and his respective place in NBA history. It’s a shame that the Nuggets rely on him so much and have a 12-10 record to show for it.

Jokić plays 37.7 minutes per game. That’s second in the league. Only the Knicks’ Mikal Bridges sees more time. And Bridges doesn’t have nearly the offensive responsibility that Jokić does. Jokić’s usage is 30.8 percent. That’s seventh in the league among players who have played 15 or more games this season. Jokić’s brilliance masks many of the Nuggets’ fundamental flaws. But remember, the Nuggets were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by Minnesota last season. The younger Timberwolves raced past them in the second half of Game 7.

Malone would like to give Jokić more rest. But he pointed to the Dec. 3 win over the Warriors as an example of why that isn’t always practical. Golden State started the fourth quarter with a 10-2 run while Jokić was on the bench.

“What do I do if I don’t get the best player in the world back?” Malone said. “And that’s unfair to Nikola, but it’s our reality sometimes.

“If you look around the league, there are guys in the top 10 every year who play for some really good basketball teams who play heavy minutes. But a lot of these players have a lot of help around them. That’s why we have to make sure that we all do our jobs to the best of our ability so that we don’t bring Nikola to his knees. Because that’s the biggest fear.”

Jokić didn’t have enough help this season. Murray wasn’t himself. Russell Westbrook was great in the sprints when it came to ball handling and playmaking, but his days as a top scorer are over. There’s only so much he can do. Porter Jr. is one of the best wingers in basketball, but he can’t put the ball on the floor and make plays for himself and others.

So unless Murray returns to Jamal Murray at the 2023 level, Jokić is the only player on Denver’s roster who can consistently gain a basketball advantage night in and night out. His last two games were nothing short of historic. He followed up Saturday night with 48 more points on Sunday, giving him 104 points, 30 rebounds and 16 assists in two games. Denver should be good enough not to have to rely on such a Herculean effort on the mundane nights of the first week of December.

Jokić represents the floor for the Nuggets, and as long as he’s healthy and upright, that should always be a high floor. Murray represents the ceiling for the Nuggets, and since he’s having a subpar season by his standards, the ceiling is lower than usual. The Nuggets don’t have enough bench depth. They shoot way too few 3-pointers for this era of basketball. They were average at best defensively, finishing 16th in the league in defensive rating at 113.6. But in large part the fate of this season depends on Murray going back to his old Murray.

“Of course, sometimes defeat lowers morale,” Murray said. “We have to play hard and communicate with each other. But I think if we find a rhythm from game to game we will be fine. There are ups and downs in every season, so we have to stay level.”

A lot has to happen for the Nuggets to do well. You can take comfort in the fact that there is so much may happen. As Sunday proves, they are capable. But until the performance improves every night and Murray starts playing better, the worst-case scenario is still in play: That is, these inconsistent 12-10 Nuggets are the real Denver Nuggets.

(Photo by Nikola Jokić: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)