Nikola Jokić and the defending champion Nuggets are charging up for another

When his Nuggets entered the All-Star break on a three-game losing streak, you might’ve expected Michael Malone to be at least moderately miffed.

After all, the hard-charging coaching lifer has never shied away from a chance to hold his teams accountable. Coming off blowout losses to the Kings and Bucks, followed by another loss to Sacramento that saw Denver blow a 16-point, third-quarter lead and allow an 11-0 run in the final three minutes, it wouldn’t have been particularly surprising to see Malone take stock of a squad that had fallen to fourth place in the Western Conference and feel compelled to administer an ass-kicking. A hailstorm of invective about inattention to defensive detail; a paroxysm of serrated critiques of his roster.

And yet!

“We lost three in a row right before the All-Star break, and I’m sure there were plenty of people around Denver jumping off bridges somewhere,” the head coach told reporters last week. “Everybody’s just gotta take a chill pill, man. Relax. Take a deep breath.”

So: What leads an NBA head coach — a group of people famous for maniacal focus on the minutiae, a profession long defined by Big Thibs Energy — to suddenly start suggesting self-regulation? Knowing you’ve got a Larry O’Brien Trophy in the case probably helps. So, too, does knowing what you’ve got coming.

Namely, The Lightning.

The Lightning can strike in many forms: as a motivational text to the team group chat; as a defensive rebound turning into a full-court outlet pass in one fluid motion; as a layup that resembles playing keepaway from determined children; as a twirling-toward-freedom pirouette into a buzzer-beating Sombor Shuffle. Whichever form it takes, though, it leaves a mark — and the Nuggets seemingly came out of the All-Star break intent on making their opposition look like Nikola Jokić’s arms after, like, every game.

Whatever miniature malaise the Nuggets might’ve felt heading into All-Star Weekend sure as hell seemed to dissipate once they came out of it; the defending NBA champions ripped off six straight wins by a combined 88 points, and enter Thursday’s marquee matchup with the NBA-leading Boston Celtics just one game behind the Timberwolves and Thunder for the West’s top spot. They’ve got the league’s second-best offense and fifth-stingiest defense since the break, according to Cleaning the Glass — the kind of overwhelming balance that helped propel them to the 2023 NBA championship, and that Malone and Co. hope to ride into a title defense this spring. (NBA.com’s John Schuhmann noted earlier this week that the Nuggets’ first five games out of the break was their “best five-game stretch of defense … this season.” Oh, The Lightning. You’ve found yet another form.)

At the heart of it all, as ever, is Jokić, who looks every bit the favorite to take home his third Most Valuable Player trophy come season’s end.

Jokić is averaging 24.9 points, 14.4 rebounds and 10.7 assists per…