DENVER—After an end to the NBA regular season that seemed loaded with uncertainty for Denver, things appear to have stabilized in the postseason.

Saturday, the Nuggets’ quest for a second NBA world championships in three seasons gained momentum with a resounding, if not surprising, 120-101 win over the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 7 of their first-round series in the Western Conference Playoffs. This comes after Denver fired Head Coach Michael Malone (the coach in 2023 when Denver won its first-ever NBA title) days from the start of the postseason, also bringing into question the future for Denver assistant and Murray State legend Popeye Jones, who Malone brought to Denver in 2021.

However, the Racer Hall of Famer has been in his customary spot on the bench for each game with fellow assistant David Adelman handling the interim head coach’s duties. Winning the series with the Clippers may have added further stability to both Adelman and Jones’ status with the Nuggets.

Jones, of course, is a former Racer player who gained almost folk-hero status in the late 1980s and early ‘90s under Head Coaches Steve Newton and Scott Edgar. When the Nuggets won the title in ‘23, it marked the first time that a former Murray State player had won an NBA crown — or that of its forerunner, the      — as a coach.

Two other former Racer players —”Jum-pin’ Joe Fulks and Dick Cunningham — won titles as members of the Philadelphia Warriors (now Golden State) and Milwaukee, respectively. 

In an interview after the ‘23 world title season, Jones said his primary role on the Denver staff is handling the defensive setup of the team. Adelman, son of former longtime NBA coach Rick Adelman, who was renowned for producing high-powered offenses wherever he landed, handles the offense for the team. 

Now, Adelman and Jones and the rest of the team will try to find cracks in the armor of the team that earned the top seed in the West this season, Oklahoma City. The Thunder will have the home court advantage in the upcoming semifinal series that starts tonight. 

Oklahoma City advanced to this series with a 4-0 sweep of Memphis and former Racer star Ja Morant. 

Meanwhile, in the East, another former Murray State star — Cameron Payne, like both Jones and Morant, a Racer Hall of Famer — is also preparing for a semifinal series with the New York Knicks after they eliminated very tough Detroit in six games last week. 

Now, the Knicks have the tall task of trying to beat a team to whom they lost every time in the regular season, defending world champ Boston. Their series begins tonight in Boston.

Both series will be aired on TNT, with the East series starting at 6.