Biggest and most impressive upset in Nuggets history: 1994 over Sonics or 2020 over Clippers?

[GSP]

Which is the biggest and most impressive upset in Nuggets history

[Homer38]

Great question...I just don't know right now.

[E-Balla]

The 94 Sonics were a 63 win team with the 2nd best offense and 3rd best defense in the league. The 94 Nuggets were a 42 win squad with a top 5 defense because of Deke. They beat Seattle in 5 and went to 7 with the 53 win Jazz.

They clearly had the bigger upset and the most impressive performance.

[Owly]

The 94 Sonics were a 63 win team with the 2nd best offense and 3rd best defense in the league. The 94 Nuggets were a 42 win squad with a top 5 defense because of Deke. They beat Seattle in 5 and went to 7 with the 53 win Jazz.

They clearly had the bigger upset and the most impressive performance.

Not looked at it closely enough to come to decision but counterpoints ...

'20 Denver won over a best of 7 game series (versus best of 5 for '94 - this might be mitigated for you by the Utah series ... I will stick to the question as posed)

'20 Denver outscored their opponents (725-722 versus '94 series Denver 471-475)

Clippers playoff (notional) power arguably undersold by RS performance. Leonard and George a very clear 1 and 2 in minutes is the series, 2 and 5 in the RS.

'94 Nuggets appear to have benefited from good "free throw defense" (by volume: Kemp, Gill, Payton, Pierce, Cage and McMillan all shot poorly from the line) with a net drop of about 5% from the line (just on team level shooting, not checked how shot distribution changed - technically smart fouling could do this but as noted, many players dropped ... others did rise but only Schrempf crosses a 10% threshold and his RS that year is somewhat atypically low). Clippers shot broadly in line with RS expectations (based on team level percentages, maybe they could expect to see it increase with playoff rotation?).

It could certainly be '94 but I don't think its a cut and dried, at a glace simple decision.

[trex_8063]

The 94 Sonics were a 63 win team with the 2nd best offense and 3rd best defense in the league. The 94 Nuggets were a 42 win squad with a top 5 defense because of Deke. They beat Seattle in 5 and went to 7 with the 53 win Jazz.

They clearly had the bigger upset and the most impressive performance.

Generally agree, though I suppose I think it's closer than you imply.

I mean, there's no question that the disparity in talent and overall team quality was larger in the '94 match-up. But otoh, it was only a 5-game series (easier for flukey things to happen in a 5-game series than in a 7-game). Additionally, the '20 match-up has the added drama/narrative of being a comeback from down 3-1 (and not only that, but the second series in a row doing so for the Nuggets: no team has EVER come back from down 3-1 TWICE in the same playoffs).
So those are points in favour of the '20 series.

I still kinda hedge toward the '94 series, though. Again, the talent disparity was massive in that one. The closing of that '94 series felt more dramatic, too [with the last-second block and huge reaction by Deke].


Anyway, it's perhaps telling of just how loaded this Clipper team was that---even though this is a pretty solid Denver team (on pace for 51-52 wins, a +2.35 SRS in rs, and beating a +2.52 SRS team [on pace for 50 wins] in seven games)----this is still seen as a historically big upset.

[Cavsfansince84]

Went with 2020 but I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here.

[Doctor MJ]

Which is the biggest and most impressive upset in Nuggets history

Not sure how to answer the poll.

1994 was a much bigger upset because the 1994 team was much less impressive in general.

In terms of which team more deserves to be venerated, it's 2020, precisely because in the end, it didn't feel like the worse team won.

[Owly]

The 94 Sonics were a 63 win team with the 2nd best offense and 3rd best defense in the league. The 94 Nuggets were a 42 win squad with a top 5 defense because of Deke. They beat Seattle in 5 and went to 7 with the 53 win Jazz.

They clearly had the bigger upset and the most impressive performance.

Generally agree, though I suppose I think it's closer than you imply.

I mean, there's no question that the disparity in talent and overall team quality was larger in the '94 match-up. But otoh, it was only a 5-game series (easier for flukey things to happen in a 5-game series than in a 7-game). Additionally, the '20 match-up has the added drama/narrative of being a comeback from down 3-1 (and not only that, but the second series in a row doing so for the Nuggets: no team has EVER come back from down 3-1 TWICE in the same playoffs).
So those are points in favour of the '20 series.

I still kinda hedge toward the '94 series, though. Again, the talent disparity was massive in that one. The closing of that '94 series felt more dramatic, too [with the last-second block and huge reaction by Deke].


Anyway, it's perhaps telling of just how loaded this Clipper team was that---even though this is a pretty solid Denver team (on pace for 51-52 wins, a +2.35 SRS in rs, and beating a +2.52 SRS team [on pace for 50 wins] in seven games)----this is still seen as a historically big upset.

I wouldn't say that the disparity in '94 was most notably in "talent". At least as I often see the word used. Woolliness in its meaning[s] might muddy communication clarity here. "Out talenting" often also implies top end stardom.

Brian Williams, Robert Pack, Abdul-Rauf, Rogers, R Williams etc weren't primarily lacking in "talent" (often primarily offensive, athletic etc). They were generally more lacking in BBIQ, defense, work ethic, coaching, cohesion, maybe leadership. Meanwhile Seattle had 8 or 9 rotation players who were all solid and good, few were top tier blue chip picks (Payton at 2, then Perkins more a safe safe choice at 4 a decade earlier, Gill 5th in a pedestrian draft) and the main one that was hadn't fleshed out yet (starting to, but the old perceived top hierarchy of Stockton, KJ, Price, Hardaway just about still holding if crumbling through injuries [Porter falling off, but Blaylock more the emerging man than Payton]. In terms of stardom only Kemp is really there (and the lone starter at 20+ PER, Pierce sneaks it but at circa 1000 minutes).

There is a talent disparity and it very much is affected by what you mean by talent, but I don't think that Denver were thought to be untalented and talent especially isn't especially a thing that pops for me when thinking about the gap.


Fwiw, Denver '94 were down 2 on the verge of elimination too.


Another random thought (and I don't know how much it plays into playoffs depending on timing) but this years Denver crew didn't get the benefit of Denver's altitude advantage giving them a better than normal home court edge.

[Franco]

I think the most impressive is 1994, as the gap between the two teams was much larger than this one, no matter what people thought about Kawhi and PG.

Biggest upset I think would be 1994 too, as they basically removed Seattle from the equation, and the Sonics bitchslapped Houston into oblivion during those years:

[E-Balla]

Not looked at it closely enough to come to decision but counterpoints ...

'20 Denver won over a best of 7 game series (versus best of 5 for '94 - this might be mitigated for you by the Utah series ... I will stick to the question as posed)

True but Denver won 3 straight I don't think Seattle beats them twice, given 2 more shots. Not the way Deke was locking down the paint.

'20 Denver outscored their opponents (725-722 versus '94 series Denver 471-475)

... I mean this is a 7 point gap here... Denver won their 4 games this year by 43 points total. In 94 they won by 30 points total. They were winning by the same amount, Denver just lost by more in 94 which makes those wins more impressive IMO.

Clippers playoff (notional) power arguably undersold by RS performance. Leonard and George a very clear 1 and 2 in minutes is the series, 2 and 5 in the RS.

Very true but the 2020 Nuggets are so much better than the 94 Nuggets were. If the Clippers played up to potential they're not playing much better than the 94 Sonics (who were the best team in the regular season league wide).

Generally agree, though I suppose I think it's closer than you imply.

I mean, there's no question that the disparity in talent and overall team quality was larger in the '94 match-up. But otoh, it was only a 5-game series (easier for flukey things to happen in a 5-game series than in a 7-game). Additionally, the '20 match-up has the added drama/narrative of being a comeback from down 3-1 (and not only that, but the second series in a row doing so for the Nuggets: no team has EVER come back from down 3-1 TWICE in the same playoffs).
So those are points in favour of the '20 series.

I still kinda hedge toward the '94 series, though. Again, the talent disparity was massive in that one. The closing of that '94 series felt more dramatic, too [with the last-second block and huge reaction by Deke].


Anyway, it's perhaps telling of just how loaded this Clipper team was that---even though this is a pretty solid Denver team (on pace for 51-52 wins, a +2.35 SRS in rs, and beating a +2.52 SRS team [on pace for 50 wins] in seven games)----this is still seen as a historically big upset.

The 94 team was down 0-2 and had to win 3 straight to advance just like the 20 team I don't think the comeback aspect changes anything.

[trex_8063]

Fwiw, Denver '94 were down 2 on the verge of elimination too.

That's right, I totally forgot that. Makes that aspect of the '20 series moot.