TORONTO — Once, and then twice, Scottie Barnes bullied Denver’s upstart from a disadvantaged position. DaRon Holmes II was boxing out on the low block nearest the basket, but Barnes worked around him for two offensive rebounds on missed free throws.
Those rebounds turned into five Toronto points, fuel for a 9-0 run in a fourth quarter when scoring had otherwise dried up for both teams. It could’ve bruised Holmes’ ego, could’ve removed him emotionally from the game. But the Nuggets were running out of options. They needed his full effort, no matter the results. He was on his own out there.
“He gives up the offensive rebounds. I didn’t see him put his head down. He just kept playing,” coach David Adelman said after a roller-coaster 106-103 win. “And that’s the key in the NBA. You’re gonna have moments when you get embarrassed or somebody physically owns you, whatever it is. You’ve just gotta go to the next play. Be ready to make the next shot, make the appropriate decision with the ball, take care of it. And he did that.”
Playing the first serious rotation minutes of his NBA career, Holmes was chosen as the Nuggets’ third-string center Wednesday in their first game fending without Nikola Jokic. Little did Holmes know he would be asked to close a tight game against a 14-10 Raptors team. Denver backup center Jonas Valanciunas joined the infirmary with a calf strain late in the third quarter, and Holmes ended up logging 21 surprise minutes, including nine in the fourth quarter.
“That was a lot, man, just to see (Valanciunas get hurt). We already have four starters down,” Holmes said. “And then Val as well now. Lord knows how long he’ll be out for, but for me, it was more just like, man, I’m tired. That’s my first time really playing that many minutes in a true NBA game. So I’m just like, I have to catch my wind and figure this out.”
Aside from the handful of rebounding miscues, Holmes answered the bell with an impactful performance. He scored 11 points on a 4-for-5 shooting night, his only miss coming on a 3-pointer in the last minute. He anchored lineups that mostly kept the game steady; Denver lost his minutes by two total points. He defended Toronto’s best player (Barnes), managed to set a few physical screens to free up teammates, blocked a shot. He was even able to put the ball on the floor a couple of times to open up the offense with drive-and-kick reads.
“He was really good,” Adelman said. “And I think he’ll learn as he goes, the NBA, when they switch one through five, they’re not smalls (switching onto him). These are tough, RJ Barrett-sized wings. And he’ll learn how to manipulate his screens and do all those things. Because he can always pick-and-pop. We know he can do that. And he can do it against traditional fives in drop coverage like that.”
Holmes is still a quasi-rookie at 23 years old. Drafted 22nd overall in 2024 by former Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth, he suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury in his Summer League debut. After a year of rehab and recovery, Denver designed a developmental plan for him primarily focused on the G League. He’s been assigned to the Nuggets’ affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich., for most of the season, averaging 20.9 points and 7.6 rebounds for the Gold.
“He played great. … I think he’s only gonna get better with time and experience and being able to slow down the game, stuff like that,” Jamal Murray said. “I think really anybody — Spencer (Jones) was kind of like that, just kind of playing super-fast, super-hard, missing bunnies, wide-open shots. And then as soon as (he got) comfortable, it was like, you’ve gotta guard him.”
This was the first game of the season Denver has even needed to think about a third-string center. Jokic and Valanciunas both played the first 32 contests. That they suddenly injured themselves in consecutive games was an especially cruel plot twist.
“We’ll be creative with it,” Adelman said before tip. “We played a little bit of small ball in Miami with Spence — you can say Spence or Peyton (Watson), whatever you want to say. Small. And obviously, we have Zeke (Nnaji). DaRon is with us, so we can go that way as well. And then if we wanted to go really small with just a bunch of shooting, Peyton has done it in the past. So it’s ultra-small with us. That’s the thing. … We’ll try whatever we’ve gotta do to try to win a game.”
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The biggest obstacles he was combatting in Toronto, he said, were “the conditioning with nervousness. But that’s all gonna clear up as time goes. It’s like your first time with anything. I think the coaches know that too. I think they put me in a great position to make sure I do the right things, and I think I executed.”
When he entered for the hobbled Valanciunas, the Raptors were on the verge of taking over the game. Holmes injected immediate life. Denver ended the third quarter on a 10-3 run, with him scoring half of those points and helping generate several defensive stops.
Afterward, he credited his G League time for helping prepare him for the spontaneity of the moment. Particularly Gold head coach Ryan Bowen for his willingness to call Holmes out in an environment where he’s one of the best players rather than one of the upstarts.
“RyBo, he’ll be on me about little things. So if I’m not hustling or I’m not rebounding, all those little things,” Holmes said. “And it matters, because you want to be held accountable. It translates up here, so I’m very grateful.”
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