Chandler, Danilo, Nene, Afflalo and Lawson: 5-Piece Clickin' KnickNuggets To Go

With a side order of Felton, Smith, Martin, Mozgov and Harrington.

Hold the catch-up: This team is pretty damn good right now. Who says pro ballers need time to learn how to play together?  Not only that, the Nuggets have good trade bait for next year and are set up fiscally for the future, too.  Denver fans are lovin' it.

The Denver Nuggets are 3-1 without Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups and are still poised to serve up an eighth playoff berth in a row to Colorado's millions.

And maybe even some New Yorkers.

Early Saturday morning, as the Denver-Portland game wound down, I was in a texting conversation with the biggest Trail Blazer fan east of the Mississippi, a transplanted Oregonian whom I will call "Droooo."

Droooo is quick to remind everyone that the final syllable in "Oregon," sounds like "gun" and not "gone."  He's got an ugly 1970's Mo Lucas Trail Blazers jersey.  And he loves a beautiful woman named Rose.

Gerald Wallace, a recent transplant himself, commented on Trail Blazer fans right off the plane.  He said, "They're faithful. I know they're great fans. The support will be good."

Gerald Wallace was talking about Droooo.

But even though I've been there with Droooo through some Blazer thick and thin (including Game 7 against the Lakers in 2000), I found myself on the other end of my iPhone secretly rooting for the Denver KnickNuggets.

How could I not?

I love half of these guys.  They're partially responsible for the Knicks return to prominence.  I just spent half a season pouring my heart out rooting for them, and I felt a twang of pain when they were traded.

In the end, the Blazers took the game by one point in overtime, after Brandon Roy's off-balance three-pointer with special sauce drained with six seconds on the clock that left regulation wrapped in a tie.

I took it in stride.  It was a fair compromise.  My friend Droooo and my old adopted Western Conference team, the Blazers, got the win and my new adopted team, the Denver Nuggets, and Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton and Danilo Gallinari, earned continued respect.

It's hard to expect any team to go 4-0 after trading a superstar and veteran leader, so 3-1 is near ideal for a team coming into their own while the new uniform numbers are still hot off the grill.

Let us take a look at what's transpired here with the new Denver Nuggets:

Denver 120 - Memphis Grizzlies 107

The No.1 scoring offense in the league with Anthony and Billups doesn't miss a beat without them—and the newly acquired players were not even suited up for this game.

J.R. Smith, Arron Afflalo and Ty Lawson each went for over 20 against the Grizzlies, and the Nuggets got an additional 15 from Nene and 32 from a short bench.

Denver 89 - Boston Celtics 75

The Nuggets debut a starting five that includes Gallinari.  He has a quiet night, but Chandler gets 16 points, and Felton six assists, off the bench.

They hold the best team in the Eastern Conference to their second-lowest point total of the season and grab 15 more rebounds.

Portland Trail Blazers 107 - Denver 106 (OT)

Chandler joins Gallinari in the starting lineup, in place of Kenyon Martin.  He delivers again, with 20 points.  But it's Danilo who makes his first mark knocking down 30.  Nene pitches in with a double-double.  Felton dishes another six off the pine.

Essentially, the Nuggets were six seconds away from a 4-0 start to the new, Carmelo-less era.

Denver 100 - Atlanta Hawks 90

With Gallinari hurt, Martin starts and records a double-double, while Chandler leads starters in points again.  But the Nuggets show the versatility of their new roster when J.R. Smith scores 19 and Felton 16 off the bench.

In conclusion, without their leading scorer and point guard, the Denver Nuggets have gone on to beat three current playoff seeds (an eighth, fifth and first) and just fell short to hot (six wins in seven at the time) current seven-seed Portland.

During this time, the Nuggets leapt over New Orleans to grab the fifth playoff slot in the West and gained two games on fourth-seeded Oklahoma City.  The Nuggets are just 2.5 games behind the Thunder, and don't look now - they meet twice in the penultimate week of the regular season, with the Dallas Mavericks sandwiched in between.

After all that Melodrama, Denver fans deserve a break.

But just in case, have those Rolaids ready.

For more on the Denver Nuggets, check out Future Looks Bright in the Early Post-Carmelo Era and Bleacher Report's Denver Nuggets Hub.