TORONTO — Once, then twice, Scottie Barnes intimidated the Denver upstart from a disadvantaged position. DaRon Holmes II was boxing out on the low block closest to the basket, but Barnes worked around him for two offensive rebounds on missed free throws.
Those rebounds turned into five points for Toronto, fueling a 9-0 fourth-quarter run when the scoring had otherwise dried up for both teams. It could have hurt Holmes’ ego, it could have removed him emotionally from the game. But the Nuggets were running out of options. They needed all of his efforts, regardless of the results. He was alone there.
“He’s giving up offensive rebounds. I didn’t see him put his head down. He just kept playing,” coach David Adelman said after an up-and-down 106-103 victory. “And that’s the key to the NBA. You’re going to have times where you’re going to be embarrassed or someone’s physically possessing you, whatever it is. You’ve just got to move on 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 it.”
Playing the first serious rotation minutes of his NBA career, Holmes was selected as the Nuggets’ third-string center on Wednesday in their first game without Nikola Jokic. Holmes had no idea he would be asked to close out a close game against a 14-10 Raptors team. Denver’s backup center Jonas Valanciunas went to the sidelines with a calf injury late in the third quarter, and Holmes ended up logging a surprise 21 minutes, including nine in the fourth quarter.
“It was a lot, man, just to see (Valanciunas get hurt). We already have four starters,” Holmes said. “And then Val as well now. God knows how long he’ll be out, but for me it was more like, man, I’m tired. This is the first time I’ve really played that many minutes in a real NBA game. So I’m like, I need to take a breath and figure this out.”
Aside from the handful of rebound errors, Holmes answered the bell with a hard-hitting performance. He scored 11 points on a 4-for-5 shooting night, with his only miss coming on a 3-pointer in the final minute. He anchored lineups that mostly kept the game stable; Denver lost its minutes by two total points. He defended Toronto’s best player (Barnes), managed to set up a few physical screens to free his teammates and blocked a shot. He even managed to put the ball on the ground several 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 go from one to five, they’re not small (turning to him). They’re tough wings, RJ Barrett size. And he’ll learn how to manipulate his screens and do all those things. Because he can still pick and jump. We know he can do it. 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 injury in his Summer League debut. After a year of rehabilitation and recovery, Denver designed a development plan for him primarily focused on the G League. He was assigned to the Nuggets’ affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for most of the season, averaging 20.9 points and 7.6 rebounds for Gold.
“He played really well. … I think he’ll only get better with time and experience and his ability to slow the game down, stuff like that,” Jamal Murray said. “I think really anyone – Spencer (Jones) was kind of like that, he was just playing super fast, super hard, missing rabbits, missing wide open shots. And then as soon as he was comfortable, it was like you have to guard him.”
This was the first game all season that Denver had to even think about a third-string center. Jokic and Valanciunas both played the first 32 games. The fact that they were suddenly injured in back-to-back games was a particularly cruel twist.
“We’ll be creative,” Adelman said before tip-off. “We played a little bit of small ball in Miami with Spence – you can say Spence or Peyton (Watson), whatever you want. Small. And obviously we have Zeke (Nnaji). DaRon is with us, so we can go that route as well. And then if we wanted to go really small with just a bunch of shots, Peyton has done that in the past. So it’s ultra-small for us. That’s the problem. … We’ll try everything we have. I have to do to try to win a match.
Analytically, Nnaji has been much worse as a center than as a power forward. Adelman preferred to use it entirely at four this season. Holmes has always been a player himself on the border between these two positions, but he claimed early in his career that he was willing to play either.
The biggest obstacles he battled in Toronto, he said, were “conditioning and nervousness. But all that will clear up with time. It’s like the 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 poised to take over the game. Holmes injected immediate life. Denver finished the third quarter on a 10-3 run, scoring half of those points and helping generate several defensive stops.
Afterward, he credited his time in the G League with helping him prepare for the spontaneity of the moment. Particularly Gold head coach Ryan Bowen for his willingness to challenge Holmes in an environment where he is one of the best players rather than one of the newcomers.
“RyBo, he’ll pick on me about little things. So if I don’t hustle or rebound, all those little things,” Holmes said. “And that’s important, because you want to be held accountable. That translates here, so I’m very grateful.”
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