The Nuggets Adjust From Being the Hunters to the Hunted

Associated Press/Ringer illustration Denver had to get punched in the mouth to learn a critical lesson: It's one thing to be the challengers; it's another being the champs Back in 2013, when Jon Jones was a 26-year-old phenom champion in the UFC and seemingly invincible to the pay-per-view public, he found himself getting his ass kicked in front of a gasping crowd in Toronto. I can remember it like it was yesterday because it's the kind of event that sears into your brain. Alexander Gustafsson, a no-hope Swede who came in as more than a four-to-one underdog, opened a cut over Jones's eye early in the first round. That by itself was a "holy shit" event. We'd never seen Jones really bleed. From my cageside seat, it felt as revelatory as when Rocky opened that cut on Drago's eye out in Russia. Jones wasn't invincible. It meant we were in for a fight. Then, with a minute to go in the first round, Gustafsson did the impossible—he took Jones down. Understand that to that point, Jones had been immovable. He was rooted to the earth like an old banyan tree, and he had just as many freakishly long limbs growing out of him. In his 13 previous UFC fights, nobody could budge him an inch off...