SAN DIEGO – Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one spent the first day of train­ing camp exhort­ing a vital les­son to his team: talk is cheap.

Last Sep­tem­ber, he deemed his team’s effort and buy-in inad­e­quate. Mal­one nipped it in the bud less than a day after his team, final­ly healthy, arrived in San Diego for train­ing camp.

“I said if I went around the room right now and said to every­body, ‘What’s your goal for this year? Every one of you is gonna say, ‘Win a cham­pi­onship,’” Mal­one said. “BS. We said the same thing last year. Guys were late. Guys weren’t focus­ing all the time. I said, ‘Don’t talk about it, be about it.’”

That was the tone and tenor of Malone’s mes­sage as his team broke camp. Mon­day night, they held a team din­ner, includ­ing a high­light pack­age of the Nuggets’ recent play. Tues­day morn­ing, at anoth­er team meal, Mal­one got his points of empha­sis across. Last season’s Nuggets won more games on the road (25) than at home (23).

“As great as we were on the road last year, we only had 23 home wins,” Mal­one said. “That’s ridicu­lous. If you want to be a team that tru­ly has a chance to win a cham­pi­onship, you got­ta pro­tect your home court.”

Next he quizzed his guys on what divi­sion they were in (North­west). No one knew, accord­ing to Mal­one. After an abysmal 6–10 record last sea­son against Utah, Min­neso­ta, OKC and Port­land, there’s an added empha­sis on beat­ing the teams in their geo­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty. Not because a divi­sion ban­ner is some­thing to cel­e­brate, but because it’s a bench­mark for lofti­er goals.

Beyond that, Mal­one want­ed his team to focus on a bet­ter record against play­off teams, in addi­tion to seiz­ing close games.

“I want to get back to being a team like the best clutch team in the NBA,” Mal­one said.

The dual returns of Jamal Mur­ray and Michael Porter Jr. will no doubt aid in that attempt.

The lofty, ambi­tious blue­print laid out by the eighth-year coach didn’t neglect defense – the source of the biggest per­son­nel changes this sum­mer. Mal­one stat­ed unequiv­o­cal­ly that the goal was to be a top-five defense this season.

If it sound­ed like a lot, it’s because it was. But that’s what hap­pens on the first day of school.

Mur­ray back: With­out divulging specifics, Mur­ray admit­ted there were still a few phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions he was bat­tling in his first offi­cial prac­tice after tear­ing his ACL. But he was still in a light mood, sim­ply hap­py to be back among his teammates.

“I feel reju­ve­nat­ed in a way,” said Mur­ray. “ … First day of school vibes but it’s my sev­enth year doing it. I’m get­ting up there. It’s a lot of fun. I’m just hap­py to be on the court and back in the mix, not over there some­where rehab­bing, run­ning around. I’m just hap­py to be find­ing my rou­tine again.”

But while he admit­ted there were still hur­dles for him to over­come as his offi­cial return nears, he out­lined a clear step in his progress.

As the Nuggets’ prac­tice dragged on into the sec­ond hour, Mur­ray found him­self think­ing about where he was at the end of last season.

“‘Man, this five, four months ago, I’d be sit­ting down by now,” he said.

Mal­one detailed that a con­sor­tium of him­self, gen­er­al man­ag­er Calvin Booth, and train­ers Steve Short and Felipe Eichen­berg­er would devise a plan for their return­ing play­ers, includ­ing Niko­la Jokic, Mur­ray and Porter, and that each of the play­ers would have a say in their load management.

Mur­ray is still try­ing to find that sweet spot.

“You go out there and play, you make a nice play or what­ev­er, you still don’t feel like 100 (per­cent), but you’re doing every­thing that you used to do,” he said. “Once I can feel 100 (per­cent) and put both togeth­er, it will be …”

He put his fin­gers togeth­er and blew a kiss.