In the past 10 days, at least, the Nuggets are winning by … being the Nuggets. Pushing the pace. Taking advantage of high-altitude basketball, which is as much of a mind game as a physiological one during the regular-season grind. Accepting and even pouncing on what seem to be physical matchup disadvantages.

I’m not knocking it. The Nuggets have won five in a row and are back up to 19-17. They’re within shouting range of a Western Conference playoff spot.

As this goes on, Andre Miller is awaiting a trade or an agreement that would bring him back to the bench, but also likely keep him there as a $5 million-a-year scrub. JaVale McGee’s absence has eliminated the which-JaVale-are-you-getting-tonight mystery that has bedeviled and challenged his NBA coaches from the second he joined the league. And Danilo Gallinari is hanging around, rehabbing his knee, working toward a return in — well, whenever he’s up to it.

First-year coach Brian Shaw, to his credit, has been adaptive through the seesaw season, which has included eight home losses already, or five more than the Nuggets suffered at the Pepsi Center all of last season. His team at least of late has seemed to buy in to his approach, which is not revolutionary and indeed very familiar — emphasizing defense and rebounding as avenues to the up-tempo game.

“I think they’re handling it well right now,” Shaw said after the 120-94 romp Saturday over Orlando. “They’re staying hungry. Defensively, our activity is off the charts. We don’t seem to be getting too full of ourselves.”

Shaw was adamant that improvement in the half-court game is a gradual and educational process; and that it remains a focus in practice and ultimately is necessary for postseason success.

But I’m still a bit confused. At least during this latest stretch, the Nuggets have looked familiar. They’ve looked like the Nuggets. The Nuggets who, ahem, were “too soft” for the tightened postseason game.

This organization didn’t have enough of a coherent plan about the incremental assembling of a roster to reshape the Nuggets’ style and identity into what we were told was needed. Injuries certainly have been an issue, but correct me if I’m wrong, Gallinari wasn’t available against Golden State last spring — and bringing that up was considered an “excuse.”

Early in the season, Shaw and others emphasized that it was a misconception that Denver had backed off wanting to push the pace. As evidence, we were told that the Nuggets’ possessions per game were up over last season.

OK, we said, still trying to get feel for what the Nuggets would and would not be, at least stylistically, after the sacking of George Karl and the apparent disowning of his approaches. But one of many party lines advanced during the transition was that major goals would be to better nurture young, and even more so to toughen up the Nuggets and better prepare them for the more physical, slower and methodical half-court game of the season’s crunchtime and postseason.

Yes, the implication was that even if it cost the Nuggets a few regular-season games, so what? Maybe we were at fault for not at least trying harder to get a specific outline or get a better feel for how far the franchise was willing to step back for the sake of eventual progress, but it was reasonable to infer that all of this started … now. Any belated attempt to tie this to the Avalanche’s amazing resurgence, saying that the hockey team showed drastic rebuilding required regression, patience and high draft choices, was laughable.

This team now looks destined to be a roughly .500 team that might or might not make the postseason, has no chance at advancing against a higher seed with home-court advantage, and faces additional offseason overhaul in trying to get over the postseason hump.

So has anything really changed? Or at least, has anything changed for the better?

Terry Frei: tfrei@ denverpost.com