In the last few weeks, the Denver Nuggets have lost two starters to injury, their mojo and strong start at home, as well as their NBA Cup hopes — which were dashed on Friday night with a 139-136 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
The rising youngsters from the Lone Star State were without their possible MVP in Victor Wembanyama and reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle but had no issue shutting the door on the Nuggets, who continue to struggle in crunch time. The Nuggets lost every quarter but the second, where they went up 41-18. But that just answered the 41 points the Spurs scored in the first quarter, the most allowed by the Nuggets all season for any period. And that was quickly topped by the Spurs, scoring 44 in the third quarter. The Spurs also put on the rizz late, thanks to key shot-making and bad turnovers by the home team.
I thought we were really good in that (second) quarter. I thought the other three, we just played a pickup game with them,” David Adelman said. “When you score 136 points and lose, that’s an issue. So we’ve got to compete better on that end. And I have to rotate guys through to find the right five that’ll compete defensively. I know we’re going to score when we score a ton all the time. Then, on top of that, what doesn’t help your defense is 17 turnovers, 30 points off of those. So you couple that, a struggling night on defensively and as of late, with terrible ball security that leads to them coming back and beating us.”
It was quite possibly the most concerning loss of the Nuggets’ 13-5 start. Even with Christian Bruan and Aaron Gordon, it’s hard to solely blame personnel for the defensive mistakes the team made, particularly in allowing Devin Vassell to launch triples. The strong shooter knocked in seven, on mostly open shots.
“Once you get the lead back, you have to button down and guard, and we didn’t do that,” Adelman said. “It seemed like we kept coming back and getting two or three stops in a row, and our defense would disappear for minutes at a time. That’s going to lose your games.”
Aside from defense, what Adelman mentioned is what sent the Nuggets home the last two years in the playoffs and may not be fixed by the return of Braun and Gordon — ballhandling. Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic were decent enough there, but the rest of the ensemble was not. Even on Cameron Johnson’s best night as a Nugget so far, his three turnovers, including some bad ones late, were just as eyebrow-raising as his 28 points on 16 shots.
The Nuggets found some rhythm with their bench behind Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jonas Valanciunas, spurring that second-quarter run. But the starters and closers lacked creativity with their ball skills and made silly errors.
Where Jokic didn’t do enough was in his shot taking, not scoring in the second half until five minutes were left in the game. The Spurs played hard and rough on the three-time MVP, but still were at a size disadvantage without Wembanyama. It was perhaps a missed opportunity that the Nuggets only got 21 points on 10 shots out of the big fella.
Murray scored 37 points and was terrific, but where he and Joker both missed free throws late, the Spurs went a wild 23 of 24 from the line after halftime to close the game. The Nuggets have now lost three straight at home.
What’s next for the Nuggets
The Nuggets are knocked out of the NBA Cup; they’ll play again in Phoenix tomorrow, then return home to host Dallas on Monday. The Nuggets will get scheduled for two games during the second week of December instead of being in the knockout round of the NBA Cup.
Also, several Nuggets were banged up during this game, including Jokic, Murray and Brown, which could make the back-to-back tougher.
