DNVR Player Grades: Nuggets blow out a tire in loss to Hawks

The Denver Nuggets were going to blow out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night. Denver opened the game on a 9-0 run, showing life on both ends of the court in a way we haven’t seen this season save their 20-point shellacking of the Miami Heat. The Nuggets put up 34 points in the first quarter on 54% from the field while recording 11 assists. It might have been their best start to a game yet.

The Denver Nuggets were going to blow out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night. But they blew out a tire in the second quarter. Denver’s bench struggled as much as they have all season—which is a high bar to clear—without Malik Beasley, and they set the wrong tone for a disastrous quarter. The Hawks put 38 points, outscoring the Nuggets by 18, and securing a lead Denver would essentially chase all night.

Trae Young terrorized the Nuggets, dropping 41 points on 8-of-13 from deep and dishing out 11 assists, like some nightmarish combination of Damian Lillard and Steve Nash. As a team, the Nuggets hit just 11 of their 41 three-point attempts on the night, settling for shots that were never going to fall, and ultimately ceding a 125-121 loss on their home court.

Let’s hand out some report cards.

Honor Roll

Will Barton III – A-

Had Denver won, we might be handing out a game ball to Will Barton III tonight. Barton III led the Nuggets with 21 points while shooting 4-7 from deep, and recorded a team-high nine rebounds with five of them coming on the offensive end. This was not the first game of the season in which Barton III came ready to play in a futile effort. His 36 minutes trailed only Gary Harris, who played 40 in the loss. Barton looked crisp and played a key role in an opening stretch that had us believing the Nuggets would roll—eight of his 21 came in the first. It was all for naught

The Class

Monte Morris – B+

In Monte, we are beginning to trust once again. Without Malik Beasley, Malone deployed his dual point guard lineup featuring Morris and Jamal Murray for significant stretches on Tuesday night. Morris appeared to benefit from the additional playing time with starting-caliber players. In 21 minutes, he scored 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting, secured three rebounds, and recorded four assists without turning the ball over. The bench is still struggling, but Morris’ is beginning to find his rhythm.

Paul Millsap – B

Millsap was scorching hot to open the game against his former team. In the first seven and a half minutes, Millsap hit all five of his shots, scoring 11 points and grabbing three rebounds. Millsap would only hit one of his next six shots however and seemed to run out of gas as the game wore on. Millsap and Barton III showed as much fight as anyone in the loss, and both grabbed a team-high five offensive rebounds.

Jamal Murray – B-

Murray recorded eight assists without turning the ball over and did put up 18 points in the loss, but unfortunately, he was directly juxtaposed with the best player on the floor—his counterpart, Trae Young. Young bent Denver’s defense in half, putting up 13 shots from deep and hitting on eight of them, several of them coming from the freaking logos near mid-court. Murray can light it up with the best of them when he’s hot, but he doesn’t yet manipulate or strike fear in opposing defenses like the guards he aspires to share rare air with.

Murray only shot four three-pointers on the night, failing to hit one. It is worth pointing out that in a game in which his teammates were settling too often, more attempts from him might not have been the antidote. Nonetheless, Murray’s room for growth was under the spotlight on Tuesday night. He is learning to adjust and work around the defensive game plans thrown at him, but if the Nuggets are ever able to reach their full potential, then he must learn how to obliterate them.

Murray

Young

Nikola Jokić – C+

Nikola Jokić was 1-for-8 from three-point range in the loss. To be frank, that’s the difference here between a subpar Jokić performance in a loss and a strong one in a win. Jokić was 6-for-11 from the floor otherwise and finished with 20 points, six rebounds, seven assists, and three steals. He did turn the ball over twice, which, remarkably, led the team as Denver turned it over just three times while recording 31 assists in the loss.

The attempts from three were mostly open ones and ones that Jokić should have taken. He simply missed them.

Principal’s Office

Gary Harris – D+

If we’re not already past due, the time has come to address what’s been a significant struggle on the offensive end for a player who was once considered the most consistent on the roster. Gary Harris entered the night with an eFG% of 48.4, nearly five percent lower than his career average. His three-point shooting had looked much better than last season’s aberration—or so we hope—but he hit just two of his ten attempts on Tuesday night, several of them coming while wide-open. Harris was just 4-for-15 from the floor overall, with that pesky floater rearing its head again, and didn’t shoot a free throw all game–he was averaging just 1.7 attempts coming into the night. Harris has defended at an elite level this season, but he looks lost on the other side of the court.

Jerami Grant – C-

In 18 minutes on the floor, Grant recorded 10 points, but he shot just 1-0f-5 from deep and grabbed only one rebound while picking up four fouls. Much has been made of Grant’s potential fit with this team down the line, but as things stand, playing most of his minutes alongside struggling bench players, he hasn’t made the impact we had hoped to see coming into the season.