Kenneth Faried benched, returns for fourth quarter in Nuggets' loss to Nets

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Denver Nuggets starting power forward Kenneth Faried was benched after a four-minute stint in the first quarter but did return in the fourth, nearly helping Denver to overcome a 29-point third-quarter deficit in their 116-111 loss Wednesday night to the Brooklyn Nets.

Faried, who has started the last 14 games at power forward after coming off the bench in Denver’s first seven games of the season, finished the night with four points and five rebounds in 12 minutes. Darrell Arthur started the second half for Faried.

“He wasn’t injured. Obviously at halftime, looking to make a change try to find something to maybe get us going,” Michael Malone said after the loss. “We’re down by 23, whatever it was, so tried DA, but no Kenneth obviously, you’re on the floor it’s 13-2 before you blink an eye, I gotta get Jokic out, I get Kenneth out. The next minute I get Emmanuel out and I get Will out. You’re in that search mode.”

The first quarter, which saw the Nets build a 36-23 lead over the Nuggets after starting the game on an 11-0 run, put Denver behind the eight-ball again as the Nuggets’ starting lineup which has played the most minutes out of any five-man combination for Denver this season was ineffective once again.

That group which features Emmanuel Mudiay, Will Barton, Danilo Gallinari, Faried and Jusuf Nurkic came into tonight with a –27.2 NetRtg in 54 min this season.

The Nuggets are on a back-to-back and play in Washington Thursday night as Malone, who was ejected from the game in the third quarter, has a tough decision to make regarding his starting lineup which has routinely gotten Denver off to bad starts this season.

“We’ll look at starting groups and combinations, who plays better together,” Malone said. “But anything we can do to alleviate the big leads that we’re giving up early, we have to look at, we owe it to ourselves.”