Malone's minutes: "That's our starting group, I don't see that changing"

The Denver Nuggets ran over the Houston Rockets, 105-85, on their way to an 82-0 record. Seriously, it’s still in play. All joking aside, it was Denver’s starting lineup that really came out and took control of the game in H-Town. Head coach Michael Malone went with Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried and Joffrey Lauvergne. They responded by combining to go +93 on the night. Check out the numbers below in the +/- department.

While I’m not the biggest proponent of individual +/- from game-to-game, there is something to be said for floor unit +/- and the Nuggets found a nice groove with their starters. We caught up with Malone after practice today at Pepsi Center and here’s what he had to say about his starting five:

“Something we’ve talked about as a staff is: Depending on who we’re playing do you tinker the lineup? You kind of have your core starters, but if you’re playing against a team that plays really small? Do we slide Gallo to the four and start Kenneth or Joffrey at the five? That’s something that we’ll continue to discuss, but Joffrey has been terrific,” said Malone. “He had a great preseason and got off to a good start last night and he’ll be our starter tomorrow.

“I know players really excel and flourish when they have a rhythm and they know: Am I starting? When am I coming off the bench? What kind of minutes am I getting? Where am I getting my shots? And I think the more you can do that as a coach, the better results you’ll get because now there’s no guessing game,” Malone continued. “They have a feel for what’s expected of them. So for right now, that’s our starting group and I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.”

Will things chance once Jusuf Nurkic is back? That could depend on just how much of a groove the starting unit is in once the Bosnian Beast returns. There could be a scenario where Malone decides to bring Nurkic off the bench because Joffrey Lauvergne is playing so well. Time will tell. Joffrey was impressive in the win. He scored 11 points on an efficient 4-5 shooting, including 1-1 from 3-point land and 2-2 at the charity stripe. Lauvergne rebounded the ball pretty well as he tallied 7 boards (2 offensive), but he could have put his body on a few more defenders when boxing out. Lauvergne also had a pretty assist to Danilo Gallinari for an easy dunk, as the starting unit was incredibly unselfish in their play out of the gate in Houston.

Another starter that impressed was second year guard Gary Harris. He was able to help hold James Harden to 22 points on 21 shots as his primary defender. Yes, Harden missed some easy looks, but you could see Harris frustrated him and Malone took notice, too.

“If you look at it from a point perspective, ‘Oh he didn’t do a whole lot.’ But he had 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals,” said Malone, “and played terrific defense on one of the best offensive players in the NBA. He was into James [Harden] the whole night, made him feel him, executed our game plan and he’s to be commended for the job he did last night. There will be nights where he gets it going offensively, but last night his number one objective was the help defend James Harden and he got us off to a great start in that regard.”

Harris scored 5 points of his own on just 2-5 shooting (1-2 from deep), and if he can become a steady play maker with the ball in his hands then Denver’s starters will be even more dangerous. For now, Malone plays on using Harris’ defense to the team’s advantage and he may be tasked with defending the opposition’s toughest guard.

“He’s going to have to be. He’s done it in the preseason, I thought he did a great job on Jimmy Butler when we played [the Bulls] up in Boulder,” said Malone. “Last night he got the challenge of guarding James Harden, tomorrow night it’ll be Andrew Wiggins, the Rookie of the Year. It could be [Russell] Westbrook one night, Steph Curry, Klay [Thompson] the next. We believe in Gary’s ability to defend and defend at a high level and we’re going to give him that responsibility probably on a nightly basis.”