BSN Exclusive: Will Barton pulls no punches in assessing Nuggets' loss

HOUSTON — You can always count on Will Barton to give it to you straight.

After the Denver Nuggets’ 130-104 loss to the Houston Rockets on Friday night where his team shot just 3-28 from three-point range, Barton summed up the thoughts of a disappointed locker room in three words.

“They spanked us,” Barton told BSN Denver as he dressed and boarded the Nuggets’ team bus.

Houston clobbered Denver in all facets of Friday night’s game. The Rockets made 19 threes to the Nuggets’ three. Houston outrebounded Denver 48-39. Clint Capela, who finished with 23 points and 25 rebounds in just 29 minutes, helped his side score 20 second-chance points to the Nuggets’ eight.

“We didn’t make shots, and I feel like they took us out of what we wanted to do. They switch everything in the halfcourt and we were kind of looking confused whether we wanted to go 1-on-1 iso or try to look for the mismatch,” Barton said. “We’ve got to still play fast. We’re walking the ball up. We’ve got to play fast. I think they got us into a pace we didn’t want to play.”

Houston wants to play fast too. Then, they want to launch threes from everywhere on their side of the midcourt line. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute went 2-2 from distance. PJ Tucker and Eric Gordon were both 2-5. Most Valuable Player Candidate James Harden shot 5-11 from three-point range. Ryan Anderson shot 3-3, and Gerald Green shot 4-9 from beyond the arc.

After shooting a pedestrian 3-18 from distance in the first half, the Nuggets didn’t hit a three over the game’s final two quarters. Denver shot 0-10 from beyond the arc in the second half.

“I hate losing,” Barton added. “I just don’t like losing and for some reason in all the games here we can’t get anything going. How many games are you going to see G (Gary Harris) with eight, me with six, Mal (Jamal Murray) with six? Where was our backcourt at? But it happens every time we play them.”

Denver is 0-2 against Houston this season. The Rockets shellacked the Nuggets 125-95 on Nov. 22 in Houston in a similar fashion. That night the Rockets made 18 threes to the Nuggets’ 10. Denver shot 10-33 (30.3 percent) from three that night — head and shoulders better than its performance Friday — but Toyota Center is proving to be a house of horrors for the Nuggets this season.

If Denver and Houston meet in the playoff in April, it would be a short series.

“I don’t know, it’s just weird,” Barton said. “Going into the game we’re confident. They just got us, to be honest. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Barton and the rest of the Nuggets now turn their attention to Phoenix, which Denver plays on a back-to-back Saturday night. Safe to say the Nuggets are flushing the box score to Friday’s beating.

“What are we gonna do?” Barton asked. “‘Say ‘Aw man, they kicked our ass?’ Got to get back to it tomorrow because if we’re still thinking about that, Phoenix is going to kick our ass too.”