Grades: Nuggets' Streak Comes to Unceremonious End in Minnesota

Nikola Jokić – B+

Jokić took only 12 shots and turned it over five times. His line, the game, and this excerpt might all look different had his teammates knocked down shots around him as they did in Milwaukee, but while we’re juxtaposing, Jokić never took control of this game as he did against the defending champs. He was good but not great by his all-universe standard.

Aaron Gordon – C-

Gordon’s touch as a shooter was the key to a lot of his success of late, but the streaky shooter came crashing back down to earth in Minnesota. AG missed all four of his 3s, shot 3 of 9 from the floor overall, and scored only seven points. The new-look Wolves are so physical and relentless. Gordon is one of the few on the roster who can match that aspect of their on-court presence, but he played meekly.

Will Barton – C-

Barton knocked down a few threes, but his energy in-between his shots — the defense, boxing out, staying active off-ball — wasn’t good enough. Thrill’s been trending in the right direction but did not play a good game against the Wolves. He contributed to the sluggish nature of Denver’s performance.

Monte Morris – C+

Morris did his part as a scorer by adding 13 efficient points, but even he was bit by the lethargy. We’ve seen Morris crashing the glass lately, racking up relatively big rebounding numbers, but that fell off in the loss.

Jeff Green – C+

Green was effective enough as a scorer, but poor rebounding and several mental lapses on defense anchor his grade.

Bones Hyland – D+

Hyland struggled big time in his first step back since taking the reins of the second unit. Five of his eight shots came from deep, which is acceptable if he’s knocking them down, but in this case, it mainly reflects a poor approach. Bones didn’t get deep enough into the defense to create points for himself or others, and his newfound rebounding prowess was missing in action. Defensively, he and the rest of the bench were abysmal.

Austin Rivers – F

Rivers didn’t bring much of anything to the table. He only took three shots, only made one, only grabbed one rebound, and, while this is more cheeky than accurate, seemingly only made one stop all night.

Bryn Forbes – F

Forbes was worse, knocking down only 1 of 7 shots and playing some ghastly defense, sometimes getting dusted more than once on the same possession. Forbes’ deficiencies will feel more tolerable when the shot comes around. On Tuesday night, however, it was hard to watch.

Zeke Nnaji – C+

The two bigs off the bench, Nnaji and JaMychal Green, turned in the most satisfactory bench performances. Strangely, Nnaji didn’t play in the third quarter, and some of his fourth quarter minutes came with the game far out of reach. I’m not sure what Malone was thinking there.

JaMychal Green – C+

Green led all Nuggets with 12 points off the bench. However, he shot o of 3 from distance and grabbed the same amount of rebound (4) as Nnaji did in slightly more playing time.

Garbage Time: Facu – Reed – Howard 

The three guards were in to finish the game, although technically Campazzo entered prior. Malone turned to him earlier in the second half with hopes of injecting some life into the game.