"I didn't think they deserved that opportunity": Michael Malone sends a message in OKC

It was ugly from the jump.

“I’ve never seen that,” Michael Malone said referring to the opening sequence from the Nuggets’ embarrassing 108-94 loss in Oklahoma City.

The play in question? It was the first play of the game. The Thunder won the opening tip Wednesday night. Then, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took two dribbles and casually tossed the ball to a wide-open Luguentz Dort standing alone, unguarded, and socially distant from every Nuggets defender in the corner.

Michael Malone on the opening play of the game. Denver gave up an uncontested 3 after OKC won the tip: "I've never seen that. Right from the very beginning of the game, on a jump ball, I knew that we weren't locked in." pic.twitter.com/0L4AAbNSEM

— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) December 23, 2021

It set the tone for an ugly Nuggets loss where Nikola Jokic and Denver’s starters got benched in the second half. A key reason behind the benching: the Nuggets couldn’t contain OKC’s guards.

Gilgeous-Alexander did most of the damage Wednesday. He torched the Nuggets for 27 points, most of which came against defenders not named Aaron Gordon.

Nuggets opened tonight with Aaron Gordon guarding Josh Giddey. Monte Morris, Will Barton, Jeff Green checked SGA for most of the first half. SGA only scored one basket with Gordon as his primary defender tonight. In the third, Gordon gave really good defensive effort. pic.twitter.com/PhYdQPMSGR

— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) December 23, 2021

As a team, the Thunder outscored the Nuggets 62-36 in the paint. After OKC went on a 17-9 run to open the third quarter, Malone sat his first five down. Jokic, Gordon, Will Barton, Jeff Green, and Monte Morris weren’t seen again.

Give credit to the Nuggets’ bench. Bones Hyland tweaked his right ankle again Wednesday — the same ankle that caused him to miss multiple games already this season — but a second unit lineup featuring Facu Campazzo, Austin Rivers, Davon Reed, Zeke Nnaji and JaMychal Green pulled Denver back into the game. That Nuggets’ bench trimmed a 21-point Thunder third-quarter lead to just nine after a Rivers 3-pointer with 4:50 left in the fourth.

But then they tired. Oklahoma City ended up winning by double-digits.

“We just played hard,” said Rivers, who finished with 12 points, (4-8 FG’s, 2-4 3FG’s) and 2 assists in arguably his best game of the season. “That’s about it. We just did what we were supposed to do. We just played with good energy.”

“We’ve got to keep playing hard. That’s the key. I’ve been coming off the bench now for a while in my NBA career. When you come off the bench, there’s no easing into nothing. You have 7-8 minutes, 9-10 minutes a half depending on the night you have, and you’ve got to play hard. I think if we continue to play with that type of energy we’ll be OK.”

How hard the Nuggets’ second unit played was obvious when comparing their level of engagement to Denver’s starters. The Nuggets’ first five just didn’t have it. Denver struggled to establish Jokic early on — a pretty startling development considering the run he’s been on as of late — and as a team shot only 13-44 (29.5%) from 3-point range. Jokic led the Nuggets in scoring with 13 points, his second-lowest point total of the season behind an 11-point showing in a blowout win over Dallas earlier this year.

The benching that was handed out to Jokic and Denver’s starters midway through the third was deserved. They were flat-out awful. The Nuggets had four days off after their game Sunday in Brooklyn was postponed due to a COVID outbreak within the Nets. Tuesday in Oklahoma City, Denver competed in games of Pickleball for around three hours at a local OKC joint, Chicken N Pickle. On Wednesday night, Gordon rented out a movie theatre and the team watched Spider-Man. But the extended time off had Denver’s starters looking lackadaisical from the first quarter on.

“Wins and losses matter, I understand that. This is a results-driven business. But as a coach, what I really care about is when you play and you compete and you play the right way,” Malone said. “We didn’t have that from our starting group tonight. Our bench had it.”

“Even when we cut (the lead), I wasn’t going to put our starters back in. I didn’t think they deserved that opportunity. The guys that got us back into the game and played the right way, they deserved the opportunity.”

Could the Nuggets have eeked out a win if Malone went back to his starters with five minutes on the clock in the fourth and Denver facing a nine-point deficit? Absolutely. They definitely could have. But Malone sacrificed the slim probability Denver had for a come-from-behind victory to make a statement: No one is above playing hard. Not even Jokic, the reigning MVP who on Wednesday became the sixth Nuggets player in franchise history to score at least 9,000 points but spent the end of a double-digit loss on the bench.

It’s surely a delicate balance for Malone. The Nuggets are back to .500 at 15-15 after their latest loss. Jamal Murray isn’t rejoining the lineup for at least a couple of months. Michael Porter Jr. is likely gone for the season. Any win right now, even one over the lowly Thunder who were coming off back-to-back victories over the Clippers and Grizzlies, is precious currency with teams battling to gain separation in the crowded West.

Malone thought this was the time for a teaching moment. He believed it was the right situation to send a message, one he hopes carries over throughout the rest of the season and more importantly to tomorrow night when the Nuggets host the Hornets.

“The beautiful thing about the NBA, as I told our team,” Malone said. “For Monte, Will, Aaron, Jeff, Nikola especially, is that we get a chance to go home tomorrow night and try to get back to playing the way we know we’re capable of playing.”