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After scoring just 93 points Wednesday night in Charlotte and crossing the 100-point mark in just once over their first four regular season games, the Denver Nuggets are a long ways away from the league-leading offense that they deployed over the second-half of last season.
When Paul Millsap and Nikola Jokic have shared the floor, Denver is scoring just 95.4 points per 100 possessions (for reference, when Kenneth Faried and Jokic share the floor, the Nuggets are scoring 108.5 per 100), and Denver shot just 38.4 percent as a team against the Hornets.
Luckily, Gary Harris seems immune to such a slump. One of Denver’s most consistent players, Harris rebounded from one of the worst games of his career against Washington and scored 18 points on 7-17 shooting versus the Hornets, 13 of which came in the third quarter after the shooting guard couldn’t find his mark over the first two frames
That third quarter saw Harris, who was one of the lone bright spots for Denver Wednesday night, get out in transition often including this play which ended with the Nuggets’ shooting guard putting rookie Malik Monk on his first poster.
But check out the flick from Mason Plumlee, who finished with eight points and ten rebounds. His no-look swipe to Barton puts the Nuggets in motion.
After zero fast break points during Wednesday night’s first half, Denver actually outscored Charlotte 54-48 over the final two quarters. They tallied seven fastbreak points over the third and fourth quarters, two of which came on this Harris jam.
Unfortunately, the damage was already done. The Nuggets couldn’t climb out of the hole they dug for themselves after shooting just 32 percent in the first half.
Denver goes back to the offensive drawing board on offense against Atlanta on Friday night hoping that they can reclaim some of the mojo that carried them last year.