The Denver Nuggets were flying high midway through the third quarter in their Feb. 27th nationally televised matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Nuggets held a steady 19-point lead behind the spirited play of Gary Harris, who scored a team-high 23 points, and Paul Millsap, who returned that night after missing 44 games with a wrist injury.
The Nuggets were ready to expand on their lead over the Clippers in the Western Conference playoff race and grasp hold of the valuable head-to-head tiebreaker that could determine playoff seeding come April. But as Clippers coach Doc Rivers waved the white flag and inserted seldom-used center Boban Marjanovic and his bench into the game, Los Angeles rattled off a 30-6 run. The Clippers won, and the Nuggets’ season began spiraling downward.
“Every possession matters,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after the loss. “And right now we don’t play like every possession matters.”
Its been more than a month since that debilitating defeat and the Nuggets continue to face the same symptoms night to night on the defensive end of the floor. It will likely keep them out of the playoffs.
Denver’s shortcomings came full circle Tuesday in Toronto. The Nuggets held an eight-point lead early in the fourth quarter before the Raptors’ dynamic bench unit outscored Denver 32-20 over the final 11 minutes of regulation. It was deja vu for Malone and his staff.
“I’m preaching every possession matters. We had way too many plays where we’re not playing with the right sense of urgency,” Malone said on Altitude TV’s broadcast. “We close out to shooters with our hands down. We foul jumps shooters, four-point play. The shot goes up we ball watch, they offensive rebound.
“We have seven games to go. Every damn play matters. And right now we’re not playing like every play matters. We’re playing like we have 30 games to go in the season, and I cannot explain that and it’s unacceptable.”
Down three with 5 1/2 minutes to go in the fourth, Devin Harris closed out to Delon Wright — a 38 percent three-point shooter — with his hands down.
Trailing by four 20 seconds later, Harris fouled Fred VanVleet on a three-point attempt. VanVleet hit the shot anyway, which expanded the Raptors’ lead to seven.
Roughly a minute later, Denver gave Jakob Poeltl a clear lane to an offensive rebound and subsequent tip-in. Poeltl scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds in the fourth quarter alone.
Poeltl all but ended any hope Denver had of coming back with 1:03 remaining when he slipped untouched to the offensive glass, this time behind an idle Nikola Jokic.
With Denver’s playoff hopes on life support, the Nuggets’ sense of urgency, as Malone called it, shouldn’t be in question. Denver woke up Wednesday morning alone in 10th place in the Western Conference. The Nuggets are a full two games back of the eighth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves and 2 1/2 games behind the Utah Jazz, who are currently seventh.
FiveThirtyEight.com gives the Nuggets just a 12 percent chance to end their four-year playoff drought. BasketballReference.com’s simulator has Denver’s odds even slimmer at 10 percent. ESPN’s BPI Playoff Odds says the same. The Nuggets’ final seven games come against six projected playoff teams and the Clippers.
Los Angeles leapfrogged Denver in the standings Tuesday night when they edged the Bucks 105-98. The Clippers, with the head-to-head tiebreaker with Denver in hand, take on the tanking Suns Tuesday night in Phoenix looking to put even more separation between themselves and the Nuggets.
Denver may have to go 7-0 over the next few weeks to have a shot at the postseason. The Nuggets’ saving grace is two head-to-head games remaining versus the eighth-seeded Timberwolves. But those games won’t matter if the Clippers jump the Timberwolves as well.
The same defensive issues Malone referenced after Denver’s loss Tuesday have plagued the Nuggets all year. Just a month into the season, Malone said his team was “slightly below-average” when it came to K.Y.P. (Know Your Personnel). Denver still has trouble with individual assignments on the defensive end of the floor.
In December after DeMarcus Cousins and Jrue Holiday put 40 and 27 points respectively on the Nuggets, Denver’s coach again alluded to his team’s failure to guard according to the scouting reports.
“We didn’t guard anybody. Jrue Holiday went left every time. And we went over personnel, talked about how he likes to go left. Yet, he got left every single time,” Malone said. “DeMarcus Cousins went right every time. Talked about personnel. DeMarcus is going to go right.”
“You get guys’ tendencies in the scouting report. We let them play to their tendencies,” Mason Plumlee added. “You got to make guys beat you with their “B” and their “C” moves, but they beat us with their “A” moves tonight.”
Months have passed and those same defensive foibles are one of the factors that will likely keep the Nuggets out of the postseason.
“Forget playoffs. That is a word we should not use with this team,” Malone said after his team fell to the Cousins, Holiday and the Pelicans.
Almost 3 1/2 months later, it looks like Malone was right.
