Nikola Jokic got the ball in what should have been a favorable position against the 6-foot-8 Andrew Wiggins at the foul line, faced the basket, shot-faked, put the ball on the floor and tried to outmuscle the smaller defender. But Wiggins poked the ball free and raced down the floor before handing it off to Marquese Chriss who tallied the Warriors’ 15th and 16th points off of Nuggets turnovers Tuesday night.
Jokic’s fifth turnover of the game was symbolic of how the Nuggets’ evening went against the now 14-48 Warriors. Denver seemingly had an advantage at every matchup versus a Golden State team that’s employing three players — Mychal Mulder, Dragan Bender and Chasson Randle — who are on 10-day contracts and has four other members of its rotation in Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damion Lee, Jordan Poole, Eric Paschall and Chriss who couldn’t garner minutes in the Nuggets’ rotation. Yet Denver couldn’t capitalize.
After leading by 14 points at the 7:48 mark of the third quarter, the Nuggets got outscored 60-30 over the remainder of regulation and fell 116-100 in arguably Denver’s worst loss of the season.
“It happens. We’ve shown ourselves we can do everything. We can beat the best record-wise, and we can lose to the worst record-wise,” said Nikola Jokic who tallied 16 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists but five turnovers in the loss. “They came here, made a lot of shots, they were aggressive, they were passing the ball, they won the game.”
It was a difficult defeat for Nuggets fans to stomach as scattered boos filled Pepsi Center after the final buzzer, but Jokic’s take is an accurate one. These types of losses happen throughout the regular season. They even happen to the top teams in the West.
The Clippers have lost to the Kings twice since Jan. 30. Two days ago the Rockets fell to the 19-42 Knicks.
On the season, it was Denver’s 10th loss to a below-.500 team, which is a number that’s about on par with how the rest of the Western Conference’s playoff teams (except the Lakers) have fared against that caliber of opponent.
Records vs. below-.500 teams
Lakers: 32-3
Clippers: 26-9
Nuggets: 27-10
Rockets: 24-11
Jazz: 28-8
Thunder: 29-7
Mavericks: 28-10
Grizzlies: 22-12
That’s not an excuse. It’s reality.
But this Nuggets defeat was still costly. Denver is competing for playoff seeding in the jumbled West and now sits a full game back of the second-seeded Clippers. The Nuggets woke up Wednesday just 1 1/2 games ahead of the fourth-seeded Rockets with a two-game road trip that takes Denver to Charlotte and then Cleveland over the next four days. The Nuggets can’t feel too confident in those matchups against two more sub-.500 teams with how this season has transpired.
“Let’s be honest, it’s black and white. We have had issues with beating these teams,” Michael Malone said regarding the Nuggets’ struggles against below-.500 opponents. “Whether it’s Golden State, and we were lucky to beat them there earlier in the year. They kicked our ass in the second half tonight. Atlanta, Washington, and so on and so forth. We talk a lot. But instead of talking, let’s be about it. Let’s do it. Forget the talk. Go out there and do your job. That’s on all of us, myself included. We have to do a hell of a lot better of a job than we’ve done as of late.”
What the Nuggets’ latest loss did expose was two areas of concern around Denver’s play as of late: a propensity to turn the ball over and poor defense.
The Nuggets are 3-3 since the All-Star break and are averaging 16.3 turnovers per game, the seventh-worst mark in the league over that stretch. Jokic tallied five giveaways against the Warriors and every player who logged significant minutes for Denver Tuesday night registered at least one turnover.
The Nuggets even had a difficult time simply entering the ball to Jokic in the post.
“Trying to do too much, probably,” Jokic said of the Nuggets’ turnover issues. “Sometimes, overplay. Maybe, sometimes, you have a wide-open shot and you just need to shoot it. I think, sometimes, just thinking a little bit more. It can confuse everyone on the floor, and I think that’s how you create turnovers. I think we just need to be simpler, shoot when you’re open, take care of the ball, don’t get loose, don’t make stupid plays.”
The Nuggets are also giving up on average 117.5 points per 100 possessions over their last six games, the fifth-worst mark in the league since the All-Star break. On the season, Denver’s defense has slipped to 13th in the league.
How often the Nuggets got beat on simple, well-timed off-ball cuts was alarming.
“Our defense right now is non-existent from top to bottom,” said Malone. “We have to find a way to fix that in a hurry.”
The Nuggets are currently caught in their second-straight post-All-Star break malaise. Denver also went 3-3 in its first six games following the break last season but at the time were trying to incorporate Isaiah Thomas, who had yet to play up until that point a year ago, into its rotation. The Nuggets don’t have an excuse like that this season.
Denver has its full roster available. Jokic has been playing like an MVP candidate over the last few months. Jamal Murray has been playing his basketball of the season as of late but shot just 3 of 14 against the Warriors and took to Twitter postgame to shoulder blame for the defeat. Gary Harris has shown signs of breaking out of a season-long offensive funk.
Mason Plumlee played with the most urgency on the Nuggets’ roster and finished with 16 points on 7-8 shooting and nine rebounds (five offensive) in 14 minutes.
“You hope it’s just one game,” Plumlee said. “I would just say what (Malone) said, we didn’t come with energy. We didn’t play defense. Their offense seemed to come easy. We didn’t make shots, but I thought we got some easy ones and didn’t play defense most of the night.”
The Nuggets’ 3-point shooting continues to fluctuate as well. As a team, Denver shot just 3 of 20 from beyond the arc against Golden State and on the season ranks 17th in the league in 3-point percentage. In losses this season the Nuggets are shooting a league-worst 29.2% from 3-point range.
The Nuggets’ struggles against sub-.500 teams isn’t an edict on what’s to come in the playoffs. Denver is 14-10 against teams above-.500 too, a mark that’s also aligned with how the rest of the West playoff teams have fared against that level of competition. But a defeat to the Warriors shined light on a slew of issues currently facing the Nuggets with 21 regular season games remaining like their defense, turnovers and streaky 3-point shooting which will cost Denver come playoff time if not corrected.
