"People are kind of exploiting the system": Malone takes issue with free throw discrepancy in loss

Nuggets’ coach Michael Malone took issue with the 38-18 free throw discrepancy between his team and the Rockets in Denver’s 110-104 loss in Houston Wednesday night.

Houston, led by Most Valuable Player candidate James Harden who leads the league with 10.9 free throw attempts per game, got to the line 15 times tonight, converting on 11 of those attempts.

“I’m not going to say too much on that but they get there 38 times. We get there 18,” Malone said. They’re masters at drawing the fouls and hopefully, at some point, the league will clean it up where people are kind of exploiting the system right now of getting to the foul line. But James is a great player and all those guys do a really good job of that and that’s something that we have to learn moving forward. Can you defend without fouling? Because their free throw attempts were really the difference in the game.”

Here are a couple of foul calls involving Harden, particularly two early ones against starting shoot guard Gary Harris, that Malone could have taken issue with:

Denver did an admirable job of defending Harden tonight. In their three other meeting his Houston this season (all losses), Harden poured in 20, 40, and 39 points respectively. Wilson Chandler, Harris and a slew of defenders were able to keep Harden to 31 points on 8-19 shooting from the field and 4-10 from three.

“I thought we did a very good job with our hands,” said Danilo Gallinari, who finished with a team-high 23 points on 8-16 shooting. “A couple of calls that he gets, but I don’t know if they were fouls or not. But I thought Gary did a great job. Wilson did a good job. Whoever was on him did a great job.”

Houston, who’s been feast or famine from distance throughout the regular season, only shot 10-34 from three as a team. But Harden and the rest of his teammate’s parade to the free throw line ultimately did Denver in.

“He was getting a lot of foul calls,” said Kenneth Faried, who’s battling low back soreness and finished with ten points in just 13 minutes of action. “It was tough. Especially when you got momentum going. You think there’s a missed shot and next thing you know the whistle blows like late in the possession for a foul. It’s just tough. But they got great players and great players do great things.”

Overall, Malone was pleased with his team’s effort, especially on the defensive end of the floor during the final stop of a brutal five-game road trip.

“I thought our defense was tremendous tonight, especially after that first quarter,” Malone said. “You come into Houston, third game in four nights against one of the better offensive teams and hold them to 42 percent from the field and only 29 percent from three. The defense was phenomenal.”

“My message to our guys, ‘when we leave here tonight, no one drop your head. Feel really good about the effort we put forth tonight. Feel really good about the defense we played tonight. We have basketball left. We’re still alive,'” Malone said. “A lot of teams in the NBA, especially in the West. There are only two teams still fighting for that playoff spot. So we’re going home feeling pretty good about ourselves.”