Potential lineup changes and locker room frustrations: The Nuggets are getting a postseason reality check

SAN ANTONIO — It’s time for a reality check. Here’s what we know about the Nuggets’ first-round matchup against the Spurs through three games.

• Derrick White has been the best player in this series. For 11 of 12 quarters, he’s made barbeque chicken out of Jamal Murray, driving comfortably to his right and breezing past the Nuggets’ starting point guard and to the rim like he’s on a Sunday stroll down 16th Street Mall. Remove Murray’s 21-point firestorm over the final 12 minutes of Game 3, and Denver’s starting point guard has struggled to break out of White’s All-Defensive Team caliber clamps, scoring just 26 points on 27% shooting from the field. Meanwhile, White’s shooting 71% in the series and had the game of his life Thursday, pouring in 36 points on 15-21 shooting to go with five rebounds and five assists to only one turnover. Murray had four giveaways in Denver’s loss.
• Will Barton has struggled mightily, just as he has since returning from a three-month absence in mid-January. Barton had high scoring nights on occasion over the last few months of the season, but it’s always been clear that he didn’t have the same feel, rhythm or burst around the basket. Through three postseason games, Barton is averaging 7.3 points on under 30% shooting from the field. His 0-6 performance from 3 drew boos from the Nuggets’ crowd earlier this week in their Game 2 loss, and if Denver had been playing in front of its home fans Thursday, Barton’s four-point showing in 21 minutes would have elicited the same response. He’s shooting 1 of 13 from 3-point range in the playoffs.
• The Nuggets have been out-rebounded in all three games, a jarring stat considering Denver had been the second-best rebounding team in the league throughout the regular season. On the year, the Nuggets grabbed 52.5 of their available rebounds, but in the playoffs, that number has slipped to 47.1. Paul Millsap, who’s been plagued by foul trouble this series and said after Game 3’s loss said he’s “completely confused” by the officiating, is averaging four rebounds per game after he had hauled in 7.2 rebounds per contest over the regular season. The Nuggets were outrebounded 46-37 Thursday by the Spurs, who was around league average in that category this year.
• Denver has looked exactly like what it is: a young, inexperienced playoff team that will have to go through a significant amount of postseason bumps and bruises to learn what it takes to win at this level. The Nuggets haven’t been disciplined enough in the series. They haven’t stuck to their defensive assignments or played their matchup’s tendencies well enough. How many times was Denver going to let White drive right Thursday? The Nuggets’ youth is a valid excuse but not one that covers up how disappointing this first-round series has already gone for the Nuggets. White and Murray, who have been center stage in the matchup of starting point guards, have similar levels of postseason experience, after all.

Changes are coming to the Nuggets’ rotation for Game 4 because frankly, Denver is on thin ice down 1-2 in the series with at least two more games in San Antonio already sharpied into the schedule.

Lineup tweaks will happen ahead of Saturday’s rematch at AT&T Center and difficult conversations may be had. Michael Malone shot down a question minutes after the Nuggets’ latest loss about if he’d move Malik Beasley into the starting lineup for the struggling Barton. But there’s a lot of time between now and Saturday, and that swap seems like a logical move with how both players have fared this series.

“Whether it’s a lineup change or just getting guys into the game quicker, which is probably what I’d lean to right now,” Malone said. “This group has helped us win 54 games, and if I have to get guys in the game earlier because they’re playing at a higher level, I’d do so. Coaching’s never personal.

“This is all about trying to find the best group that can go out there and help us win a game and we’ve got some guys struggling right now and it’s my job to help those guys who are struggling and also to find the right unit and lineup that can hopefully help us win Game 4 and tie it up.”

Inside the Nuggets’ locker room following the Game 3 defeat, frustrations mounted around the two team’s familiarity with one another and Denver’s inability to both generate healthy offense and get stops on the defensive end of the floor.

“You know we’re playing the same team over and over. They know what’s coming,” Murray said. “We’ve got to have some counters and we’ve got to play with more urgency on the court.”

“We know every call. We know how to guard every call,” a visibly frustrated Monte Morris added. “It just comes down to you getting a stop and make or miss shots.”

Morris and the play of the Nuggets’ second unit Thursday was the only silver lining in Denver’s loss. Two spirited runs by the Nuggets’ bench, the first of which came to start the second quarter where a lineup featuring Morris, Murray, Beasley, Torrey Craig and Mason Plumlee outscored the Spurs 21-7 over the first few minutes of the second quarter. The other promising stretch from the Nuggets’ bench came in the second half, but both runs were spoiled by a Denver starting group that got outscored by 21 points in 17 minutes.

“They played our style of basketball,” Millsap said of the second unit.

The raucous Spurs’ crowd will be back for Game 4. The surroundings will again be unfamiliar. If Denver can emerge from its corner as the aggressor with a tweaked rotation and a starting and bench unit that plays consistent basketball, the Nuggets have a chance to salvage what’s left of the series.

If they don’t, well, the Nuggets can start to book their summer vacations.

“They had a hit first mentality, we were counterpunchers tonight,” Malone said. “And that can’t happen.”