We thought the Nuggets were safe from a slack one month before the playoffs, and the leaders of the Western Conference have just lost in quick succession at home to the Bulls, then to the Spurs. Before the meeting against San Antonio, Mike Malone had however lectured his players, guilty of a big relaxation against Chicago.
“If you have enough guts – which not everyone in this business has – but if you have enough guts to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself, I think we have everyone realizes, me first, and from the 1st to the 17th player, that we did not do our job against Chicago. We hope the message got through, and it did throughout the season, and you reacted as you should. That’s what I expect to see happen tonight.”
Unfortunately, nothing happened. At the very least, his players played 12 minutes, and then nothing… Result, a second loss in a row against a team at the bottom of the table, and Malone is obviously even more angry.
“At every time-out, at every break, at half-time, at every stoppage in play, I begged them to defend”
“As I told my players, conceding 128 points, including 68 in the key, and being dominated on the rebound with 50 takes against 33, is a sign of a lack of aggressiveness, a lack of combativeness, a lack of physical commitment” analyzes the Denver coach. “It’s an embarrassing loss. Not because it’s against Spurs, but because of our lack of commitment in defence.
For Malone, already against the Raptors, his team had disappointed, and the two losses against the Bulls and the Spurs are logical. “We can lose matches, but against Chicago, I never had the feeling that we had given ourselves the means to win the match” he continues. “Tonight, the second quarter was horrible. At each time-out, at each break, at each stoppage of play, I begged them to defend. We have 15 games left to start defending. »
These players were so bad on defense that they turned Doug McDermott into an “All-NBA Player” to use Malone’s phrase. “There’s nothing to get out of it… We have 15 games left, and as I told my players at half-time, there’s no point talking about first place in the West and… to be in the Top 10 of the best defenses in the NBA if we do not associate the gesture with the word. You have to show how serious you are, and I’m going to repeat myself, but that’s not the case when you concede 68 points in the key, take 24 points on offensive rebounds, and they win the rebound battle, 50 to 33”.
