DENVER — Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone entered the news conference room Friday night at Ball Arena, took a seat and grabbed the stat sheet that told the story of a 131-126 win over the zombie Los Angeles Lakers. He didn’t even look at the box score. He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the garbage.
At various points this season, Malone has been critical of his team for a lack of effort. At halftime Friday, Malone certainly chided his team and delivered the message that they needed to play harder against a team missing LeBron James, Luka Dončić, Rui Hachimura and Jaxson Hayes — two superstars and four starters.
But, just when you would have thought Malone’s fiery temper would make an appearance, he did an about face.
“This isn’t a beauty pageant,” he deadpanned. “You don’t get to judge wins at this time of year.”
The Nuggets struggled with, and nearly lost to, a team missing half its roster Friday. And the issues were plenty. The Nuggets couldn’t stay in front of Austin Reaves. As Malone said at halftime, the Nuggets didn’t play hard enough in the first half, particularly on the defensive end. Denver allowed a double-digit lead to slip in the fourth quarter, and the Nuggets generally did not match the Lakers’ desperation.
But with Friday’s win, Denver is now back in the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, and the Nuggets have a full-game cushion over the Houston Rockets. With Friday’s win, the Nuggets are 2-2 in a week where they’ve had four games against the Lakers, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder. On Saturday, the Nuggets will face the Washington Wizards, their fifth game in seven nights, including a pair of back-to-backs. Even with the Nuggets being in that second spot out West, they know that a bad week can slide them down a few notches.
That’s why Malone has given his team some real grace over the outcomes of the last two games. If the West is doing anything, it’s eating its own in terms of how competitive it has been. Yes, Malone could lose his temper at some of the stuff happening on the floor. For example, Denver’s defense at times against the Lakers was appalling. But winning means a lot in March in a playoff race even if you win ugly.
“There are obviously some things that we simply need to do better,” Malone said. “We gave them 19 offensive rebounds for 20 points. They scored another 19 points off our turnovers. That’s 39 points that we gave them just from offensive rebounds and turnovers. So, obviously, that’s a huge concern, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
“This is another game where we showed up in the first quarter and tried to ease our way into the game, instead of attacking the game, and they jumped all over us. We can’t do that. We have to approach these games with urgency. But we closed the game out by scoring eight straight points. We had some good late game execution down the stretch, and we made some timely shots. So, it’s a win.”
Malone knows the battle he is fighting. The Nuggets aren’t the deepest team in the league. The starting five, led by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić, is one of the best in the NBA. After that, it’s a bunch of mixing and matching and trying to come up with enough points and defensive stops to stay afloat while Jokić isn’t in the game. With that lack of depth, and with the unforgiving March schedule, Malone is asking a lot of his players. It’s a contributing factor to the product on the floor. If, at times, this Denver team looks tired and run down, well, it is.
Malone is attempting to mitigate it all. The Nuggets have practiced just twice since the All-Star break, and morning shootarounds have been held sporadically. Malone is clearly trying to buy his team as much rest as possible in between games, because he’s asking a lot of his roster during games.
“The key for us is to just win,” Denver guard Jamal Murray said. “It’s not always going to be perfect. Whenever you face a team with a depleted lineup, you know that team is going to come out and play hard.. You have to give the Lakers a lot of credit. They came out and made a lot of shots. You could say that we have to play better defensively, and we do.
“But the most important thing is that we got the win. It definitely wasn’t pretty. But we’ll take it.”
The biggest concern for the Nuggets is overall fatigue. Two years ago, when Denver won an NBA championship, the title run was prefaced with the Nuggets significantly easing up on the pedal in March. They were so far up on the Western Conference they rested key pieces down the stretch of the regular season. Last year, Denver didn’t have that luxury, and the Nuggets ended up running out of gas by the second round, culminating with a Game 7 loss to the Timberwolves.
Malone is trying to walk a fine line here, which also contributes to his overall demeanor. He knows there are significant things that need to improve, but he also is aiming to make sure the Nuggets are as fresh as possible for the postseason. In this sense, seeding may not matter as much as the individual matchup. It’s hard to yell at Jokić for a lack of defense, for example, when he’s playing between 37 and 40 minutes a night.
The good news is that this team still is second in the West and a viable contender to make a run at a second NBA title. But, how much can be changed and cleaned up in a stretch as demanding as the one the Nuggets have had over the last week?
“I think the entire season has pretty much been like this,” Jokić said. “We kind of don’t know what team is going to go out there. Some nights have been good, and some nights have been bad.
“I think the good thing is that we have actually won most of the games.”
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(Photo of Nikola Jokić: Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)
