While the individual brilliance of Nikola Jokic and his seamless partnership with Jamal Murray laid the foundation for the Denver Nuggets’ championship run last season, occasional and timely defense provided an underlying support for the Nuggets’ postseason success.
Without Murray, who remains sidelined with a hamstring injury, the Nuggets can’t afford to be pedestrian defensively, which describes their recent play. With its 124-119 road loss to the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, Denver suffered its third defeat in four games by producing a defensive effort that lacked all the hallmarks of a championship contender.
“We gave up 42 points in the fourth quarter,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “That’s a number that is embarrassing — 42 points in the fourth quarter when the game is hanging in the balance. And the crazy thing about that fourth quarter is we didn’t guard.
“They didn’t miss many shots but they had four offensive rebounds for eight points in the fourth quarter. When we did find a way to force them to miss, we just stood and ball-watched.”
The Nuggets will conclude a five-game road trip on Friday against the Houston Rockets, who earned a 107-104 home win over Denver on Nov. 12. To avoid a second loss in Houston in as many meetings, the Nuggets will have to reclaim the defensive intensity they’ve lacked.
Denver started this road trip with losses in New Orleans and Cleveland, allowing the Pelicans to shoot 52.3 percent from the floor before the Cavaliers shot even better (54.9 percent). The final period in Orlando again showcased the warts of the Nuggets’ defensive vulnerability.
“That’s just not good enough against a quality team like the Magic,” Malone said.
The Rockets traversed a different path to victory against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday, coming alive down the stretch of the third quarter and carrying that momentum into the fourth in their 111-91 home win — their seventh consecutive triumph at Toyota Center.
Guard Jalen Green provided the spark after the intermission, scoring 26 of his season-high 34 points in the second half. Green made 10 of 16 shots from the floor after halftime, including three 3-pointers, and delivered a thunderous dunk in the waning moments of the third that electrified his teammates.
“It gave us some juice. We got technicals because of it,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said, a tongue-in-cheek reference to Alperen Sengun earning a technical foul from the bench reacting to the Green dunk. “But obviously it got him going even more.”
Udoka and veteran guard Fred VanVleet implored Green to remain in attack mode after a sluggish shooting start, with VanVleet going as far as to pull Green aside and deliver a “one-way conversation” after Green was upset that VanVleet missed him for a transition lob attempt.
The Rockets have excelled thus far with their balanced offensive attack, but their offense thrives when Green takes a more assertive approach and capitalizes on his natural scoring ability.
“We need to do a better job of getting him more involved and finding ways for him to be more successful (and) more impactful for us,” VanVleet said of Green. “Obviously, we need that scoring punch out of the backcourt from him.”
–Field Level Media