The Denver Nuggets suffered their second consecutive blowout loss on Friday night, falling 128-109 to the Portland Trail Blazers in a game that left head coach Michael Malone fuming.
“Yeah, that was embarrassing. That was just a joke. Who are we kidding?” Malone said with an exasperated tone.
“Eleven games to go and that’s the effort we put forth. I’m embarrassed by that game, and our approach and how we played. Six points on the offensive glass. Rebounding is effort, rebounding is toughness, rebounding is desire. And they just kicked our butts on the offensive glass.”
The Trail Blazers dominated the offensive glass, snatching 15 offensive rebounds that led to 26 second-chance points. Combined with the 25 points scored off Denver’s 20 turnovers, the Nuggets gave up a whopping 51 points from just rebounds and turnovers.
Defensive collapse plagued Nuggets in loss to Trail Blazers
Even without Nikola Jokic in the lineup, the Nuggets initially jumped out to an early double-digit lead. It quickly evaporated due to poor execution on both ends of the floor. The defensive effort was particularly concerning, as the Nuggets surrendered 74 points in the second half alone, getting outscored by 24 points after halftime.
Malone didn’t mince words about what he perceived as a ‘lack of pride’ from his squad.
“I don’t know what our guys are thinking with 11 [games] to go. I challenge them to look at the standings, look at our remaining schedule, and if we continue to play the way we’re playing, we will be playing in the play-in tournament,” said Malone. “Very simple. It’s just the way it is, and I think every guy has got to look themselves in the mirror and start coming to each respective game with the proper mindset and have some pride. I didn’t think we played with any pride tonight.”
When asked how he thought players would respond to his blunt assessment, Malone was equally as direct in response.
“It’s not my job to evaluate how they take things. My job is to be honest, and sometimes brutally honest. And tonight it was a brutally honest message,” said Malone.
“The guys that are full of s**t won’t hear it. They’ll say, ‘Coach is tripping.’ And the guys that maybe do really care will because they don’t want to go back and watch their minutes. Nobody watches their minutes; nobody watches film. So we’ll have to show them the film, and I said if somebody disagrees with me, please speak up. And nobody said a word. So again, I’m not really concerned with how they took that message. My thing is being honest with how we just played.”
With just 11 games remaining in the regular season, the timing of the Nuggets’ slump is particularly concerning. They’ll need to get things figured out quickly before they slide even further in the Western Conference standings.
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