DENVER — By the end of the most embarrassing loss of the season for the Denver Nuggets, New York Knicks fans had taken over Ball Arena. The chants were loud and noticeable. You could hear everything from “OG Anunoby!” to “Deuce,” every time reserve guard Miles McBride splashed home another 3-pointer.
It wasn’t so much that the Nuggets fell 145-118 to New York, or that the Nuggets were never really in this one. It was the lack of effort that drew steam out of Denver head coach Michael Malone. It was the lack of energy. It was the lack of fight when the Knicks forged their first run of the night. It was a lack of passion coming out in the third quarter.
A little less than 48 hours after their best performance of the season in beating the Los Angeles Lakers, the Nuggets did a 180 on Monday night. They didn’t show up, and they allowed a hungry and aggressive Knicks team to run them out of their own gym.
“F— that, I’m not flushing,” Malone angrily said when asked how he would deal with the loss. “You don’t flush when you get embarrassed. You don’t flush when you don’t play hard or play with any physicality. Tonight, we got embarrassed. We’re 16 games in and we’re talking about effort. We have to ask ourselves this question: Who do we want to be as a team?
“Playing like you actually care would be great.”
This wasn’t so much about Monday night’s loss for Malone. Indeed, this is a culmination of events built over time. The preseason saw four losses in five games. Denver’s regular season opened with home defeats to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers. When Nikola Jokić missed time because of the birth of his second child, there was a road loss to a New Orleans Pelicans team missing almost all of their key rotation players. That was followed by a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, where the Nuggets looked slow, sluggish and hapless offensively.
And yet, there have been moments of brilliance. A home win over the Thunder. Saturday night’s whooping of the Lakers. Following that 0-2 start by winning seven of eight games. The peaks have been there. But the valleys have been low. Dismantling the Lakers on the road looked like the Nuggets were finally beginning to turn a corner, even with that coming on the heels of a home loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
That’s what has been so frustrating to Malone and the Nuggets in general. An 82-game season is naturally going to feature some pockets where a team isn’t playing great basketball. That is the nature of an NBA schedule being so demanding. Sometimes, what happens on the floor has very little to do with what’s happening on the floor. An NBA coach knows this, and knows there are some things out of his control. But Monday night for Malone was a tipping point. When the Knicks forged a lead, the Nuggets folded. When the Knicks played physical, the Nuggets didn’t match the physicality.
“Russell Westbrook played with a ton of effort, and he’s 36 years old,” Malone said. “But I need Nikola Jokić. I need the guys who have been here in the starting lineup to be vocal.”
What Malone doesn’t want is for Monday night or last Sunday night in Memphis to be the norm. He doesn’t want inconsistency to be the norm. And through 16 games, what have the Nuggets been? They have been a team with their typical beautiful offense that hasn’t defended particularly well. In 2023, when they won an NBA title, they were arguably the best offensive and defensive team in the league.
The story of the greatest players in NBA history. In 100 riveting profiles, top basketball writers justify their selections and uncover the history of the NBA in the process.
The story of the greatest plays in NBA history.
So far, they’re 17th in the league with a 114 defensive rating. That number isn’t going to be good enough to win another title. Malone knows that. His players know that. These Denver Nuggets are quite capable of scoring. But can they stop anyone? Saturday night’s 127-102 win over the Lakers was one of Denver’s best efforts of the season on both ends of the floor. To go from being that complete a team on one night to being that discombobulated provided a major contrast.
That explains why Malone was so heated on Monday night. The Nuggets are 9-7. They are currently in the eighth spot in the Western Conference. Malone doesn’t want this to be who the Nuggets are. And once you get to that 25- or 30-game mark, teams start to settle into what they are going to be. Is it impossible to change stripes once you establish them? Of course not. But changing those stripes takes a ton of work.
“It is energy,” guard Jamal Murray said. “It is effort. It is discipline. It’s how much you want it and how much you care. And we didn’t have any of that tonight.”
Denver’s defense was horrid against the Knicks. The Nuggets allowed New York to shoot 60 percent from the field. The Knicks made 19 of their 36 3-pointers. Anunoby established a career-high with 40 points. The Nuggets didn’t defend at the point of attack. They didn’t defend the rim. They allowed New York point guard Jalen Brunson to get anywhere he wanted off the dribble, and once he did, Denver’s defense usually broke down.
But Monday night wasn’t schematic. If the Nuggets are to get to where they want to go, Malone is correct. They have to show more fight and more resilience. They have to be more willing to get in the proverbial mud with teams, and they have to play with more energy. This isn’t always going to be the case, but it needs to be the case more often than not. At this point, the Nuggets are setting the wrong trend, and Malone and Jokić want to put a stop to it right away.
“We did not show up tonight,” Jokić said. “I think it’s important to learn from games like this, because other teams are going to look at what they did to us. I think we can learn. But it’s always good to get punched in the face so that we can wake up.”
(Photo of Nikola Jokić and Karl-Anthony Towns: Justin Tafoya / Getty Images)
