Denver Nuggets: Has The Team Given Up?
Denver Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw was fuming after his team lost by 43 points on the road to the Golden State Warriors last Monday. He was pissed for good reason, the loss was more than ugly, it was the seventh-worst loss in Nuggets history.
“Hustle points, rebounding, sharing the ball, just everything,” Shaw told the Denver Post. “They beat us in every aspect of the game.”
His harsh comments didn’t do much to rouse the team to get better, though. The Nuggets also looked lethargic in a 10-point home loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night.
The Nuggets have now lost four straight, including a stinky-smelly-nasty-ugly home loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the team has already managed to erase the gains from five-game winning streak they pulled off to start the new year.
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So, here we are. The Nuggets are 18-24, sitting in 11th place in the Western Conference, the Jusuf Nurkic magic appears to have worn off (even if he’s still impressive), and the team is seven games away from the eighth, and final, spot in the playoffs.
“We have to figure out a way to dig deep,” Shaw told the Denver Post, “because whatever we’re doing isn’t working.”
Shaw’s got a point. The Nuggets don’t appear to be digging deep, and the current play has them six games below .500. There were multiple times in the San Antonio game I felt like they already accepted the loss, and they didn’t seem to care that much.
Besides Ty Lawson continuing to average a double-double (16.9 points and 9.9 assists a game), there are few positives to find in this season so far. The Nuggets need to win 30 over the next 40 games in order to just get back IN the playoff conversation, and the Nuggets appear to have given up.
Saying the team has given up is the easy way to explain what is happening though. To just give up? The Nuggets? A bunch of professional athletes saying just going through the motions, even though they are some of the most competitive people on the planet? It just doesn’t sound right.
And it’s not what the Nuggets have done just yet. Rather, they’ve cooled off, and the roster is getting exposed for not being talented enough to make the playoffs in the Western Conference.
During the five-game winning streak to start this month, the Nuggets were shooting 51.9 percent from the field, and 38.2 percent from three-point range, according to NBA.com/stats. During the four-game losing streak, however, their shooting percentage dropped 11.1 percentage points to 40.8 percent and their three point percentage dropped 5.2 percent to 33.0.
Clearly, their defense wasn’t “digging deep” enough to make up for the loss in scoring, and this is the biggest reason for the four game slide.
That 51.9 percent is definitely not a sustainable shooting percentage for the Nuggets, as the league’s best shooting team, the Golden State Warriors, are shooting just 48.7 percent on the season. If the Nuggets can’t get their defense in great enough shape to compensate for their lack of offense, then we’re in for a lot more four game losing streaks.
But they haven’t given up, despite what it feels like. The Nuggets have simply been streaky allllll season long, as they’ve had two five-game winning streaks, and three four-game losing streaks, and it’s only mid-January. The team just doesn’t have enough depth or balance to overcome a bad shooting night from basically any starter.
The arrival of Jameer Nelson and a healthy Randy Foye have helped a little, but as shown in the San Antonio loss, but neither are the defensive answer to the “Nuggets can’t score enough problem.”
It’s time for Shaw to realize the problem is too big for him to overcome by playing veterans JJ Hickson and Randy Foye extended minutes. Now that the playoffs are out of reach, let’s get some players who will “dig deeper” on the court.
After all, both Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris have a lower defensive rating while on the floor compared to the Nuggets season average of 105.1 — and both of them are rookies.
Now, it’s not just about finding players who will dig deeper, Mr. Brian Shaw, it’s about players who will dig deeper on the defensive end AND who will be improving the Nuggets future by playing more minutes. It’s time to start coaching for development instead of for wins.