Well, that was unexpected.
The Denver Nuggets are rebuilding, and supposedly focused on the future. But, as it turns out, they’re capable of submitting a pretty dominant performance in the present. Denver blew out the Houston Rockets 105-85 Wednesday night at Toyota Center in both teams’ regular-season opener.
You can say the Rockets were missing Dwight Howard and Donatas Motiejunas, but then you’d have to acknowledge the Nuggets were without Jusuf Nurkic and Wilson Chandler. Overall, there are no excuses for what the Nuggets did to the heavily-favored Rockets.
Right from the get-go, Denver set the tone on the defensive end of the court. The team defense was alright, as the perimeter rotations could have been better. But each Nugget was dug into his man, kept up the effort and didn’t lose focus. A 12-1 start to the game for Denver put the Rockets in an early hole, and you figured James Harden might turn up the aggressiveness to the max and take over.
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However, that never happened. Gary Harris and a variety of teammates combined to play excellent individual defense on one of the league’s best offensive players. Harden ended with 22 points, six rebounds and six assists, but he shot 6-of-21, had three turnovers and was a minus-20 for the game.
The other key offensive player for Houston, Ty Lawson, was mostly kept at bay by his former team. Lawson had 12 points and six assists, but shot only 3-of-10 and had three turnovers.
On the offensive end, the Nuggets were hot from three (13-of-27 on the game) and whipped the ball around the court unselfishly almost every possession. Denver had 26 assists total, with nine of those going to Emmanuel Mudiay.
One of the many positives the Nuggets can take away from Wednesday night is the performance of Danilo Gallinari (23 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three blocks). He also showed off his underrated hops with a vicious throwdown.
Gallinari calming the hostile Houston crowd down with another big dunk. That leg is looking pretty good. #Nuggets https://t.co/pCNX0QdfEt
— An Nguyen (@The_NGUYENNER) October 29, 2015
Gallo may not be the most hyped No. 1 offensive option in the NBA, but he’ll be solid for the Nuggets.
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The starting frontcourt of Kenneth Faried and Joffrey Lauvergne was economical offensively and stingy at the rim, combining for 29 points on 12-of-15 shooting, 16 rebounds and four blocks. Faried, in particular, seems to be turning over a new leaf on the defensive end.
Denver’s main issue from Wednesday night was turnovers. Mudiay had 11 of the team’s 21 cough-ups, and he’ll have to learn to treat possessions with greater care. He had an OK debut overall, with 17 points, five rebounds and the nine assists we discussed earlier, but 11 turnovers are a huge stain on the performance.
Yes, the Rockets had an uncharacteristically bad game Wednesday night. But give Denver some credit for taking them out of their offensive rhythm and playing hard on defense to encourage some of the Houston miscues.
Overall, don’t read too much into this game, but if 20-point wins on the road against contenders start to become commonplace, then please do so.