The Nuggets nearly pulled off the improbable comeback. Turnovers and some questionable decisions down the stretch cost them in a tightly contested second half.
Kyrie Irving followed his performance in Golden State on Saturday with a solid performance against the Nuggets. He scored 27 to lead the Celtics, 10 of those in the 4th quarter, to hold off the Nuggets charge.
Denver Nuggets
Nikola Jokic paced the Nuggets with 24 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. He continues to be the Nuggets most consistent performer. The usually stellar Nuggets back court combination of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris were mostly invisible, combining for 29 points on 41.5% shooting (including an abysmal 17.2% from 3). They did supply some spark late but it was too little, too late.
While the Celtics got production from their reserves, particularly Marcus Morris and Daniel Theis, with 14 and 11, respectively, the Nuggets bench was completely ineffective. Only Trey Lyles stands out among the second team with 20 points, 7 rebound and 3 assists in 20 minutes of action. The poor production by bench players forced the Nuggets to lean heavily on the starters, with each, save Mason Plumlee, logging more than 35 minutes. Speaking of Plumlee, a calf strain late in the 3rd had him limping to the locker room for the night. No word on the severity of the injury or a timetable for Mason’s return but he was having a productive game to that point with 16 points and eight boards.
Although the Celtics raced to a 20-point first half lead, the game never felt like it was out-of-hand for the Nuggets, the comeback was gradual, the 82-80 lead at the end of the third almost a surprise. This was another winnable contest, given away by questionable moves late.
After losing Jaylen Brown (a 37% 3-point shooter) in the corner to go down 111-108 with 34.7 seconds left, the Nuggets called timeout. Out of the timeout, the Nuggets got a quick, driving score from Jamal Murray to draw within 1. There were 28.1 seconds on the clock, the Celtics could not run out the clock and took a timeout. The Nuggets replaced leading scorer Nikola Jokic with Torrey Craig, the Celtics reinserted Kyrie Irving. The Nuggets played solid defense on Irving, forcing him left and into a fade away that rimmed off right. Lyles secured the rebound and handed off to Barton who raced the length of the court and missed a 3 at the buzzer, wide left.
Denver Head Coach Michael Malone defended the decision not to call timeout after Irving’s miss, explaining ”(We) got a stop, didn’t want them to set their defense,” Malone said. ”Will Barton has made plays like that before for us and I stand by that decision.” Let’s analyze those final seconds for a moment; Malone’s assessment is sound, the Nuggets did catch the Celtics scrambling and unable to set their D. The play broke down when Will Barton missed a streaking Jamal Murray up the sideline. Had he seen/made that pass, we would have had Murray with a pretty open look, with a couple of seconds left. A scenario much more likely to produce favorable results than Will’s 24-footer. It happens, guys miss cutters and open shooters all the time. It looks substantially more glaring when it’s in the final seconds. The mistake Coach Malone made was in substituting Craig for Jokic, if he had it in his mind that he was going to push a Celtics miss, rather than call a timeout. His decision makes far more sense if we have (arguably) our best player on the floor.
This game is sort of microcosm of the Nuggets 2017-2018 season. Close to breaking through against the best in the league but still tinkering with curious and often ineffective strategies. The Nuggets must have more from the coaching staff. The Nuggets squandered a fairly soft schedule in January, needing an improbable win in San Antonio just to salvage a winning record for the month.
February is brutal.
The Nuggets have built no cushion to absorb what could be a devastating month to the team’s playoff chances. Playing with eight-man rotations, keeping quality, able NBA players on the bench while an exhausted Nuggets team limps into the All-Star break has to land on Michael Malone. That this team isn’t 10 wins better has to fall on Michael Malone. On-court decisions, mistakes and misses are part of the game. A coaching staff, in the middle of the season, still trying to work out rotations, only down one player, is not. This team is too talented to fade out of relevance, it’s time there were answers to the questionable decisions this team makes night in and night out.
We have passed the time when moral victories are meaningful, last night’s game should have, could have been a real victory.
Who is going to answer for that?