What to take away from the Denver Nuggets’ first Summer League game
By Sean Carroll
The Denver Nuggets had a really rocky start to their 2021 Summer League in a blowout loss to the Miami Heat. Denver lost by 20 points and was ran out of the building in the first quarter as Miami held on to a lead all night.
Not only did the team lose, but Denver was down nine players entering the matchup due to the NBA’s Health & Safety Protocols. The nine players out included the Nuggets’ 26th pick in this year’s draft, Nah’Shon ‘Bones’ Hyland, as well as Zeke Nnaji and Markus Howard.
Reminder: Nuggets signed two players THIS MORNING (Josh Gray, Daniel Hamilton) so they'd definitely have enough players tonight. They've been scrimmaging against the coaching staff at practice.
— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) August 9, 2021
Denver trails 30-12 after one quarter.
Winning isn’t everything in the Summer League, but it’s always nice to win games and without three of the team’s best players, it’s hard to expect too much.
Despite this, the team played extremely hard. Turnovers are going to be an issue in Summer League regardless, let alone after meeting your new teammates the morning of the game. Miami capitalized on this with several fastbreak dunks in the first half off turnovers.
And if this was the low watermark for a Nuggets Summer League team, this was the high watermark for Miami as they shot the lights out of the building. Only an earthquake could stop this game.
But even without Bones Hyland and other big names, we caught a glimpse of some of Denver’s young talent. Let’s get into what we saw from game one of the 2021 NBA Summer League.