There are many ways that Michael Malone and David Adelman are different, but their demeanor and candor when talking to the media are some of the more notable ones. But after Sunday’s loss to the Nets, if you squinted hard enough, you may have had a hard time deciphering which coach was giving the postgame news conference.
Adelman used a common tactic of his predecessor, the old-fashioned Malone, calling out his team by saying, “Our energy was lackluster, embarrassing, to start this game. I thought we picked it up as it went, but the game was out of control at that point. … You can’t come out with an unprofessional approach.”
This came on the heels of a nearly wire-to-wire loss in Brooklyn that ended 127-115, their fourth loss in five games to start this treacherous East Coast road trip. They allowed the Nets to shoot over 50% from the floor and over 40% from three, and got sufficiently dominated on the glass.
Furthermore, they got punked by Michael Porter Jr., whom they essentially salary-dumped in the offseason. MPJ lit them up for 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists, and was a team-high +22 in his 32 minutes.
Adelman justified in anger towards Nuggets
On the one hand, it’s easy to excuse the Nuggets’ struggles. For starters, they’re obviously playing without Nikola Jokic, the best player on the planet. But even beyond that, they were without his backup, Jonas Valanciunas, plus another key starter in Cam Johnson.
On top of that, Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon were returning to the lineup for the first time in over a month. Neither one played more than 24 minutes as they were on minutes restrictions, still getting back up to speed.
On the other hand, Adelman has every right to be angry with his team for effort and energy. Everyone knows the team is overmatched and exhausted, but there’s no excuse for the lack of resistance, especially on the defensive end. They mostly let the Nets toy with them from start to finish, and regardless of who’s in and out, that should never happen.
To make matters worse, the Nuggets play again on Monday night, the second night of a back-to-back in Philadelphia, against a red-hot 76ers team. Denver needs to get back in the win column, but they also need to give some guys a break.
It will be interesting to see how they approach this game, but it’s looking like they’ll either overwork some key players, they’ll fall to 1-5 on the road trip, or both. Hopefully, they prove me wrong, but it’s not looking great for Monday night.