There were a lot of concerning elements to the Nuggets’ 127-126 loss to the Magic on Saturday night, but perhaps nothing was worse than seeing Anthony Black torch them for a career-high 38 points on 14-24 shooting, including 7-11 threes, to go along with 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
Black is a nice, young, third-year player who’s experiencing a bit of a breakout campaign, but still, he averages 15.1 points per game on the season, and 8.6 for his career. He’s a role player. He may have a higher ceiling than that, as he’s still just 21 years old after being the 6th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Someday, perhaps Black will be a star in this league, but that day is not today, and there’s no excuse for the Nuggets to allow this kind of performance by a guy who’s at best the third or fourth option on an Orlando team that’s right around league average on offense.
Nuggets need defensive reinforcements
The Nuggets definitely have some defensive issues, but it’s unclear how many of them are tied to injuries. The last couple of games, they’ve been missing their best three defensive starters, without Cam Johnson, Christian Braun, and Aaron Gordon, with Braun and AG missing for over a month now.
Those are the guys who hold the defense together and make sure the opponents’ best players don’t light them up. The absences also put more of an offensive burden on the plates of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, which ends up impacting their defense and overall energy.
At the same time, the Nuggets still have good defenders in the lineup with Peyton Watson, Spencer Jones, Bruce Brown, and others. Plus, they have proud champions who know what it takes to win games.
There’s no excuse for allowing Anthony Black to dominate you and keep his team in a game for most of the night. Once Denver finally started to focus their energies on Black, it was Desmond Bane who started burning them. Bane started slowly, but took over in the fourth quarter, accounting for 15 points, including 9-9 free throws.
Denver couldn’t keep him off the stripe in the final minute, and Bane sank four huge free throws, with the final one proving to be the game-winner. The Denver defense has fallen to 20th in the league after hovering in the top 5 for the first month or so.
Nobody is expecting them to be an elite defense, but to win a title, they are going to have to be at least average, and probably slightly better. There’s time to figure it out, and health should help, but they need to start turning things around sooner than later.