Sure, you can say the Nuggets were shorthanded, missing Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon, but that doesn’t exactly make up for the fact that the Spurs were playing without Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle. And yet, without their two best players, San Antonio rolled into Denver, handed the Nuggets their third straight home loss, and eliminated them from the NBA Cup all in one fell swoop.
Denver led by as many as 18 after recess, but they couldn’t hold onto the ball, they couldn’t defend without fouling, and they couldn’t guard the three-point line. All told, the Nuggets gave up 17 threes, 32 free throws, and 30 points off turnovers.
The Nuggets’ defense has always been the issue when it comes to being a true top-tier title contender, and that was evident on Friday night. They allowed 41 first-quarter points, 44 third-quarter points, and another 36 points in the fourth quarter en route to a 139-136 loss.
The bad defense was compounded by a lack of ball security. If the Nuggets have a true hole in the roster, it’s at backup point guard, and seeing the team gag away 17 turnovers wasn’t very reassuring in that regard. Ultimately, as great as Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and this team can play, if they can’t defend and can’t take care of the ball, they’re not going anywhere.
Nuggets must right the ship in a hurry
It may be early in the season, but these are real issues for the Nuggets. Braun and Gordon aren’t coming back any time soon, and the team has now dropped three out of six games and fallen to fifth in the Western Conference with a back-to-back on the road in Phoenix looming on Saturday.
The Nuggets are now chasing the Thunder, Lakers, Rockets, and Spurs in the standings, and it doesn’t seem like any of those teams are going to drop off any time soon. The West is going to be a gauntlet this season, and the Nuggets have to keep pace, or they risk creating too much of an uphill battle.
Denver went out and bolstered the depth in the offseason so that the team would be prepared to handle some injuries, and could keep things steady through the long regular season without taxing Jokic and Murray too much. The team needs a solid seed, and they need to be healthy and fresh come playoff time.
But we’re not even 20 games into the season, and the Nuggets are already taking on water, dealing with tough injuries, falling down the standings, and risking putting themselves in a hole that’s too deep to climb out of.