When the Denver Nuggets fired former head coach Michael Malone three games before the start of the 2025 playoffs, they replaced him with current head coach David Adelman. It was a change that didn't sit well with many fans, and it still doesn't. And after hearing what Peyton Watson said about coach Malone during his interview with Michael Porter Jr. on Porter's podcast, Curious Mike, it's easy to understand why the Nuggets were soft during the first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Yes: soft.
Of course, some people don't like the old-school coaching style of yesteryear that Malone still embodies. Players don't like getting yelled at. But that style of coaching produces results. Watson even admitted where it left him after he told the story of not remembering the name of a play that he was running while he was playing Kevin Durant on the Nuggets scouting team.
"I remember just being like, ‘I don’t know.’ I really just don’t know. I didn’t know. His face turned red, bro, and he just started chewing me out. ‘You’re the youngest one in here. You should be paying attention. We give you a book with all the plays on it. You should know these things,'" Watson said Malone told him.
But it left Watson in a better place. "I remember feeling embarrassed. But at the same time, I felt embarrassed because I didn’t know. He asked me a question, and I wasn’t prepared to answer it. Since then, I’ve always been hyper-focused on the game plan, the scout. I know everything now.”
The Nuggets miss that Malone attitude
The Nuggets were called out by name as "bad defenders" by Jaden McDaniels after game 2 of their first round series, and head coach David Adelman had no real response to it. The Nuggets continued to get attacked at the rim, game after game, and they had zero response. You would have hoped the Nuggets would have used that as a chance to get mad and respond.
But when your coach is more or less flippant about it, it wears off on the team around them, and the response was soft, at best. Malone wouldn't have been so soft in his response. That's what I miss about Malone. That fiery attitude that helped him become the Nuggets' winningest coach in franchise history. The first coach to bring an NBA Championship to the Mile High City. That "mad-dog" attitude.
Do the Nuggets want a softer coach?
It almost seems like the players wanted a softer coach. Adelman isn't nearly the fiery, in-your-face style that Malone is, and he never will be. Chris Finch, the Timberwolves head coach, had more of that embodiment, and his team stuck it to the Nuggets and kept going back to the well with their attack.
The softness for the Nuggets is a big concern of mine going into 2026-27. The Nuggets' defense is already bad enough, and if they start playing more poorly on defense, who's going to fire them up? Not only that, but they needed Adelman to defend them against the McDaniels comments. That still hasn't sat right with me.
And what Watson said just reinforces why the Nuggets miss coach Malone.
Add us as a preferred source on Google