Facing the second seed New York Knicks on the second night of a back-to-back immediately after facing the first seed Detroit Pistons is a difficult task.
Doing so amid injuries and absences makes it even more difficult.
But a double overtime loss on national television in which Nikola Jokic blew right past his minutes restriction and both Spencer Jones and Peyton Watson left the game with injuries of their own? That’s truly brutal.
The Nuggets did well to force multiple overtimes against the Knicks in what ended up being a 134-127 loss. Jalen Brunson looked relatively fresh despite playing on the second night of a back-to-back himself with 42 points, 9 assists, and 8 rebounds on better than 50% shooting. Meanwhile, Jokic and Jamal Murray looked gassed by the end of the game, Jokic especially.
In his fourth game back from injury and on a minutes restriction, Jokic played 45 minutes anyway, going for 30 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists. The raw numbers were good, but Jokic shot just 1-of-13 from three and was clearly off as a shooter. He also missed multiple free throws down the stretch that proved costly. There was no question about his competitive level and how much he wanted to be out there, but at a certain point, the Nuggets have to protect the best player in the world from his own competitive desires.
Ditto for Jamal Murray, who was spectacular for much of this game with 39 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists of his own. Murray played 48 minutes though, on the second night of a back-to-back, and missed several shots down the stretch he normally makes. Fatigue was almost certainly a factor.
The Nuggets went with a nine-man rotation tonight, starting Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and Spencer Jones next to each other. Jones suffered a head injury right at the end of the first quarter when he bumped heads with Karl-Anthony-Towns, who was covered in blood from a laceration above his eyebrow. Jones never returned, and early in the fourth quarter, Watson pulled up lame while grabbing the back of his right hamstring, eerily similar to the injury Aaron Gordon sustained.
Braun, for his part, struggled offensively. He moved the ball well but rarely capitalized on opportunities to generate his own scoring. That was of course until the very end of the first overtime when Braun drew a loose ball foul with 0.3 seconds left, calmly sinking both free throws to force a second overtime. He deserves credit for that as well as for his defense tonight, but the offense in his second game back remains a clear work in progress.
I have no doubt Braun was also on a minute restriction tonight, but he played 43 minutes too.
Overall, the Nuggets showed tremendous fight tonight and deserve credit for that. They’ve now lost a couple close games to East powerhouses and deserve some praise for making this a game due to the circumstances, but not getting it done in overtime was an issue for a team that was clearly gassed.
I have questions for head coach David Adelman that I won’t be able to ask until next week.
Yes, the Nuggets are going through injuries at light speed. Yes, there’s no guaranteed that injuries will or won’t happen just because a player is tired. Yes, it’s difficult for deep bench guys to be trusted when they’re not in the initial game plan and are cold coming off the bench.
But the long view for the Nuggets has clearly not been taken into account for some time here, and that is a mistake. Jokic played 45 minutes on the second night of a back-to-back. Murray played 48. Jones’ injury was a fluke situation, but Watson’s injury happened in the fourth quarter when he was on pace to play 42 minutes in regulation, before the two overtimes even occurred. Aaron Gordon sustained a similar injury on the second night of a back-to-back as well.
Denver clearly does not trust the end of their bench. None of Jalen Pickett, Zeke Nnaji, Hunter Tyson, or DaRon Holmes got into the game tonight. Nnaji played 35 seconds the night before. Denver’s played very small and with a shortened rotation for several games before the All-Star break here trying to collect wins, but they lost anyway, and now they’re paying double.
A couple weeks ago, I asked Adelman if he was worried about “burning the candle at both ends” with the high effort minutes the Nuggets have been playing ever since Jokic went down in late December. He wasn’t especially concerned at that point, but the Nuggets are now seemingly enduring the pain of playing as hard as they did for a month. That’s a major concern.
The Nuggets have just three games left before the All-Star break. They have two days off before playing on Saturday against the Chicago Bulls. Perhaps that was part of the calculus in going hard in this game.
Unfortunately, the Nuggets bet big and failed. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come back to bite them in the games in April and May that matter more than any individual Eastern Conference game in February possibly could.