The Denver Nuggets were flat-out embarrassed in the second half of tonight’s game against the Houston Rockets, losing 124-103 in a thoroughly disheartening affair.
The Nuggets led 59-56 at halftime but gave up the lead in the third quarter. After that, the Rockets turned on the jets in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Nuggets 38-18 in the final frame. No defense was played by the Nuggets. No second effort was given. When Nikola Jokić reentered with 8:35 to go in the fourth, things suddenly got worse rather than better. He played just three minutes and turned the ball over several times, jogging up and down the court with little urgency.
Jokić scored just 14 points while turning the ball over eight times. The Nuggets have 20 turnovers as a team and showed little urgency as a unit.
You would never know the Nuggets had an opportunity to clinch the top seed in the Western Conference by the way they played.
Here are my takeaways from the Nuggets matchup with the Rockets in Houston on Tuesday night:
Nikola Jokić returns, but Jamal Murray exits
It was good to see Jokić back on the court for the Nuggets ahead of the playoffs. After missing three games with right calf tightness, the last thing the Nuggets want heading into the playoffs is for Jokić to be rusty as a shooter, passer, and playmaker. Bringing him back against the Rockets in a low leverage situation was the right call as long as his health dictated it.
Jokić scored easily in the paint in the first quarter against Alperun Sengun, but he was still moving a bit gingerly up and down the court. His shooting touch from outside of the paint wasn’t good though, and the Rockets collapsed the paint for the rest of the game to make things more difficult for Denver. Jokić still found ways to be effective because he’s a basketball savant, but the lack of outside shooting has hurt Denver for the last week, and he’s now a culprit too.
On the night, Jokić put up 14 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks. He shot 7-of-13 from the field and 0-of-2 from three-point range. His eight turnovers also paced the Nuggets. Not an exciting moment of return.
Murray, on the other hand, had a solid start to the game but exited in the early second quarter. He’s been dealing with a sprained right thumb for the last week and was only able to play nine minutes, putting up two points and four assists.
Nuggets sleepwalk for 48 minutes
This was always going to be an issue for the Nuggets against the Rockets. A big letdown spot from an energy perspective, and it began in the first quarter. The Nuggets and Jokić scored so easily while jogging around the court that they took their foot off the gas pedal entirely. As a result, the team as a whole got sloppy, and the Nuggets logged 20 turnovers.
Their defense was poor, the shooting was poor, the ball security was poor, and the desire to actually clinch the 1 seed was poor. After Murray went out, the tenor of the game flipped. The bench was certainly more competitive than the starters, but that wasn’t enough to make up for a ridiculously poor effort from the supposed best starting lineup in the league.
The Nuggets must have some serious self-belief
The Nuggets messed around almost exclusively for the past six weeks. They have a 7-8 record ever since they defeated the Memphis Grizzlies on March 3rd to all but secure the top seed in the Western Conference. Mixed in with bad losses like tonight and against the San Antonio Spurs have been encouraging performances against the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks. Those wins have masked what has been a return to apathy for the entire team, and mainly from their best player.
Nikola Jokić is under a serious amount of pressure in these playoffs. This is the single best opportunity the Nuggets franchise has had to do something they’ve never done before and advance to the NBA Finals. They have that opportunity because of Jokić, the greatest player in franchise history. Over the last month, he hasn’t operated that way, at least not consistently, and the rest of the team has followed his lead. After winning two MVPs in a row, it appears that his chances for a third MVP in a row have died tonight. That’s obviously not the most important thing, but to see him struggle so badly so close to the playoffs against a horrible team certainly isn’t encouraging.
The Nuggets need to be firing on all cylinders when the playoffs begin. They must know something that we don’t. They must know they have a switch to flip in the playoffs. How else could one explain such a preposterous effort with an opportunity to clinch the top seed in the West on the line?
Final Rotations
