They are the Denver Whatevs, the bored and can’ team from the NBA.
“I don’t know if our men are coming to home games ‘Hey, we’re likely to win, our fans will carry us and just because we ’ re in your home. ’ I’m not sure what it is,” Nuggets trainer Michael Malone said Tuesday, following a head-scratching stinker in the Pepsi Center.
Hey, poor nights occur throughout the grind of a long season. But how does a Denver team that fancies itself a championship contender roll again and get humiliated 125-121 from Atlanta?
“Maybe we fell into the trap of thinking that this was going to be a simple night, rather than knowing full well they’re an NBA team ” Malone said.
Nikola Jokic seems as though he wants either a hug or a nap. Maybe both.
Yes, Jokic had a thoroughly commendable stat line against Atlanta: 20 points, seven assists, six rebounds. But from every cue of this center’s body language, Big Honey isn’t happy. And too often, the Nuggets seem to carry their cues from Jokic. He is the face of the franchise, along with his rock face is often as dour as the Sphinx.
Perhaps I am picking nits, possibly expecting too much too soon from a youthful Nuggets team. Even with this home loss that is inexcusable, Denver has since numerous victories in mid-November as Houston or even Milwaukee, the Eastern Conference favorite.
However, this is a rather strange Denver team, don&rsquo? Night after night, the Nuggets sleepwalk until they stumble headfirst into a wall, then waking only when excruciating, the lethargy knocked massaging against against their self-inflicted wounds.
For example: With Atlanta in the house, waiting to be dismissed, Denver raced into a 12-0 lead during the opening three minutes of the first quarter, and then immediately caught a blankie and curled up in a corner, then leaving Hawks guard Trae Young free to place on a shooting practice.
“It had been the Trae Young show for 48 minutes,” Malone said.
Firing in will, without once asking for permission, from outside in the 3-point arc, Young did a persuasive Steph Curry impersonation, ending with 42 points.
“He’s hitting 3s along with our men are now looking at us like we didn’t inform him he shoots 3s,” Malone said.
Trailing by as many as 13 points in the second half to your Hawks, Malone wasted many calories searching for a mix of players able to bringing energy that was adequate to fuel a rally.
“We didn’t play with an oz of defense,” ” said Malone, who added he wants to change his substitution pattern to ensure one of the highest players is on the court whatsoever times.
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It’therefore if the Nuggets think because they know they are being watched by not a lot of people on tv they can loaf through minutes of several games. So maybe we can blame for Comcast or Dish, as our pals that are whiny that operate for Kroenke Sports do roughly 1,001 times every day.
However, as John Wooden, the best basketball wizard of all of them, often stated: “The real test of a man’so character is what he does when nobody is seeing. ”
Well, this we know: What has Denver ever done to be too cool to care?
Sleepwalking through the first ten games of the season, those Nuggets deserve credit but haven’t seen anything resembling championship features, and often look as though they cannot be bothered to look really difficult.
They are the Denver Whatevs.
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