HOUSTON — In their second straight night in Texas, the Nuggets seemed “two-steps” slow.
“It was probably our worst defensive game of the year,” Denver coach George Karl said Tuesday night after a 108-96 loss at Houston. “I thought we tried hard, but the quickness, the loose balls, the little things you evaluate on energy, we were probably the second-class citizen tonight. And their stars had big nights.”
Texas-sized nights. Yao Ming scored a game-high 32 points and, possibly, broke a sweat. Tracy McGrady picked apart Denver’s defense, “giving everybody on their team confidence,” according to the Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony. McGrady finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, and actually had the triple-double before the third quarter ended.
Denver (17-8) won at Dallas on Monday thanks to disciplined defense against the Mavericks’ stars. Denver lost at Houston because it couldn’t slow down either of the Rockets’ stars — and, frankly, the supporting cast. The Rockets (16-9) shot a season-high 55.3 percent.
In the previous game against Houston, a home victory for the Nuggets on Nov. 30, McGrady didn’t play and Denver stifled Yao (18 points). On Tuesday, though, “Yao caught the ball too deep a lot of times,” Denver’s Chauncey Billups said. “Too deep for us to come and double-team.”
Denver’s low-post trio — Nene, Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen — couldn’t move fast enough, often enough. And the Rockets’ crisp passing led to a season-high 26 assists.
“With McGrady in their lineup, their post passing is better,” Karl said. “It’s easier to take post passes away (if they have) little guards, and with McGrady, (Ron) Artest and (Shane) Battier being their post passers, they were getting Yao the ball in the right places in the right times. We’re going to have to re-evaluate how we pressure their post passers and disrupt them.”
Denver plays Houston again Jan. 19 and March 9.
With the loss, the Nuggets split the back-to-back games against winning teams from Texas. On Friday, they begin another back-to-back against winning teams, hosting Cleveland, then heading to Phoenix.
The fact that the Nuggets were even in Tuesday’s game was thanks to their bench. The five Nuggets starters combined for 48 points. So did the four Nuggets reserves.
Key reserve guard J.R. Smith finished with 17 points, Andersen had 11 (in 17 minutes) and forward Linas Kleiza had 13, including three 3-pointers; from the starting lineup, Martin scored just six points and Billups had eight.
But late in the game, both Kleiza and Smith made mistakes — not holding the ball securely and forcing shots — which didn’t help Denver’s cause.
Smith also missed a key 3, which would have tied the game, with 9:15 left. Artest made one of his four 3-pointers on the other end, doubling the Houston lead to six, and as Karl said, “We didn’t have enough energy to fight back from that point forward.”
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
Nuggets Recap
What you might have missed
In the first matchup of these teams, Denver blocked 14 Houston shots, the most by a Rockets opponent this season. Tuesday, Denver didn’t block one shot. . . . Rockets guard Aaron Brooks did a good job of controlling Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups, who lit up Houston in their first meeting. . . . Denver coach George Karl said: “We never got a whistle in the second half. I don’t know what it is. . . . It just seemed like the game was going to be physical. We were trying to get into the paint, and we didn’t get many whistles and didn’t make a lot of great decisions when we got there.”
Final thought
The Nuggets, understandably, looked a little fatigued. Kenyon Martin couldn’t find an offensive rhythm. And Houston, with all its healthy lineup, is pretty darn good.
Up next
Friday vs. Cleveland, 8:30 p.m.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
