SALT LAKE CITY — When the massacre was over Friday night, the Nuggets escaped the hostile home crowd into the arena tunnel and entered the locker room, where, at halftime, they had left behind their pride.
In the Nuggets’ 105-93 Game 3 loss at Utah, Denver’s third quarter was abysmally abysmal. The Jazz outscored the visitors 32-20 as the Nuggets shot just 5-for-15 from the field. No one has had a worse quarter since CitiBank.
“Sometimes,” Nuggets interim coach Adrian Dantley said, “we’re not passing the ball at all.”
As one Nuggets fan painfully tweeted during the third quarter: “Was the defensive game plan to leave shooters wide open? If so, they’re executing.”
What was the worst moment of the third?
J.R. Smith’s baseline airball?
Carlos Boozer grabbing an offensive rebound literally over Chris Andersen?
Or Carmelo Anthony’s left forearm to Wesley Matthews’ chest, which gave Melo five fouls with 1:05 left in the third?
It was tough to watch.
“We’ll have to play with more urgency on Sunday,” said Denver vice president of player personnel Rex Chapman, a veteran of the NBA playoffs. “Guys will have to want to be mean, play with controlled anger, take charges, play defense and have a refuse-to-lose mentality.”
This was the toughest loss of the season. The Nuggets led by as many as 11 and needed the win to reset the series. Now the team that began the series with home-court advantage has nothing of the sort — down 2-1 in the series, there are (potentially) four games left. The Nuggets need to win three, and two of the four are in Utah.
“It starts in film session, talking about the things we have to do to execute,” Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups said. “How are we going to keep them from getting layup and layup on us? We’ll talk about it, and on Sunday night we’ll be ready to strap it up again.”
Billups went into halftime with a team-high 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting. But he missed all four shot attempts in the pivotal third quarter and finished 7-for-14 with 25 points and — most telling of all — more rebounds (five) than assists (three).
The Nuggets know the “assist” stat. Told of it almost daily, they might as well tattoo it to their well-inked bodies — in the regular reason, the Nuggets were 42-7 when they had 20 or more assists. Well, in Game 2, the Nuggets had 12.
“What I’m most disappointed at is the way we failed to compete tonight as a team,” Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony said. “We had a chance to keep up the momentum, they made a run, and we started looking back from there. As far as our effort, I’m highly disappointed in that.”
And remember the big deal made about Mehmet Okur’s Game 1 injury? How Denver’s low post would have a huge advantage in the series? On Friday, Kenyon Martin had two points and 13 boards, while Nene finished with eight and five in 37 minutes. How was Nene’s counterpart, the never-heard-of-him Kyrylo Fesenko? He had nine points and five rebounds — in just 23 minutes.
Before the game, Dantley said he didn’t mind other Jazz players getting a lot of shots, as long as their names weren’t Deron or Carlos (in other words, let C.J. Miles beat you, because odds are C.J. Miles can’t beat you in three playoff games). Good strategy, yes, but goodness gracious, Paul Millsap looked good Friday. The reserve forward had 18 points by halftime — on 9-for-9 shooting — and he finished with 22 points and 19 rebounds.
As for Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, well, they played pretty well too, pacing the way for the wounded Jazz, down two players but up a whole bunch of heart.
In the one-team town that is Salt Lake City, the fans have a fervent passion for their Jazz, almost obsessive. In the days leading up to Game 3, they expressed displeasure at Denver’s flop allegations via a barrage of blogs, e-mails and tweets. And Carmelo Anthony’s Nike ad, which made reference to “Melo’s fans of Utah,” riled up the locals, too — they booed him basically every time he touched the Spalding.
EnergySolutions Arena was, well, energized all night, fans screaming from the front row all the way up to the Adrian Dantley banner.
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
