SAN ANTONIO — In the first quarter Saturday, Ty Lawson was basically irrelevant. In the first quarter Friday, he was totally irrelevant.
The point guard is arguably Denver’s best player, but his coach wants him to come out swinging.
“My feeling is — we’ve got to get Ty aggressive from the very beginning of the games,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “It seems like he has to warm up to the game. I’ll talk to him about that to get him more involved early.”
In Saturday’s loss at San Antonio, most of the Nuggets were awful early — Lawson scored four points in the first quarter and didn’t have an assist. Denver trailed 37-25.
The night before, down in New Orleans, he didn’t score at all in the opening quarter and tallied a lone assist. Denver trailed 32-24.
Even though Denver lost Saturday at the Spurs, Lawson’s line was pristine — 20 points (on 9-for-18 shooting), 10 assists and no turnovers. But Denver had dug itself too big a hole in the first half and couldn’t pull off the road victory.
Little from bigs.Kosta Koufos made a huge impact in Friday’s win and, sure enough, got the start Saturday (because Nene was out with a bruised heel). But Koufos couldn’t duplicate the magic, shooting 0-for-2 and grabbing three rebounds in just seven minutes. Timofey Mozgov made a couple of nice, floating shots, but the center grabbed only two rebounds in 18 minutes. Oh, and Chris Andersen was given only five minutes.
“In general, if the big guys aren’t giving me what I think they should be giving me, I’d rather have playmakers and talented players on the court,” Karl said. “Our size wasn’t creating any good things for us.”
The coach, at times, went with Al Harrington (6-foot-9) and Danilo Gallinari (6-10) in the low post.
“Al and Gallo at four and five, we’ve probably had that in practice for maybe 10 minutes, so we’re learning on the job,” Karl said.
Lanky and long. Corey Brewer never knows if he’s going to play. But Karl isn’t afraid to play him, especially when Denver is in the second game of a back-to-back. Brewer scored 11 points in 12 minutes on Saturday, but more important provided defensive intangibles with his “Stretch Armstrong” arms and quick feet.
“I just want to play, man. Whenever I get my minutes, I do whatever I can do,” said Brewer, who is 6-9, 188 pounds. “I’d love to play more, but the situation is not my luxury right now.”
Coach gets coaching. Karl remains in close contact with former Nuggets coach Doug Moe, who lives in San Antonio and attended Saturday’s game. Moe also “came in and disrupted our meeting this morning,” Karl said with a smirk. The two have almost a little brother-big brother relationship. They speak on the phone two to three times a month.
“It’s not as much basketball philosophies as it is basketball psychology,” Karl said. “He’s helped me with not looking at the trees as much as seeing the forest. I think he sees the forest really well, where a lot of coaches just see the trees.”
