SACRAMENTO — Their decisiveness ripped from them, the Nuggets’ first unit hot-potatoed the basketball around in the half court: Drive, kick. Drive, kick. Drive, kick, deflection, steal, fast break.
Sacramento scores.
There were two Nuggets teams that took the court on Wednesday night. One was tentative and unsure. The other much more solid in what they wanted to accomplish on the court. The problem was the bad more than outweighed the good.
Sacramento rocked the Nuggets early and then rolled to a 131-109 victory at Sleep Train Arena. The Kings had a whopping 105 of those points by the end of the third. The same formula that worked in a win over the Nuggets on Monday in Denver, was even better for the Kings on Wednesday.
“Hey, can we play you guys eight times?” a fan yelled in the Nuggets direction.
And he wasn’t the only one. DeMarcus Cousins was getting so much of anything he wanted on the court that he sauntered over to the Nuggets bench at one point in the second quarter, looked at the Nuggets coaches and said “Are you guys kidding me?”
Things haven’t felt better against any team in recent years for the Kings.
PHOTOS: Denver Nuggets vs. Sacramento Kings, Nov. 5, 2014
Free throws and defense were the carryovers. Star power was the added secret ingredient. And those two, Cousins and Rudy Gay, were every bit the stars they’ve proven to be early on this season, combining for 59 points and scoring in every way possible. Cousins fouled out early in the fourth with 30 points and 11 rebounds.
Nuggets defenders simply could not guard them.
“The way I feel about that is, if no one wants to stand up to it then we should get our butts kicked,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “And we did. And he should talk to us that way if we don’t have any professional pride as a group.”
The Nuggets started the game by hitting three of their first five shots, and then going cold again after that. This time, their lack of a shooting touch was compounded by breakdowns on the defense end. Sacramento was good at getting their players the ball with space to maneuver, and was deadly in repeated post-ups. The upshot of all of that was a point total that pinballed all the way up to 40 by the end of the first quarter. The Kings had played so well, in fact, that their fans gave them a standing ovation.
Meanwhile, the Nuggets first-team struggled to find offensive flow. They were late getting into plays. They were in each other’s way on some occasions. They were just out of sync.
“Obviously that starting unit, that I’m a part of, needs to definitely pick it up,” guard Arron Afflalo said.
And so Shaw searched for combinations that worked and players that were effective on both ends of the court. Things improved with the second team. Randy Foye (19 points) calmed the offense down, got the ball to the right player at the right time and that coupled with increased team energy on defense allowed the Nuggets to come back and chop a 21-point first half deficit to 14 at the half.
But that was about it. The starters let the game get out of control again in the third and the fourth was merely garbage time.
“Talent-wise we’re fine,” Afflalo said. “But it’s been proven year-in and year-out that talent isn’t the end-all, be-all. You have to have some cohesiveness, you have to have game plans that work with the group that’s on the floor and hopefully we can get that all together.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
