PHOENIX — The role reversal started at halftime. The Nuggets, long known for the 48-minute sprint they called basketball, now had to figure out a way to stop the opponent from running roughshod over them.
Bizarre, yes.
But necessary.
The Phoenix Suns are arguably the NBA’s premier running team, the kind of squad that washes over its foes in a tidal wave of transition buckets of every variety. For a half, the Nuggets ran with them. But in the third quarter, things fell apart. Their defensive shape took a hit as the chaos that Phoenix plays with took over.
The result: The Nuggets could not keep their five-game win streak going. It ended on the US Airways Center court in a 120-112 loss to the Suns on Wednesday night.
On the eve of Thanksgiving, the Suns force-fed the Nuggets a huge helping of Gerald Green.
Green could not be stopped in the second half, hitting 3 after 3, flying high for an alley-oop dunk and seemingly making everything in between. He scored 16 of his 24 points in the second half, making six 3-pointers and all of the big plays the Suns had to have as they stretched out what was a tight game and then held on for the win.
“He’s been a Nugget killer all last season and this season to this point,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “He just finds an opening, and it’s like he has a target on us every time we play him. But he’s explosive like that.”
Green’s night was the result of a Nuggets defense that struggled to get out to shooters pretty much all night. The pace had a lot to do with that. The Suns ran on makes and misses, challenging Nuggets defenders to quickly get their heads around and identify their man — and that player was usually standing at the 3-point line.
But the Nuggets were at their biggest disadvantage in fast-break and “scramble” situations, where a missed shot and an offensive rebound meant players having to fan back out and get to shooters.
The Suns scored a lot in those situations, and it became too much for the Nuggets to overcome. The Suns nailed 13 3-pointers.
“I thought we were dragging,” Nuggets guard Ty Lawson said. “And also we weren’t executing the way we wanted to. There were a lot of miscues, and on the defensive end they were outhustling us for rebounds, loose balls, things like that.”
Meanwhile, the Nuggets’ offense was rendered mostly ineffective as the game wore on by a Suns defense that caused turnovers. The Nuggets had 18 miscues that Phoenix turned into 19 points.
The Nuggets got another double-double out of Ty Lawson (17 points, 12 assists) and one from Timofey Mozgov (18 points, 13 rebounds) as well, but after shooting 51 percent in the first half, the Nuggets’ shooting percentage plummeted in the second half. The Nuggets ended up shooting just 43.3 percent for the game.
