Phoenix’s Miles Plumlee blocks Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried’s shot during the second half on Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
PHOENIX – Three takeaways the morning after the Nuggets’ 120-112 loss to the Suns, snapping a five-game winning streak, on Wednesday.
1. There is a cap on tempo. Bet you never thought you’d see this: There is a pace thatap too fast for the Nuggets, and on Wednesday it was The Flash brand of basketball played by Phoenix. Itap not as if the Nuggets can’t run up-and-down the court and score when the game gets lightning fast. They can. The issue with these Nuggets is turnovers. When the game speeds up, the Nuggets get more careless. And that was part of the problem, no doubt. But there were a number of unforced errors when the pace was slower as well.
Of their 18 turnovers, four were lost ball turnovers, three were just carelessness (stepping out of bounds twice and a dropped pass) and seven were bad pass turnovers. The Nuggets’ fatigue was mental as well as physical, and it manifested itself in what should be completely correctable miscues.
2. Gallo concerns. The news that Danilo Gallinari would not play in the second half of Wednesday’s game due to soreness in his surgically-repaired left knee was met with swift concern by fans on Twitter and everywhere else. Gallinari was already gone from the locker room by the time it opened to media afterward and Nuggets coach Brian Shaw had no further information on his status other than what he knew at halftime. “I assumed there was some swelling or some soreness or something,” he said.
3. Back-to-back. This was the first true back-to-back set of the Nuggets season. The first technically was the Knicks-Cavaliers duo, but the first leg – in New York – was an afternoon game, making the double more bearable because there was more rest before the second game. So this proved to be the first real look at what the Nuggets might be when faced with a home-road back-to-back, although the second game won’t always be against running teams like Phoenix. The Nuggets are 1-1 this season in the opening games of a back-to-back, and they are 1-1 in the second game of a back-to-back.
“On a back-to-back you have to give that extra effort,” guard Ty Lawson said. “I feel like if you get down 10 on a back-to-back it feels like you’re down 20. So, you can’t get that far behind.”
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
