Ty Lawson is fouled by Andrew Wiggins Andrew Wiggins while driving the lane for a shot late in the fourth quarter Saturday. (David Zalubowski, The Associated Press)
Analysis from the Nuggets’ 113-105 loss to the Timberwolves on Saturday night at the Pepsi Center.
When a good thing starts as a questionable thing. The return of shooting guard Randy Foye to the rotation after a 26-game absence was good news. The Nuggets needed the extra shooting, floor spacing and ball handling that he provides. But what they didn’t fully know was just how one player’s inclusion back into the rotation could throw everything the existing players knew about subsitution patterns and combinations and the chemistry they’ve come to create, out of whack. It’s like a car whose perfectly good alignment starts to pull in one direction.
Foye was the first guard off the bench, and the combination out there with him initially was Ty Lawson, Darrell Arthur, Kenneth Faried and J.J. Hickson. Lawson was subbed out soon thereafter, so the quintet became Jameer Nelson, Foye, Arthur, Faried and Hickson right at the end of the first quarter. Alonzo Gee was tabbed to start the second quarter, in place of Faried, so the five were: Nelson, Foye, Gee, Arthur, Hickson. Those five were a plus-4 in the seven minutes they played in the second quarter, getting the Nuggets off to a good start in what became the team’s best 12 minutes of the game. So that was positive.
But the Nuggets played 15 different lineups against the Timberwolves, and the combinations became more unfamiliar and more stifling offensively as the night went on. It is an issue that will work itself out as the rotation gets reset, but all of the newness did the Nuggets few favors on Saturday night.
Dropping off the boards, late. Statistics will show the Nuggets pounded the offensive glass better than Minnesota on the night as a whole (13 to 8). But the Timberwolves showed fresher, more energetic legs when it counted — in the fourth quarter. Robbie Hummel outrebounded the Nuggets BY HIMSELF in the quarter, with two offensive rebounds (both tip-ins) to the Nuggets’ one offensive rebound; and with seven rebounds total to the Nuggets’ five rebounds as a team in the fourth. Minnesota outrebounded the Nuggets 17-5 in the final period, and the only reason the Nuggets were able to keep the possessions from getting totally out of whack was because they forced four T-wolves turnovers in the fourth. But Minnesota did the dirty work to a higher level when they needed it most, clearing Nuggets’ missed shots off the glass the first time, and creating extra opportunities of their own by crashing the offensive glass. The hustle points were a Minnesota blowout in the fourth and were the reason they were able to hold off the Nuggets to get the win.
Capitalizing in close. Every team wants to get high percentage shots. The Timberwolves go 39 of them during the game, and we’re talking up to the free throw line, and out to about 15 feet on either side of the lane. Minnesota was 26-of-39 on those shots, a sizzling 66.6 percent, which was a large reason it was able to shoot 53 percent for the game. Ball movement and player movement was good all night long; they recognized mismatches quickly and went to them, and the Nuggets were a step slow at preventing much of this all night long.
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
