BOSTON — Like a blockbuster movie series that believes it has the greatest continuing story line ever, the Nuggets don’t deviate from the plan. They just continue to play the hits.
Well, they just take the hits.
Their latest, a 104-100 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden on Wednesday night, was the best effort they have put on the court in a week. But critical errors late in the contest prevented the Nuggets from getting a victory.
And so, the losing streak reached four. The losing stretch is 11 games in the last 12.
“Our turnovers in the fourth quarter and down the stretch killed us,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “Two inbounds plays and one other play where we turned the ball over allowed them to make plays when we fought so hard to get back into the game.”
As in the loss to the Celtics in Denver on Jan. 23, the Celtics knocked down jumpers when they needed them most.
Avery Bradley’s jumper at 1:25 put the Celtics up 100-98.
Both teams missed on consecutive trips, but on the Celtics’ miss, a loose-ball foul put Danilo Gallinari on the line to shoot two.
He knocked both down.
With 22.8 seconds left, Kenneth Faried was the victim of a borderline call, which put Jared Sullinger on the line. Sullinger sank two to set up the final possession of the game.
And on the Nuggets’ inbounds play … the ball was stolen.
The Nuggets had no choice but to foul, and Bradley nailed two free throws to put Boston up four with 18.3 left.
And the Nuggets turned the ball over again on the next possession.
“We have to be better in those situations for sure,” Gallinari said.
The Celtics held on to win.
The Nuggets were led by a starting five that accounted for all but 20 points. Ty Lawson bounced back from a four-shot performance at Philadelphia to score 23 points against the Celtics on 9-of-15 shooting.
Most of the night, the Nuggets did all the things good basketball teams do: They crashed the offensive glass, got constant paint dribble penetration, made free throws and had timely stops.
“A game like this, I’m not into moral victories, but from the effort standpoint of what we’ve been getting lately, I can live with this a lot better because they did fight all the way to the end,” Shaw said.
The 3-pointer was the difference for the Celtics. They made 12 of them, outscoring the Nuggets 36-12 from the arc. Even a huge Nuggets advantage from the free-throw line — 30 makes to 12 for the Celtics — couldn’t make up the difference.
“It’s tough,” guard Arron Afflalo said. “We’ve been in a lot of close games. We just couldn’t pull them out.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
