Denver Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried (35) falls to the floor after fouling Boston Celtics forward Jared Sullinger (7) in the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game in Boston, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015. The Celtics won 104-100. (Elise Amendola, The Associated Press)
BOSTON — Three takeaways from the Nuggets’ 104-100 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden on Wednesday night.
Jae Crowder’s defending beats Gallinari’s sealing. Two of the Nuggets most critical turnovers late in the game were on plays involving Danilo Gallinari. With the Nuggets down 92-90, Ty Lawson — standing at the 3-point line — attempted an entry pass to Gallinari, who was posted up so high that it allowed Lawson’s defender, Marcus Smart, to be able to guard two players at once. With virtually no usable space between Lawson and Gallo, and with Lawson at a bad angle anyway, his pass was easily tipped and picked off by the high-intensity Smart. And while it can be argued Lawson shouldn’t have made the pass in the first place, had Gallinari walked Jae Crowder down more from his starting spot, which was the 3-point line, and then held his ground to not get pushed so far away from the rim on the post up, things would have been fine.
The second play was one of the Nuggets’ two failed inbounds passes to end the game. With 22.8 seconds to play, Gallinari received a cross screen from Arron Afflalo, which Crowder easily fought through to stick close. Then Gallinari faded away from the inbounder, Wilson Chandler, and couldn’t get wide enough to seal off Crowder and receive the pass. Crowder pushed through and created a pivotal turnover. If Gallo’s trajectory was a bit more straight line toward Chandler then the pass may have gotten to him anyway. But he still would have had to keep Crowder on his back, which he was just unable to do.
Which underscores this point: Give Boston credit for adjusting to Gallo playing power forward by countering with Crowder at the four as well. Gallinari played 17 minutes at power forward and was hounded for many of those.
Bench comes up short. The first blow was when the Nuggets determined that Jameer Nelson, who with Denver had averaged nearly 10 points per game, almost all from the bench, was sidelined due to a strained Achilles. Without him, the Nuggets bench just didn’t have any other scoring punch. Boston’s reserves outscored the Nuggets bench 53-20. The flipside of that, of course, is that the Nuggets starters outscored their Boston counterparts 80-51, but that differential wasn’t enough to overcome the bench scoring disparity.
Defending the 3-point line goes awry. This problem has popped up at various times this season, and on this road trip it’s back — the Nuggets not getting out to shooters at the 3-point line. They allowed 12 to Boston one night after coughing up 11 to Philadelphia. And the shooting percentages for both were high (42.9 for Boston and 40.7 for Philly). And while the Nuggets defense was definitely at fault in a few transition threes and extra possession threes, Boston’s patience and passing deserve the most credit. The Celtics read almost every situation right. Ball reversals were crisp. The Celtics constantly hit players with an extra pass. It was pretty to watch and led to many wide open looks, which they knocked down at a high rate.
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
