The obvious questions make coaches’ eyes roll the most.
For instance: What’s the importance of limiting turnovers?
Pretty important.
The Nuggets didn’t need words to illustrate that point. Their play did all of the talking in a 97-88 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night at the Pepsi Center. So many of the statistics swung in the Nuggets’ favor, but mistake- riddled basketball is almost never rewarded with a victory.
And it wasn’t this time.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone fumed afterward.
His opening comments were succinct: “Turnovers. Too many of them. Beat ourselves.”
Nuggets Mailbag:
While the Nuggets gave the ball away in almost every way possible, the stark contrast was the Mavericks didn’t. Don’t adjust your set when getting a look at this: Nuggets 21 turnovers, Mavericks four. That’s right, a 17-turnover difference.
On the subject of why the Nuggets were so charitable, Malone pointed at his own team.
“I give them no credit at all; we beat ourselves,” Malone said. “We made mistake after mistake after mistake. We talked about it in the first quarter, had seven turnovers for 10 points; talked about it at halftime, came out in the third quarter and had seven more turnovers for 10 points.”
And here’s where that really mattered: Dallas turned the Nuggets’ miscues into 29 points. That was doubly significant because, until Dwight Powell went all Michael Jordan on the Nuggets in the fourth quarter, their defense was good. The Mavericks were held under 40 percent shooting the majority of the night.
But they were getting freebies in between, capitalizing on those turnovers, getting many more shots up. The sheer volume of extra shots helped the Mavericks overcome a low shooting percentage. In the end, they made five more field goals than the Nuggets and took 18 more attempts to get there. The Nuggets shot a better percentage, .443 to Dallas’ .409.
Then there were two other big problems: Powell and J.J. Barea.
Powell doesn’t get consistent playing time, but Monday he made the most of it. He’s also one of the NBA’s springiest players, a largely unknown athlete with major athleticism. He used it for a couple of monster fourth-quarter dunks, one off a missed shot, then knocked down a couple of long jump shots.
Powell finished with a career-high 16 points, and he grabbed seven rebounds.
Barea, meanwhile, was a threat all night long. He lived in the Nuggets’ paint and ran a nearly flawless show at point guard on his way to 18 points and 11 assists.
His ball handling kept the Mavericks on schedule and kept the Nuggets chasing. The Nuggets grabbed an early advantage, but after Dallas took its first lead at 1:17 in the first quarter, it never trailed again. The Nuggets were outscored in every quarter except the second, in which the teams both scored 22 points.
It was a disappointment for the Nuggets, who lost both ends of their back-to-back set that began Sunday against the Clippers in Los Angeles.
Will Barton led the Nuggets with 23 points and eight rebounds. Rookie guard Emmanuel Mudiay added 16 points, seven assists and six rebounds.
“We definitely beat ourselves,” Barton said. “Gave up second-chance points, turnovers, and they scored when we turned the ball over.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or @dempseypost
