BOSTON – Sunday morning’s sermon to the Nuggets was not delivered in a church. It was given by coach Michael Malone to his players in a hotel near here, and there was plenty of fire and brimstone.
But mostly Malone issued a challenge.
“He had a real heart-to-heart meeting,” Malone said. “Talked about who we are, who we’ve been and where we need to get better. I challenged them with two goals: Letap go out there and win the first quarter, and when the game is over, regardless of the result, walk in here proud of the way we competed and executed.”
Check. And check.
The Nuggets reversed their play from a forgettable night in Detroit on Saturday, and, as a result, their fortunes. Denver routed Boston, 123-107, at TD Garden, snapping a six-game losing streak to the Celtics and evening their record on the current road trip to 2-2. Their performance was everything it was not in the loss to the Pistons 24 hours earlier.
The Nuggets were energized from the start. And displayed dead-eye shooting.
And, in the first quarter, it was the Emmanuel Mudiay show.
The second-year Nuggets point guard started inconspicuously, taking the ball to the rim for a lay-in to start his scoring. But there was more to come. Much more.
The shots kept falling, and they were falling from farther and farther away. Mudiay nailed 9-of-10 shots in all, including three out of four from the 3-point line in the first period, when he scored 24 points. He let out a prolonged scream after the last one. It was the kind of quarter he’d never had. It was the kind of quarter no Nuggets player had experienced in five years.
“I was trying to be as aggressive as I can be,” Mudiay said. “Me and coach had a discussion, the whole team had a discussion, and we looked at ourselves in the mirror.”
Sunday they all liked what they saw.
Mudiay’s 24 points was the most in a quarter for a Nuggets player since Ty Lawson hit that many in a game against Minnesota in April of 2011. With Mudiay providing a scorching hot hand to lead them, the Nuggets shooting percentage stayed around 70 percent for the majority of the first half.
Mudiay finished with a career-high tying 30 points and eight rebounds.
The Nuggets led by 25 points at halftime, and though the Celtics cut it to 15 early in the third, the Nuggets soon regained control and closed it out. Malone called it the first complete game the Nuggets had played in the still-young season, as did veteran forward Danilo Gallinari.
“Especially in Boston against a very good team,” Gallinari said.
Wilson Chandler had 22 points and five rebounds before leaving in the fourth with hamstring tightness. The Nuggets close their road trip at Memphis on Tuesday.
